I am a philosopher based in London and work on continental philosophy (especially Foucault and Marx), critical theory, and philosophy of race. I previously taught philosophy at Lewis & Clark College.
There are two poles of my current research. The first pole is methodological and concerns the relationship between history and political struggles. In my work, I try to make sense of how historical modes of inquiry can contribute to ongoing emancipatory struggles while still remaining critical and thereby able to revise the views of agents. The second pole is social-theoretic and concerns the relationship between political forms and capitalism. In particular, I try to elucidate how law, the penal system, and varied kinds of state violence are structurally linked to capitalist domination and class struggle.
My first book, Partisan Genealogy: Foucault's Critique of Penal Power (forthcoming with SUNY Press), addresses both of these poles by reinterpreting Foucault's political thought in the context of his engagement with contemporary Marxist thinkers and anti-prison struggles in the 1970s.
I have published articles on philosophers including Foucault, Marx, Adorno, and Benjamin – and on themes such as genealogy, state violence, capitalist domination, and racism – in journals including the European Journal of Philosophy, Constellations, Philosophy & Social Criticism, and Critical Philosophy of Race. I have also published non-academic essays in publications such as Spectre, Salvage, Viewpoint, and Truthout. I completed my PhD in philosophy at Northwestern University in 2022. Here is a copy of my CV.
Refereed Journal Articles:
Forthcoming - "Foucault and Marx on historical transformations of thought," Angelaki: journal of the theoretical humanities 33, no. 5. PhilPeople.
2025 - “Biopolitics, Capital, and Carcerality in Foucault’s Unfinished Account of the Racial State,” Critical Philosophy of Race 13, no. 1, 75-94, DOI: 10.5325/critphilrace.13.1.0075.
2023 - “Explanation and evaluation in Foucault’s genealogy of morality,” European Journal of Philosophy 31, no. 3, 731-747, DOI: 10.1111/ejop.12809.
2023 - “Adorno, Marx, and abstract domination,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 49, no. 8, 998-1023,DOI: 10.1177/01914537211059508.
2022 - “Sovereignty, Genealogy, and the Critique of State Violence,” Constellations 29, no. 2, 214-228, DOI: 10.1111/1467-8675.12577.
2021 - “Foucault’s Analytics of Sovereignty,” Critical Horizons 22, no. 3, 287-305, DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2021.1953750.
2020 - “On the Ways of Writing the History of the State,” Foucault Studies, no. 28, 71-95, DOI: 10.22439/fs.v1i28.6074.
Book Reviews:
2025 - "Tuomo Tiisala, Power and Freedom in the Space of Reasons: Elaborating Foucault's Pragmatism," European Journal of Philosophy, DOI: 10.1111/ejop.13064.
2020 - “Deborah Cook, Adorno, Foucault and the Critique of the West,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 41, no. 1, 319-322, DOI: 10.5840/gfpj202041112.
Links:
Contact:
eli[dot]b[dot]lichtenstein[at]gmail[dot]com