Jodi Dean (born 1962) is an American political theorist and professor in the political science department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York state.[1] She held the Donald R. Harter '39 Professorship of the Humanities and Social Sciences from 2013 to 2018.[2] Dean has also held the position of Erasmus Professor of the Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam.[3] She is the author and editor of thirteen books,[4] including Comrade:An Essay on Political Belonging (Verso 2019).[5]
On April 13,2024,Hobart and William Smith Colleges president Mark Gearan issued a statement announcing that Dean had been "relieved of classroom duties" following an essay she wrote for Verso Books,[10][11][12] in which "she spoke about feeling exhilarated and energized by the paragliders on October 7"[13][14][15][16] and called the attacks "acts of bravery and defiance".[17] In a posting to the social media website X,Dean confirmed she had been relieved of teaching responsibilities.[18][15][19] The suspension was lifted in July 2024.[20]
First,Dean holds that communism is widely viewed as interchangeable with the Soviet Union,an association that fails to acknowledge the diversity of communist experiments in Eastern Europe,Asia,Africa,or Latin America are often given little attention. Second,Dean asserts that the seventy-year history of the Soviet Union is condensed to the twenty-six years of Joseph Stalin's rule. Third,Dean critiques the reduction of communism to Stalinist violence and repression,highlighting the modernization and industrialization of the Soviet economy,the successes of the Soviet space program,and improving overall standards of living in the formerly agrarian economy. Fourth,Dean holds that public discourse on the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 oversimplify communism as a failed authoritarian project,reinforcing Cold War binaries and stifling discussions of communism as a viable alternative to capitalism. Lastly,Dean contends that the association of communism with Stalinism and authoritarianism is used to dismiss the possibility of communism working in practice by implying that any challenge to the political status quo will inevitably result in purges and violence.[24][25]
Bibliography
Books
Solidarity of Strangers:Feminism after Identity Politics (University of California Press 1996)[26]
Feminism and the New Democracy:Resisting the Political (editor,Sage 1997)[27]
Aliens in America:Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace (Cornell University Press 1998)[28]
Political Theory and Cultural Studies (editor,Cornell University Press 2000)
Publicity's Secret:How Technoculture Capitalizes on Democracy (Cornell University Press 2002)[29]
Empire's New Clothes:Reading Hardt and Negri (co-editor with Paul A. Passavant,Routledge 2004)
Reformatting Politics:Information Technology and Global Civil Society (co-editor with Geert Lovink and Jon Anderson,Routledge 2006)
Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies (Duke University Press 2009)[31]
Blog Theory (Cambridge:Polity Press,2010) ISBN 9780745649702[32]
The Communist Horizon (London &New York:Verso Books,2012)[33] ISBN 9781786635525
Crowds and Party (London &New York:Verso Books,2016)[34] ISBN 9781781687062
Comrade –An Essay on Political Belonging (London &New York:Verso Books,2019)[35] ISBN 9781788735018
Organize,Fight,Win:Black Communist Women’s Political Writing,edited by Jodi Dean and Charisse Burden-Stelly (London &New York:Verso Books,2022) ISBN 9781839764974
Capital's Grave:Neofeudalism and the New Class Struggle (London &New York:Verso Books,2025)[36] ISBN 9781804295199
Jodi Dean (June 10,2015). "Jodi Dean –The Communist Horizon". Public lecture in Belgrade at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory and the Institut Français de Serbie in cooperation with the Center for Ethics,Law and Applied Philosophy (CELAP),Center for Advanced Studies in Southeastern Europe (CAS –SEE) and the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade (FMK).
Jodi Dean (February 23,2019) "Communism or Feudalism?" Sonic Acts Festival,De Brakke Grond,Amsterdam,the Netherlands
↑ "Statements". www.hws.edu. Retrieved April 14, 2024. I have asked the Provost and Dean of Faculty to work with faculty and institutional leadership to investigate this matter so we can properly and fairly respond. While this work is underway, Professor Dean has been relieved of classroom duties.
↑ "AEJMC". aejmc.org. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Archived from the original on December 16, 2019. Retrieved October 26, 2015.
↑ Jodi Dean (2012). The Communist Horizon. New York: Verso.
↑ Dean, Jodi (August 30, 2010). Blog Theory: Feedback and Capture in the Circuits of Drive: Jodi Dean: 9780745649702: Amazon.com: Books. Polity. ISBN978-0745649702.
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