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Person

Jodi Dean

Nationality:

American
Occupation:

Professor, Writer
Employer:

Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Affiliation:

Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL)

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Jodi Dean is an American Marxist academic and professor at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She writes on communism, feminism, and the role of socialist political parties in bringing about revolutionary conditions. She has written about Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek and contributed essays to books he has published.

She reportedly a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States. 1 2

Background

Jodi Dean is an American academic and Marxist theorist. She obtained a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1984 and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Political Science from Columbia University between 1987 and 1992. 3

As of January 2024, she resides in Geneva, New York, the location of Hobart and William Smith Colleges. 4 5

Career

Before joining Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Dean taught at Columbia College and the University of Texas at San Antonio. 6

As of January 2024, Dean was a professor of politics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She joined its faculty in 1993. 7 She began as an assistant professor of political science, was promoted to a full-time professorship in 2007, became a director of the school’s Fisher Center for the Study of Women and Men in 2012, and was given the honorific Donald R. Harter ’39 professorship of the Humanities and Social Sciences in 2013. 8

Dean also lectured at Boston University’s School of Social Work. 9

Writings and Beliefs

Jodi Dean’s self-professed scholarly interests include “contemporary political theory,” “communism,” “poststructuralism,” “psychoanalysis,” “feminist theory,” and “climate change.” She has taught a course on the concept of communism, as well as courses on feminism, climate change, and “critical social studies.” 10

Her books include Zizek’s Politics, Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies, the Communist Horizon, Crowds and Party, Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging, and Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women’s Political Writing. 11 12 She contributed essays to Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America; An American Utopia: Dual Power and the Universal Army by Frederic Jameson, a book about turning the United States military into a vehicle for pursuing global communism; and The Idea of Communism 2: The New York Conference, edited by Slavoj Zizek. 13

In her 2016 book Crowds and Party, Dean argued for a “vision of leftist politics with a renewed focus on the political party as a vehicle for lasting change.” 14

She has written numerous articles on Marxism, class struggle, Occupy Wall Street, and other topics related to the revolutionary left. She has delivered presentations on Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, “communist power,” Marxist political parties, gender theorist Judith Butler, and the work of Marxist theoretician Slavoj Zizek. 15

Dean previously contributed articles on communism and politics to socialist outlet Jacobin. 16

Her bio on Twitter reads: “Communism is the horizon of our politics, comrades.” 17 On her Twitter account, she regularly reposted content from the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a Marxist organization in the United States. She also reposted an Twitter post from the People’s Forum advertising a protest in Union Square against various Democratic politicians for their support of Israel. 18

Dean is a formal member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). 19 20 The PSL self-describes as a Marxist and has praised Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong. 21 22 23

Associations

Jodi Dean is an advisor to Progressive International, a left-of-center nonprofit organization. Its advisory council also includes former U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, radical feminist academic Silvia Federici, Rage Against the Machine musician Tom Morello, and socialist economist Yanis Varoufakis. It counts among its advisors “emeritus” MIT linguist and anarchist Noam Chomsky, anti-capitalist author Naomi Klein, left-wing Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe, Marxist-Leninist activist Vijay Prashad, Princeton professor and 2024 presidential candidate Cornel West, and Marxist psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek. 24

Dean is a member of the American Political Science Association; the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities; and Law and Society Association. 25

References

  1. Featherstone, Liza. “The Left in Lockdown.” Jacobin, May 17, 2020. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://jacobin.com/2020/05/pandemic-organizing-zoom-left-activism.
  2. Fabio, Syd. “Jodi Dean – Crowds and Party.” Rock Salted, January 1, 2018. Accessed January 27, 2024. http://rocksalted.com/2018/01/jodi-dean-crowds-and-party/.
  3. “Jodi Dean – CV.” Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.hws.edu/faculty/dean-jodi.aspx.
  4. Jodi Dean. X. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://twitter.com/jodi7768.
  5. “Jodi Dean.” Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.hws.edu/faculty/dean-jodi.aspx.
  6. “Jodi Dean – CV.” Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.hws.edu/faculty/dean-jodi.aspx.
  7. “Jodi Dean.” Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.hws.edu/faculty/dean-jodi.aspx.
  8. “Jodi Dean – CV.” Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.hws.edu/faculty/dean-jodi.aspx.
  9. “Jodi Dean.” Boston University. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.bu.edu/ssw/profile/jodi-dean/.
  10.  [1] “Jodi Dean.” Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.hws.edu/faculty/dean-jodi.aspx.
  11. “Jodi Dean.” Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.hws.edu/faculty/dean-jodi.aspx.
  12. “Jodi Dean.” Verso. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/authors/dean-jodi.
  13.  “Jodi Dean.” Verso. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/authors/dean-jodi.
  14. “Endowed Professor Spotlight: Jodi Dean.” Hobart and William Smith Colleges, December 21, 2018. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.hws.edu/news/2018/December/endowed-professor-spotlight-jodi-dean.aspx.
  15.  “Jodi Dean – CV.” Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.hws.edu/faculty/dean-jodi.aspx.
  16. “Jodi Dean.” Jacobin. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://jacobin.com/author/jodi-dean
  17. “Jodi Dean.” X. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://twitter.com/jodi7768.
  18. “The People’s Forum.” X, January 27, 2024. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://twitter.com/PeoplesForumNYC/status/1751258022926503977.
  19. Featherstone, Liza. “The Left in Lockdown.” Jacobin, May 17, 2020. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://jacobin.com/2020/05/pandemic-organizing-zoom-left-activism.
  20. Fabio, Syd. “Jodi Dean – Crowds and Party.” Rock Salted, January 1, 2018. Accessed January 27, 2024. http://rocksalted.com/2018/01/jodi-dean-crowds-and-party/.
  21. [1] “Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.” Party for Socialism and Liberation, 2022. Accessed January 17, 2024. https://pslweb.org/program/.
  22. Party for Socialism and Liberation. “15 years of building the Party, growing and learning.” Liberation News, June 21, 2019. Accessed January 17, 2024. https://www.liberationnews.org/15-years-of-building-the-party-growing-and-learning/.
  23. Liberation Staff. “PSL commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution.” Liberation News, October 1, 2009. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.liberationnews.org/09-10-01-psl-commemorates-60th-anniversar-html/.
  24. “Council.” Progressive International. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://progressive.international/council/.
  25. “Jodi Dean.” Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Accessed January 27, 2024. https://www.hws.edu/faculty/dean-jodi.aspx.
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