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Dr Philippe Le Goff

Associate Professor

Email: P dot Le-Goff at warwick dot ac dot uk

Fourth Floor, Faculty of Arts Building,

University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

About

After completing doctoral work at Warwick, I was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, London. I joined the SMLC as an assistant professor in 2017 and was promoted to associate professor in 2022.

Research interests

I work primarily on modern and contemporary political theory and intellectual history, with a focus on theories of radical humanism, popular empowerment and collective agency. I also have an interest in popular movements and the history of socialism in France and the Francophone world.

I am currently developing a project on theories of anti-colonial humanism in the post-war period. I have also recently written about Chantal Mouffe, Marshall Berman's political philosophy and the place of hip-hop in his work.

My thesis on Auguste Blanqui's political thought largely set the research agenda for the first years of my post-doctoral career. My work of translating, presenting and assessing Blanqui's project resulted in two volumes: my monograph, Auguste Blanqui and the Politics of Popular Empowerment (Bloomsbury); and a co-edited anthology of Blanqui's writings, The Blanqui Reader (Verso). I also co-built an open-access website, The Blanqui Archive, as part of the AHRC-funded 'Blanqui and Political Will' project, based at the CMREP, Kingston University.

Publications
Books

Auguste Blanqui and the Politics of Popular Empowerment (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).

The Blanqui Reader, co-edited with Peter Hallward (London: Verso, 2018).

Articles and Book chapters

'Communism and community', in Delphine Antoine-Mahut & Laurent Fedi (eds.), Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: 19. Jahrhundert, Französischer Sprachraum (Schwabe Verlag: forthcoming).

'Introduction', in The Blanqui Reader (London: Verso, 2018), xxv-xxxv.

Capitalism, Crisis and Critique: Reassessing Régis Debray's 'Modest Contribution' to understanding May 1968 in light of Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello's Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme’, Modern and Contemporary France 22:2 (2014), 231-251.

Essays and other writings

'Auguste Blanqui', in Delphine Antoine-Mahut, Pierre-François Moreau, Renzo Ragghianti & Patrice Vermeren (eds.), Dictionnaire de la philosophie française du XIXe siècle (Classiques Garnier: forthcoming).

'Can articulations save the planet?', European Journal of Political Theory, forthcoming.

'A face in the crowd', Verso Blog, 22 September 2023.

'Soul-making in the throes of suffering', Verso Blog, 21 July 2022.

'Blanqui today?', Verso Blog, 6 May 2022.

'The fall of Napoleon III', Modern History Review, September 2020. Translated into Welsh.

Translations

The Blanqui Reader, co-translated with Peter Hallward and Mitchell Abidor (London: Verso, 2018).

Pascal Severac, ‘Consciousness and Affectivity: Spinoza and Vygotsky’, Stasis 5:2 (2017), 80-109.

Marie Cuillerai and Maria Kakogianni, ‘Bankocracy: Greek Money and the “New Idea” of Europe’, Radical Philosophy 186 (July/August 2014), 23-28.

Daniel Bensaïd and Michael Löwy, ‘Auguste Blanqui, heretical communist’, Radical Philosophy 185 (May/June 2014), 26-35.

Website

The Blanqui Archive 

Office Hours

By appointment. Please email me in the first instance.

Teaching

Undergraduate modules

FR121 The Story of Modern France

FR201 French Translation

LN211 Introduction to European Political Thought

FR332 Politics and Violence in Modern France

FR336 The Left and the Trade Unions in France