Lewis Call is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 academic notable for being a central post-anarchist

Post-anarchism

Post-anarchism or postanarchism is the term used to represent anarchist philosophies developed since the 1980s using post-structuralist and postmodernist approaches. Some prefer to use the term post-structuralist anarchism, so as not to suggest having moved "past" anarchism...

 thinker. He is best known for his 2002 book Postmodern Anarchism, which develops an account of postmodern anarchism

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

 through philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

 and cyberpunk

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...

 writers such as William Gibson

William Gibson

William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...

 and Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling

Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...

. Call has written extensively on the intersection of post-anarchism and science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

, covering philosophers and authors such as Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...

, Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.-Life:...

, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany

Samuel R. Delany

Samuel Ray Delany, Jr., also known as "Chip" is an American author, professor and literary critic. His work includes a number of novels, many in the science fiction genre, as well as memoir, criticism, and essays on sexuality and society.His science fiction novels include Babel-17, The Einstein...

 and Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...

.

Life and work

Call graduated with a B.A. from University of California, San Diego

University of California, San Diego

The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...

 followed by an M.A. and Ph.D. in Modern European History from the University of California, Irvine

University of California, Irvine

The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...

, finishing his studies in 1996. His doctoral dissertation was titled, Nietzsche as Critic and Captive of Enlightenment. He is an Assistant Professor in the History Department of California Polytechnic State University

California Polytechnic State University

California Polytechnic State University, or Cal Poly, is a public university located in San Luis Obispo, California, United States. The university is one of two polytechnic campuses in the 23-member California State University system....

 in San Luis Obispo, where he teaches intellectual history, political economy

Political economy

Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...

 and the history of network technology. Call also holds the position of Associate Editor of Anarchist Studies

Anarchist Studies

Anarchist Studies is a biannual academic journal on anarchism. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, examining the history, culture, and theory of anarchism...

, an international journal of anarchist theory. He received the Distinguished Lecturer Award from the California Faculty Association (California Polytechnic chapter) in 2005, and his paper "’Sounds Like Kinky Business to Me’: Subtextual and Textual Representations of Erotic Power in the Buffyverse" won Slayage journal's 2008 Mr. Pointy Award for Buffy Studies

Buffy studies

Buffy Studies is a term applied to the collection of written works about, and the university courses that discuss aspects of, the television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, to a lesser extent, its spin-off program Angel. It explores issues related to gender and other philosophical issues as...

 Scholarship. Call is a dedicated practitioner of T'ai chi ch'uan.

Thought

Call is credited along with Saul Newman

Saul Newman

Saul Newman is a political theorist and central post-anarchist thinker.Newman coined the term "post-anarchism" as a general term for political philosophies filtering 19th century anarchism through a post-structuralist lens, and later popularized it through his 2001 book From Bakunin to Lacan...

 and Todd May

Todd May

Todd May is a political philosopher notable for his role in developing, alongside Saul Newman and Lewis Call, the theory of post-structuralist anarchism. He is currently Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of Philosophy at Clemson University and contributes to CounterPunch...

  with developing postanarchism from its roots in French postmodern and classical anarchist thought. Call has attempted to develop post-anarchist theory through the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, rejecting the Cartesian concept of the "subject

Subject (philosophy)

In philosophy, a subject is a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness or a relationship with another entity . A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed...

". From here a radical form of anarchism is made possible; the anarchism of becoming

Process philosophy

Process philosophy identifies metaphysical reality with change and dynamism. Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have posited true reality as "timeless", based on permanent substances, whilst processes are denied or subordinated to timeless substances...

. This anarchism does not have an eventual goal, nor flow into "being", it is not a final state of development, nor a static form of society, but rather becomes permanent, as a means without end. Call critiques liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 notions of language, consciousness, and rationality from an anarchist perspective, arguing that they are inherent in economic and political power within the capitalist state organization.

Call's other research interests include intellectual history, science fiction studies

Science fiction studies

This article is about the field of science fiction studies. For the journal of the same title, please see Science Fiction Studies.Science fiction studies is the common name for the academic discipline that studies and researches the history, culture, and works of science fiction and, more broadly,...

, and the history of erotic power.

External links

• Faculty profile at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo