Video : entretien avec Moishe Postone (en anglais)

Moishe Postone, May 8, 2008

Moishe Postone, professor of history at the University of Chicago, gives this summary of his interests on the department web page: “My research and teaching focus on 19th and 20th century European intellectual history, with emphasis on critical social theories. I am particularly interested in self-reflexive theories of historical context -- theories that seek to grasp social, economic, and cultural processes in ways that illuminate the relation of such processes to the theories themselves. My work also focuses on the problematic of modern anti-Semitism and questions of history, memory, and identity in postwar Germany, as well as on the issue of the global transformations of the past three decades and their implications for understanding the historical trajectory of the 20th century.” He presented a talk on these subjects at the IAS in May of 2008, "Theorizing Historical Change: Critical Theory and the Transformations of the Twentieth Century."

Voir la video d'un interview avec Moishe Postone : sur ce site.

The interview can also be downloaded as an audio file (.mp3 - 43.1 MB).

The interview addresses the origins of Postone’s interests as, in part, a project of understanding the particular events he was experiencing the 1960s and 1970s. He also discusses his purposes in teaching and the place of a critical emphasis in graduate education.

For basic biographical information and publications, consult Professor Postone’s faculty profile. On the Platypus website, there is also an interview transcript and a page linking to pdfs of articles; one can also find his essay on anti-semitism and national socialism online. A Jump Cut critical essay on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom shows Postone’s critical processing of popular culture.