Michael Hauser

Michael Hauser (born March 30, 1972) is a Czech philosopher, translator and founder of the civic organization Socialistický kruh (Socialist Circle), which he also chaired until 2014. He became a member of the Council of Česká televize in March 2014.^[1]

Life and work

Hauser studied philosophy at Charles University in Prague, and completed his dissertation, titled Modernity and Negativity. Adorno's Perspective, in 2004. His primary fields of interest are critical theory, Western Marxism and Post-Marxism, and their relation to contemporary thought. He mostly deals with materialistic theory of the subject, ideas and universalism, praxis, concepts of transition and the theory of spectacular categories (or materialist hauntology). He is a fellow at the Department of Contemporary Continental Philosophy (Institute of Philosophy at the Academy of Arts of the Czech Republic), and also teaches at the Faculty of Education (Charles University). Since 2005, Hauser published several academic books.^[2]

Hauser has made several translations into Czech, including The Ticklish Subject^[3] by Slavoj Žižek and Dialectic of the Enlightenment.^[4] He published a number of articles, both academic (in Filosofický časopis, Décalages, An Althusser Studies Journal) and popular (Právo, A2, Literární noviny, A2larm^[5] and Deník referendum).^[6] In 2004, he founded Socialistický kruh (The Socialist Circle, later renamed as SOK – Association for Leftist Theory), an organization that seeks to reflect and promote contemporary leftist theory in the Czech environment and establish a common basis for interaction between philosophy, sociology, economy and art theory. The association held a number of conferences and public seminars, many of which included Hauser as a speaker, and also published translations of the works of Alain Badiou, Janques Rancière or Slavoj Žižek. Alongside the focus on European philosophy, the association also concentrates on the Czech and Slovak leftist scene (Karel Kosík, Egon Bondy, Milan Machovec). In 2006, Hauser was among the leading figures of the Jsme občané! (We Are Citizens!)^[7] initiative, a critical public reflection of the shortcomings of liberal democracy in the Czech Republic. His current work includes the development of a materialist theory of the subject alternative to the conceptions of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, in the sense that it would relate the discussed issues to the tradition of Western Marxism (Adorno, Lukács, Althusser, Marx). Hauser also finds inspiration in Czech critical thinking (Karel Kosík, Robert Kalivoda, Milan Machovec). He first presented his conception in the book Ways out of Postmodernism.

In film

Hauser was one of the subjects of the Czech documentary feature, Hauser a Žižek: teoretikové postmarxistické filosofie^[8] (Hauser and Žižek: Theoreticians of Postmarxist Philosophy), by Helena Všetečková.

Books

• Adorno: moderna a negativita (Adorno: Modernity and Negativity), Prague: Filosofia, 2005.^[9]
• Prolegomena k filosofii současnosti (Prolegomena to Contemporary Philosophy), Prague: Filosofia, 2007.^[10]
• Sociální stát a kapitalismus (Welfare State and Capitalism, ed.), Prague: Svoboda servis, 2007.^[11]
• Humanismus nestačí. Rozhovor se Slavojem Žižkem (Humanism is Not Enough: An Interview with Slavoj Žižek), Prague: Rybka Publishers, 2008.^[12]
• Cesty z postmodernismu. Filosofická reflexe doby přechodu (Ways out of Postmodernism. A Philosophical Reflection of the Era of Transition), Prague: Rybka Publishers, 2012.^[13]
• Kapitalismus jako zombie. Proč žijeme ve světě přízraků (Capitalism as a Zombie. Why Do We Live in the World of Spectres), Prague: Filosofia, 2012.^[14]

Major translations

• Fromm, E.: Marx´s Concept of Man (Obraz člověka u Marxe), Luboš Marek, Brno 2004.
• Fabre, C.: Social Rights Under the Constitution: Government and the Decent Life (Ústavní zakotvení sociálních práv), FILOSOFIA, Prague 2004.
• Žižek, S.: The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (Nepolapitelný subjekt. Chybějící střed politické ontologie), Brno: Luboš Marek 2007.
• Adorno, Th. W. – Horkheimer, M.: Dialektik der Aufklärung (Dialektika osvícenství) (with M. Váňa), OIKOYMENH, Prague 2009.
• Adorno, T., Horkheimer, M.: Das Schema der Massenkultur, Kulturindustrie (Schéma masové kultury), OIKOYMENH, Prague 2009.

References

External links

• (in English) Michael Hausers’s essay on the decline of liberal democracy
• (in English; excerpt) Humanism is Not Enough: An Interview with Slavoj Žižek
• Declaration of the Jsme občané! initiative (in Czech)