Alberto Toscano BA MA PhD
Staff details
Alberto Toscano is Reader in Critical Theory and Co-Director of the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Theory. He studied philosophy at the New School for Social Research, University College Dublin and the University of Warwick, from which he received his PhD in 2003.
He is the author of three monographs: The Theatre of Production: Philosophy and Individuation Between Kant and Deleuze (2006), Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea (2010), and (with Jeff Kinkle) Cartographies of the Absolute (2015). He edited The Italian Difference: Between Nihilism and Biopolitics with Lorenzo Chiesa, and has translated several works by Alain Badiou, as well as Antonio Negri, Furio Jesi and Franco Fortini. He is currently working on two book projects, the first on tragedy as a political form, the second on philosophy, capitalism and ‘real abstraction’. He is also preparing two multi-volume edited collections, a Handbook of Marxism (with Bev Skeggs and Sara Farris) and Alain Badiou: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers (with Ray Brassier).
He has sat on the editorial board of the journal Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory since 2004, and is series editor of The Italian List for Seagull Books.
Teaching
He has taught across all levels at Goldsmiths since he joined in 2003. In recent years, he has taught undergraduate PPE courses in philosophy (Introduction to Philosophy: Problems of Ethics and Knowledge and Subjectivity) as well as an MA course on Mapping Capitalism.
Areas of supervision
Alberto welcomes doctoral proposals across the fields of social and political theory, philosophy, Marxism and critical theory. He has supervised dissertations on, among other topics, Guy Debord, biopolitics and human rights, the political aesthetics of memory, Latin American Marxism, Adorno, and Marxian theories of emancipation.
Publications and research outputs
Book
Toscano, Alberto. 2017. Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea (2nd edition). London: Verso. ISBN 9781786630544
Toscano, Alberto and Kinkle, Jeffrey. 2015. Cartographies of the Absolute. Alresford: Zero Books. ISBN 9781780992754
Toscano, Alberto. 2010. Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea. London: Verso. ISBN 9781844674244
Toscano, Alberto. 2006. The Theatre of Production: Philosophy and Individuation between Kant and Deleuze. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 1403997802
Edited Book
Skeggs, Beverley; Farris, Sara R.; Toscano, Alberto and Bromberg, Svenja, eds. 2021. The SAGE Handbook of Marxism. London: SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781473974234
Book Section
Toscano, Alberto. 2019. Tragedy. In: John Frow, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Toscano, Alberto. 2019. Mayakovsky at Mirafori: Operaismo and the Negation of Poetry’. In: Ruth Jennison and Julian Murphet, eds. Communism and Poetry: Writing Against Capital. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 109-129. ISBN 9783030171568
Toscano, Alberto. 2018. Antiphysis/Antipraxis: Universal Exhaustion and the Tragedy of Materiality. In: Brent Ryan Bellamy and Jeff Diamanti, eds. Materialism and the Critique of Energy. MCM' Publishing, pp. 471-499.
Toscano, Alberto. 2017. A Spectre is Not Haunting Europe. In: Dominik Finkelde, ed. Badiou and the State. Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 213-222. ISBN 978-3-8487-3224-1
Toscano, Alberto. 2016. After October, Before February: Figures of Dual Power. In: Slavoj Žižek, ed. Fredric Jameson, An American Utopia: Dual Power and the Universal Army. London: Verso. ISBN 9781784784539
Toscano, Alberto. 2015. Taming the Furies: Badiou and Hegel on The Eumenides. In: Jim Vernon and Antonio Calcagno, eds. Badiou and Hegel: Infinity, Dialectics, Subjectivity. Rowman & Littlefield / Lexington Books, pp. 193-205. ISBN 978-0-7391-9989-3
Toscano, Alberto. 2015. Seeing Socialism: On the Aesthetics of the Economy, Production and the Plan. In: Dimitrakaki Angela and Lloyd Kirsten, eds. Economy: Art, Production and the Subject in the 21st Century. 11 Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press. ISBN 9781781381380
Toscano, Alberto. 2015. Plasticity, Capital and the Dialectic. In: Brenna Bhandar and Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, eds. Plastic materialities : politics, legality, and metamorphosis in the work of Catherine Malabou. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 91-109. ISBN 9780822358572
Toscano, Alberto. 2015. Photography Against the Flow: Abstraction and Logistics in Allan Sekula's Writings. In: Hilde van der Gelder and UNSPECIFIED, eds. Allan Sekula. Ship of Fools / The Dockers’ Museum. Leuven: University of Leuven Press, pp. 45-54. ISBN 9789462700055
Toscano, Alberto. 2015. What is Capitalist Power? Reflections on Truth and Juridical Forms. In: Martina Tazzioli; Sophie Fuggle and Yari Lanci, eds. Foucault and the History of Our Present. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 26-42. ISBN 978-1-349-48142-2
Toscano, Alberto. 2015. 'America's Belgium': W.E.B. Du Bois on Class, Race, and the Origins of World War 1. In: Alexander Anievas, ed. Cataclysm 1914: The First World War and the Making of Modern World Politics. 89 Leiden: Brill, pp. 236-257. ISBN 9789004262683
Toscano, Alberto. 2014. Aleatory Rationalism. In: Alain Badiou; Ray Brassier and Alberto Toscano, eds. Badiou: Theoretical Writings. London: Continuum, pp. 253-278. ISBN 9780826461452
Toscano, Alberto. 2011. Anti-Sociology and its Limits. In: , ed. Reading Rancière. London: Continuum, pp. 217-237. ISBN 9781441137814
Toscano, Alberto. 2007. Marxism Expatriated: Alain Badiou's Turn. In: Jacques Bidet and Stathis Kouvelakis, eds. Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism. Leiden: Brill, pp. 529-548. ISBN 9789004145986
Article
Toscano, Alberto. 2021. Elsewhere and Otherwise: Introduction to a Symposium on Fredric Jameson’s ‘Allegory and Ideology’. Historical Materialism, 29(1), pp. 113-122. ISSN 1465-4466
Toscano, Alberto. 2021. The Faust Variations. Historical Materialism, 29(1), pp. 162-173. ISSN 1465-4466
Toscano, Alberto. 2021. The Tragic Festival. Nineteenth-Century French Studies, 49(3-4), pp. 657-681. ISSN 0146-7891
Toscano, Alberto. 2020. Race, Class and Tragedy: Nietzsche and the Fantasies of Europe. Crisis and Critique, 7(1), ISSN 2311-8172
Mandarini, Matteo and Toscano, Alberto. 2020. Planning for Conflict. South Atlantic Quarterly, 119(1), pp. 11-30. ISSN 0038-2876
Williams, Evan Calder and Toscano, Alberto. 2019. Wrong Place, Right Time: '68 and the Impasses of Periodization. Cultural Politics, 15(3), pp. 273-288. ISSN 1743-2197
Toscano, Alberto. 2019. The Ignoble Savage: Racism, Myth and the Anthropological Machine. Theory & Event, 22(4), pp. 1105-1124. ISSN 2572-6633
Toscano, Alberto. 2019. ‘By contraries execute all things’: Figures of the savage in European philosophy. Radical Philosophy, 2.04, pp. 9-22. ISSN 0300-211X
Toscano, Alberto. 2018. The Civil War of Images. Political Tragedies, Political Iconographies. Filosofski Vestnik, 39(2), pp. 17-40. ISSN 0353-4510
Toscano, Alberto and Calder Williams, Evan. 2017. The Southern Line: The Meridione and the Limits to Periodisation. Estetica. Studi e Ricerche, VII(2), pp. 233-254. ISSN 2039-6635
Toscano, Alberto. 2017. The Broken Music of the Revolution: Trotsky and Blok. Crisis and Critique, 4(2), pp. 404-426. ISSN 2311-8172
Toscano, Alberto and Bhandar, Brenna. 2017. Representing Palestinian dispossession: land, property, and photography in the settler colony. Settler Colonial Studies, 7(1), pp. 1-18. ISSN 2201-473X
Toscano, Alberto. 2016. Limits to Periodization. Viewpoint,
Toscano, Alberto. 2016. The Promethean Gap: Modernism, Machines and the Obsolescence of Man. Modernism/Modernity, 23(3), pp. 593-609. ISSN 1071-6068
Toscano, Alberto. 2016. The World is Already Without Us. Social Text, 34(2), pp. 109-124. ISSN 0164-2472
Toscano, Alberto. 2016. Sovereignty and Deviation: Notes on Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason, Volume 2. Crisis and Critique, 3(1), pp. 280-299. ISSN 2311-8172
Toscano, Alberto. 2016. Tragedy and Jubilee. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(3), pp. 352-359. ISSN 0141-9870
Toscano, Alberto. 2016. A Structuralism of Feeling? New Left Review(97), pp. 73-93. ISSN 0028-6060
Toscano, Alberto. 2015. La Indigencia Europea. La Circular, 3,
Toscano, Alberto and Bhandar, Brenna. 2015. Race, Real Estate and Real Abstraction. Radical Philosophy(194), pp. 8-17. ISSN 0300-211X
Toscano, Alberto and Woodcock, Jamie. 2015. Spectres of Marxism: a comment on Mike Savage's market model of class difference. The Sociological Review, 63(2), pp. 512-523. ISSN 0038-0261
Toscano, Alberto. 2015. Burning Dwelling Thinking. Mute Magazine,
Toscano, Alberto. 2015. The Detour of Abstraction. Diacritics, 43(2), pp. 68-90. ISSN 0300-7162
Toscano, Alberto. 2015. Capital (It Fails Us Now): Introduction to a Mini-Symposium on Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. Historical Materialism, 23(1), pp. 53-69. ISSN 1465-4466
Toscano, Alberto. 2014. Materialism Without Matter: Abstraction, Absence and Social Form. Textual Practice, 28(7), pp. 1221-1240. ISSN 0950-236X
Toscano, Alberto. 2014. Reformism and Melancholia: Economic Crisis and the Limits of Sociology'. Sociology, 48(5), pp. 1024-1038. ISSN 0038-0385
Toscano, Alberto. 2014. Lineaments of the Logistical State. Viewpoint, 4,
Toscano, Alberto. 2014. Politics in Pre-Political Times. Politics and Culture, "The Politics of Alain Badiou",
Toscano, Alberto. 2014. Profecía congelada: El Manifiesto Comunista hoy. Isegoría(50), pp. 37-43. ISSN 1130-2097
Toscano, Alberto. 2014. Transition Deprogrammed. South Atlantic Quarterly, 113(4), pp. 761-775. ISSN 0038-2876
Toscano, Alberto. 2014. The Tactics and Ethics of Humanitarianism. Humanity, 5(1), pp. 123-147. ISSN 2151-4364
Toscano, Alberto. 2014. The Uncompromising Classes. Theory and Event, 17(2),
Toscano, Alberto. 2014. Alien Mediations: Critical Remarks on The Making of the Indebted Man. The New Reader(1),
Toscano, Alberto. 2012. Seeing it Whole: Staging Totality in Social Theory and Art. The Sociological Review, 60(S1), pp. 64-83. ISSN 0038-0261
Toscano, Alberto. 2011. Divine Management: Critical Remarks on Giorgio Agamben's The Kingdom and the Glory. Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities, 16(3), pp. 125-136. ISSN 0969-725X
Toscano, Alberto. 2009. The sensuous religion of the multitude: Art and abstraction in Negri. Third Text, 23(4), pp. 369-382. ISSN 0952-8822
Toscano, Alberto. 2008. The Culture of Abstraction. Theory, Culture & Society, 25(4), pp. 57-75. ISSN 0263-2764
Toscano, Alberto. 2008. Sovereign Impunity. New Left Review, 50(n/a), pp. 128-135. ISSN 0028-6060
Toscano, Alberto. 2008. Carl Schmitt in Beijing: Partisanship, Geopolitics and the Demolition of the Eurocentric World. Postcolonial Studies, 11(4), pp. 417-433. ISSN 1368-8790
Toscano, Alberto. 2008. The Open Secret of Real Abstraction. Rethinking Marxism, 20(2), pp. 273-287. ISSN 14758059
Toscano, Alberto. 2007. David Harvey. Development And Change, 38(6), pp. 1127-1135. ISSN 14677660
Toscano, Alberto. 2007. Powers of Pacification: State and Empire in Gabriel Tarde. Economy and Society, 36, pp. 597-613. ISSN 14695766
Toscano, Alberto. 2007. Vital Strategies: Maurizio Lazzarato and the Metaphysics of Contemporary Capitalism. Theory, Culture and Society, 24(6), pp. 71-91. ISSN 02632764
Chiesa, Lorenzo and Toscano, Alberto. 2007. Agape and the Anonymous Religion of Atheism. Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities, 12(1), pp. 113-126. ISSN 14692899
Toscano, Alberto. 2007. From Pin Factories to Gold Farmers: Editorial Introduction to a Research Stream on Cognitive Capitalism, Immaterial Labour, and the General Intellect. Historical Materialism, 15(1), pp. 3-11. ISSN 1569206X
Toscano, Alberto. 2006. Fanaticism: A brief history of the concept. Eurozine, ISSN 1684-4637
Toscano, Alberto. 2006. The Bourgeois and the islamist, or, the other subjects of Politics. Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, 2(1-2), pp. 15-38. ISSN 18329101
Toscano, Alberto. 2006. Can Violence Be Thought? Notes on Badiou and the Possibility of (Marxist) Politics. Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, 5(1), pp. 9-38. ISSN 14099268
Toscano, Alberto. 2006. Dual Power Revisited: From Civil War to Biopolitical Islam. Soft Targets, 2.1, pp. 150-155.
Chiesa, Lorenzo and Toscano, Alberto. 2005. Ethics and capital, ex nihilo. Umbr(a): A Journal of the Unconscious, 1, pp. 9-23. ISSN 10870830
Toscano, Alberto. 2004. Factory, territory, metropolis, Empire. Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities, 9(2), pp. 197-216. ISSN 0969-725X
Toscano, Alberto. 2004. From the State to the World? Badiou and Anti-Capitalism. Communication and Cognition, 37(3-4), pp. 199-224. ISSN 03780880
Toscano, Alberto. 2003. Art Against Empire: On Alliez and Negri's 'Peace and War'. Theory Culture & Society, 20(2), pp. 103-108. ISSN 14603616
Toscano, Alberto. 2001. The Method of Nature, The Crisis of Critique. Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, 11, pp. 36-61.
Toscano, Alberto. 2000. To Have Done with the End of Philosophy. Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, 9, pp. 220-238.
Toscano, Alberto. 1999. Fanaticism and Production: On Schelling's Philosophy of Indifference. Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, 8, pp. 46-70.
