John Fraser (born 1939) is an English professor, novelist, and poet.
He was born in London and educated at St Paul's School, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, King's College, London and the University of Leicester. [1] He taught History in 1961–66 at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts & Technology, Cambridge, then Political Science at the University of Leicester (1967–68). From 1968 to 1971 he was assistant professor, then Acting Chairman, Department of Political Science, Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada. From 1971 to 1984 he was assistant professor, then Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Between 1978 and 2001 he had several contract professorships at the University of Rome and University of Ferrara; and from 1986 to 2003 he was Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading. [2]
Fraser's academic publications include works in both Italian and English, such as An Introduction to the Thought of Galvano della Volpe, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1977 (transl. into Italian as: Il Pensiero di Galvano della Volpe, Liguori, Napoli, 1979), [3] and Italy: Society in Crisis / Society in Transformation (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1981). Fraser's literary work (novels, novellas, short stories and poetry) includes Black Masks (short stories and poetry), The Magnificent Wurlitzer, Medusa, The Observatory, The Other Shore, The Red Tank, Runners, Blue Light, Hard Places, An Illusion of Sun, Soft Landing, Military Roads, The Storm, Wayfaring, The Case, Enterprising Women, Down from the Stars and Animal Tales. [4] His work on Galvano della Volpe has been considered expert testimony in studies of Volpe's life. [5] He has also been considered to be an authority on Marxism. [6]
As a fiction writer, Fraser has a unique free-flowing signature style. The Fellow Emeritus at Magdalen College, Oxford John Fuller comments:
Enrico Berlinguer was an Italian politician, considered the most popular leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which he led as the national secretary from 1972 until his death during a tense period in Italy's history, marked by the Years of Lead and social conflicts, such as the Hot Autumn of 1969–1970.
Nicola Abbagnano was an Italian existential philosopher.
John Coprario, also known as Giovanni Coprario or Coperario, was an English composer and viol player.
Palmiro Michele Nicola Togliatti was an Italian politician and leader of Italy's Communist party from 1927 until his death. He was nicknamed Il Migliore by his supporters. In 1930, he became a citizen of the Soviet Union, and later he had a city in that country named after him: Tolyatti.
Giovanni Leone was an Italian politician, jurist and university professor. A founding member of the Christian Democracy (DC), Leone served as the President of Italy from December 1971 until June 1978. He also briefly served as Prime Minister of Italy from June to December 1963 and again from June to December 1968. He was also the president of the Chamber of Deputies from May 1955 until June 1963.
Lucio Colletti was an Italian Western Marxist philosopher. Colletti started to be known outside Italy because of a long interview with him that Marxist historian Perry Anderson published in the New Left Review in 1974.
The Italian Democratic Socialist Party, also known as Italian Social Democratic Party, was a social-democratic political party in Italy. The longest serving partner in government for Christian Democracy, the PSDI was an important force in Italian politics, before the 1990s decline in votes and members. The party's founder and longstanding leader was Giuseppe Saragat, who served as President of the Italian Republic from 1964 to 1971. Compared to the like-minded Italian Socialist Party on the centre-left, it was more centrist but identified with the centre-left.
Galvano Della Volpe was an Italian professor of philosophy and Marxist theorist.
Gianfranco Pasquino is an Italian political scientist. Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Bologna and Senior Adjunct Professor at SAIS-Europe (Bologna). He studied at the University of Turin under Norberto Bobbio and specialized under Giovanni Sartori at the University of Florence. In his professional life, he has been associated with the University of Florence, Harvard University, University of California, Los Angeles and the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC and Fellow of Christchurch and St Antony's at Oxford and Life Fellow of Claire Hall, Cambridge.
Domenico Losurdo was an Italian historian, essayist, Marxist philosopher, and communist politician.
Sebastiano Maffettone is a political philosopher and University Professor at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, where he teaches Political Philosophy and Theories of Globalization. He has taught in several Italian universities as well as International universities. Maffettone graduated summa cum laude from the University of Naples in 1970, and he completed his graduate studies in social philosophy LSE in 1976, under the supervision of philosophers such as Karl Popper and Amartya K. Sen.
Mario Tronti is an Italian philosopher and politician, considered one of the founders of the theory of operaismo in the 1960s.
Roberto Esposito is an Italian political philosopher, critical theorist, and professor, notable for his academic research and works on biopolitics. He currently serves as professor of theoretical philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa.
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB founded the Daily Worker. In 1936, members of the party were present at the Battle of Cable Street, helping organise resistance against the British Union of Fascists. In the Spanish Civil War the CPGB worked with the USSR to create the British Battalion of the International Brigades, which party activist Bill Alexander commanded.
Eurocommunism, also referred to as democratic communism or neocommunism, was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties which said they had developed a theory and practice of social transformation more relevant for Western Europe. During the Cold War, they sought to reject the influence of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The trend was especially prominent in Italy, Spain, and France.
Lorella Cedroni was a political philosopher.
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an interpretation of Marxism distinct from both classical and Orthodox Marxism and the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union.
Frida Knight (1910–1996) was an English communist activist and author.
Christopher John Hesketh Duggan was a British historian and academic. He specialised in the political, social and cultural history of modern Italy. He began his career as a research fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford and then at All Souls College, Oxford. In 1987, he moved to the University of Reading where he remained until his death. He was Professor of Modern Italian History from 2002.
Carlo Miranda was an Italian mathematician, working on mathematical analysis, theory of elliptic partial differential equations and complex analysis: he is known for giving the first proof of the Poincaré–Miranda theorem, for Miranda's theorem in complex analysis, and for writing an influential monograph in the theory of elliptic partial differential equations.