The Renaissance of Marxist Studies: A Discussion with Babak Amini

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Stephen Dozeman
Guest: Babak Amini (Assistant Editor, “Marx, Engels, and Marxisms” series, Palgrave)
Episode Title: The Renaissance of Marxist Studies: A Discussion with Babak Amini
Date: December 1, 2025

This episode of New Books in Historical Materialism features an insightful conversation between host Stephen Dozeman and Babak Amini about the “Marx, Engels, and Marxisms” book series published by Palgrave. They discuss the origins, mission, and international scope of the series, its contribution to advancing Marxist scholarship, and recommendations for listeners new to the series. The episode offers a vibrant look at how contemporary editors and authors are reevaluating, expanding, and internationalizing Marxist studies for the 21st century.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Vision of the Book Series

[02:45–05:28]

• Initiation: The series launched in 2014, co-founded by Marcello Musto (a younger scholar of Marx) and Terrell Carver (a senior scholar). Babak Amini joined as assistant editor a few years later.
• Shared Approach: The founding editors, despite different traditions, share a "rigorous, historically contextualized, and textually based approach to Marx." (Babak Amini, 03:03)
• Plurality of Marxism: The aim is to challenge the notion of “Marxism as monolith”—focusing instead on its plurality, both historically and theoretically.
• Critical Reevaluation: The series is intended for those interested in a "profoundly critical reexamination of the tradition itself."

  “...it is indeed wrong to think of Marxism...as a monolith. Understanding such plurality...is a prerequisite for a critical reexamination of Marxism as we move forward into the 21st century.”
  — Babak Amini [04:20]

2. Distinctiveness and Editorial Approach

[05:28–07:39]

• Breadth of Focus: The series includes research on:
  • 19th–21st c. Marxist thinkers
  • Labor and social movements
  • Marx’s analysis of contemporary issues
  • Reception of Marxism globally
• Reception Studies: It pays special attention to how Marxism is received in various global/local contexts, especially through translation and exposure to previously neglected voices.
• Addressing Linguistic Barriers: The editorial team seeks to bring less-accessible non-English Marxist scholarship to Anglophone readers.

3. Internationalism and Translations

[07:39–09:26]

• Global Exchange: A core goal is to "create a space for English language editions of notable contributions already published in other languages."
• Overcoming Obstacles: Acquiring translation rights and facilitating cross-cultural scholarly exchange is seen as crucial, but challenging.
• Broader Intellectual Dialogue: The series aspires to widen the “frontiers of studies of Marx and Engels and Marxism” internationally.

  "Such internationalizational debate to pull intellectual activities from various linguistic, geographical, political, [and] disciplinary backgrounds together is really required for any serious reexamination of Marxism...”
  — Babak Amini [08:42]

4. Anthologies and Edited Volumes

[09:26–12:53]

• Types: Includes both classical anthologies (e.g., collections of Marx’s original writings, such as “Marx's Writings on Alienation”) and edited volumes of scholarly essays.
• Editorial Standards: Highlights the difficulty and rigor of assembling cohesive, multi-authored works, and the series’ commitment to “rigorous and cohesive volumes.”
• Role of Anthologies: Despite some skepticism towards edited volumes in academia, the team values them as vehicles for multiple perspectives on important topics.

5. Recommendations and Thematic Highlights

[12:53–19:13]

• Diversity of the Series: 62 volumes published, with approximately 60 more under contract.
• Subfields Covered:
  • Reception studies (e.g., Carver & Blank’s work on “German Ideology”; Joseph Vacco’s “Alternative Modernity” on Gramsci; Kon Kangal’s work on Engels)
  • Heterodox Marxist thinkers (e.g., on Gramsci, Zygmunt Krakauer, Rosa Luxemburg, Danielievskaya, Jean Jaurès, Benjamin)
  • Political theory (especially Marxism’s relationship with liberalism; e.g., August Nimitz’s “Marxism versus Liberalism”, Iacono’s “The Bourgeois and the Savage”)
  • Political economy and Marxian economics (e.g., Szepanski’s “Financial Capital in the 21st Century”; Rodriguez’s work on neoliberal Chile; Melo & Sabadini’s “Financial Speculation and Fictitious Profit”)
  • Postcolonial perspectives (e.g., Vigita’s on Ambedkar and socialism in India; Samadar’s “Marx and the Postcolonial Age”)
• Upcoming and Niche Topics:

  • Paolucci’s on Bourdieu and Marx

  • Piranha Santella’s on Marxism and social movements

    “Bringing those voices that are not heard as much and not studied as much into the English speaking world is one of the contributions of the series.”
    — Babak Amini [15:55]

    “Audiences with various interests would find at least a couple of titles in the series to dig into and hopefully have a critical engagement with new debates.”
    — Babak Amini [18:54]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Understanding such plurality in historical and theoretical terms, I think is a prerequisite for a critical reexamination of Marxism...” — Babak Amini [04:20]
• “Our series has been able to play a role in creating a bridge...in the direction of international exchange of ideas at the frontier of studies of Marx and Engels and Marxism.” — Babak Amini [08:30]
• “We think [edited volumes] do serve an important role in bringing together contributions not from one single voice, but multiple voices with multiple perspectives on a specific topic.” — Babak Amini [11:42]
• “It is quite clear that, audiences with various interests would find at least a couple of titles in the series to dig into and hopefully have a critical engagement with new debates.” — Babak Amini [18:54]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:26 – Introduction to the episode and series by Stephen Dozeman
• 03:03 – Babak Amini on the origins and inspiration for the series
• 05:51 – How the series sets itself apart from others in the field
• 08:04 – The importance of translations and the international perspective
• 09:59 – The role and challenges of anthologies and edited volumes
• 13:13 – Recommendations for where to start in the series
• 15:55 – On bringing lesser-known international voices into English
• 18:54 – Concluding remarks on the series’ breadth and importance

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Conclusion

The episode offers an engaging overview of how contemporary Marxist scholarship is expanding via translation, editorial rigor, and an emphasis on the plurality and global reception of Marxism. The Palgrave “Marx, Engels, and Marxisms” series stands out for its commitment to internationalism, theoretical diversity, and critical reevaluation. Whether you’re a scholar or a curious newcomer, the series offers numerous entry points to the new frontiers of Marxist thought.

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Transcript

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[Stephen Dozeman]

Welcome to the New Books Network. Welcome back to New Books and Historical Materialism, a series from the New Books Network. I'm your host, Stephen Dozeman. If you listen to this podcast, you've heard me covering a number of books on Marxism, particularly under the Historical Materialism series umbrella. But there are many other series out there on Marxism and related fields of research, particularly critical theory. One of those is the series Marx Angles and Marxisms from Palgrave, which has been steadily putting monographs, translations and edited collections for close to a decade now. With me to discuss this series is Babakamini, one of the figures behind it. And in the coming days and weeks we hopefully will have more traditional episodes coming out covering some of their titles. So just to discuss the series, Baba Kamini, welcome to the New Books Network.

[Babakamini]

Thank you very much for having me in this very interesting podcast that I've been following more recently, I must say. So I'm very excited to be here and give a broad introduction of this exciting new sort of book series to your audiences.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Yeah, we're excited to have you be a partner with us. So to kick things off, the series came out, I think about a decade ago. I've seen books going back as far as around 2014, 2015. Could you tell us about the initial desire that inspired inspired this series and how it came about?

[Babakamini]

Right, so just to start with the clarification, one of the assistant editors of this series and the main two editors of the series are Marcella Musto and Tara Carver And I joined the the series a few years after the. The beginning of. Of the project. So I can't quite speak to the sort of initial desires of the two editors conceived it. But basically it began as an initiative in 2014 between a brilliant, relatively young scholar of Marx, Marcel Musto, and an established, relatively senior scholar, Marx Ter Carver. And despite coming from different political and intellectual traditions, they both share a distinctly rigorous, historically contextualized and textually based approach to Marx in their own investigation of Marx's original writings, and also in ways through which Marx's writings and ideas have been disseminated and received within and outside Marxism. And while this core idea is reflected in the name of the series Marx, Engels, Marxisms and of course Marxism is presented as a pro. Since it is indeed wrong to think of Marxism both historically and conceptually as a monolith, understanding such plurality in historical and theoretical terms, I think is a prerequisite for a critical reexamination of Marxism as we move forward into the 21st century. So the series really brings together reflections on Marx and Marxism from perspectives that are varied in terms of political outlook, geographical area, academic disciplines and subject matters. And it seeks to challenge many preconceptions of what Marxists thought can be like as opposed to what it has been or it can be appeals to those interested in rediscovery or rediscovering the most powerful critical analysis of Marxism, of capitalism, that is Marxism, but in a profoundly critical re examination of the tradition itself. So that would be probably what the kind of the core inspiration behind this series is.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Yeah, critical and dynamic reevaluation and reappropriation of the tradition. So kind of continuing with this, I'm wondering if you could tell us a bit about what sets this book series apart from other book series on Marxism or critical theory more broadly. What do you hope you're achieving with these titles that readers and researchers might struggle to find elsewhere?

[Babakamini]

Right, so the series. Oh, it's. It's a little bit difficult to. To compare series when they, you know, their output starts to be quite significant in terms of quantity and also quality. But generally the series tends to include research on works of Marx and Engels and Marxist authors and tradition of the 19th, 20th and 21st century re examination of labor and social movements and Marx's analysis of contemporary issues and also the reception of Marxism in the world. So these are some of the foci of this series. Although there are some titles that broaden this. This sort of framework and perspective. It includes titles focusing on the. The overall Marx and Engels, which utilize the scholarly achievement of the ongoing research on Marx and Angles, the collective works of Marx and Engels in German and other sort of frontiers of research on Marx and Engels around the world. It seeks to publish books focused on reception studies and Marxist national traditions, so to enable the worldwide Anglophone community to understand the variety of intellectual and political traditions through which Marx and Engels have been received in local contexts. And it really pays attention to authors that are lesser known in English speaking countries for various reasons, including, and primarily for linguistic reasons and barriers.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Yeah, Speaking to that, one thing I do like about the series is it has a great emphasis on translating authors from outside the usual Anglo American academic sphere. Could you maybe speak to this international approach the series has taken and what you hope readers can glean from these titles about and from parts of the world traditionally neglected by English language scholarship?

[Babakamini]

Right, yes, that is indeed, one of the primary aims of the series is to create a space for the English language editions of notable contributions that have already been published in other languages. As you know, this is a notoriously difficult process for many reasons, including complications around obtaining copyrights. But these issues have deprived the English speaking audience of access to important interventions in non English speaking world. Inversely, scholars in other parts of the world, including some of the most influential and original scholars, find it very difficult to get their books and contributions available to the English speaking audience. So our series has been able to play a role in creating a bridge. Well, a bridge that ideally needs to be made much wider in the direction of international exchange of ideas at the frontier of studies of Marx and Engels and Marxism. And I think such internationalizational debate to pull intellectual activities from various linguistic, geographical, political, disciplinary backgrounds together is really required for any serious re examination of Marxism and its historical development and its contemporary potentials. And this is what the series have been actively engaged in over the years.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Yeah. On top of that, in addition to monographs and translations, there are a number of anthologies covering a variety of figures and topics. So given the increased logistical difficulties I imagine are involved in putting some of these anthologies together, it's noteworthy that the editors clearly are really excited by the idea of pulling together a number of scholars around particular topics. Could you tell us a bit about some of these and what sorts of projects or themes the editors get really excited about?

[Babakamini]

Right. Well, I mean, there are basically two subcategories under what you call sort of anthologies. One, we do have several titles who are sort of classical ontologies, you know, bringing together writings of, for example, Marx's Writings on Alienation is a new anthology put out by Marcello Musto, which brings together sort of writings of Marx, specifically on Alienation. Beyond sort of the early manuscript of the 1844 notebooks. We also have other anthologies on various Marxist thinkers and scholars. So that is one category that we are engaging and has its own logistical difficulties I can speak to if you want. But also we focus on the editorial works and edited volumes, which, as you said, are a thorny topic for various reasons, including logistical reasons of bringing together cohesive volumes. We do have very high standards for our projects that engage in that kind of editorial or edited volume editorial activities, because in some ways it is very easy to put together, very easy to put together collected work. And also it could be tremendously difficult to make it a cohesive and rigorous approach from multiple perspectives on a specific topic. Marcello Musto and I have been working on several edited books ourselves. Marcello is a very skillful editor in his own accounts. I've done several very influential edited books on Marx in recent years, and he maintained that kind of standard of rigorous and cohesive volumes when it comes to edited sort of volumes and projects. Yeah, so it is. Although, you know, in the academia, in the industry, edited volumes are seen with a little bit of a grain of salt, let's say. But we think they do serve an important role in bringing together contributions not from one sort of a singular voice, but multiple voices with multiple perspectives on a specific topic. Now, enforcing a cohesion onto the project requires an engagement with the editors and the authors, and that's something that we do as part of our editorial work on the series.

[Stephen Dozeman]

So as a final question for people who maybe are just learning about the series for the first time and are looking for maybe a place to start or a recommendation, do you have any that you have particularly enjoyed or been surprised by or any on maybe some particular subtopics within or under the Marxist umbrella?

[Babakamini]

Yeah, so for political reasons, I'm gonna skip the, you know, naming my. My own favorite titles, and I have many favorite titles. I just wanted to point out that the book series has currently 62 volumes published and about 4, 60 other titles under contract and forthcoming. So it is a very massive kind of series now with many, many titles and many subcategories that they can be organized under. But for audiences who are going to want to get a glimpse of the.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Series.

[Babakamini]

One of the kind of the flagships of this series is, of course, designation and Reception Studies, and we have a number of fascinating titles under this category. For example, our first Volume in the series, Terry Carver and Daniel Blank work on German ideology is a very good place to start to see the frontiers of dissemination studies now in Marxism Marxist analysis. Joseph Vacco's book Alternative Modernity is a. Is a philological study of Antonio Gramsci and some of his fundamental concepts seen in a philological terms. Konkangal's work on Engos and the Dialectic of Nature also falls within that category of dissemination and reception studies. So those are, you know, perhaps three titles that the audience can start with if they are interested in that, you know, branch of research in Marxism. Also we have excellent titles under what you can call heterodox Marxist thinkers. Books on Gramsci Zhugit, for example, Zygmun Krakauer, Rosa Luxembourg Danielevskaya and Jean Juress for example, and you know, and many more. Benjamin, another title that is forthcoming. So you know, kind of bringing those voices that are kind of not heard as much and not studied as much into the English speaking world is one of the contributions of the series and we have a number of titles under this category. We also have quite interesting titles on the political theory for, you know, those who are interested in that topic, especially the very hot topic nowadays in political theory that re examines the relation or the. Dialogue between Marxism and liberalism. And quite a few titles can be found in our series. For example, August NIMT's Marxism versus Liberalism or Iacono's book on the bourgeois and the savage looks at this kind of dialogue between liberalism and Marxism and many other titles that I can name. We also have quite a number of books on political economy and Marxian economics. For example, we have Szepanski's work on financial capital in 21st century or Juan Rodriguez book on revisiting new liberal capitalism in Chile. So sometimes we have titles that are focused on regional developments and also books that are looking at Marx and economics more broadly. For example, Melo and Sabadini's work on financial speculation and fictitious profit looks at presents a Marxist analysis of financialization at a theoretical level. We also have quite exciting titles under post Colonial Perspectives, for example, Vigita's book on Ambatkar and the question of socialism in India or Ranabi Samadar's book on Marx and postcolonial age. And I know that postcolonial studies is now quite an important development in social sciences. And you know, we are trying to kind of present intervention in that debate and broaden the perspective by introducing the contributions that Marxism can bring into that important debate. We have also a number of forthcoming books that I invite your audience to check out as they come in this year and the following year, including Paolucci's book on Purdue and Marx. An understudied topic, Bourcio has been kind of, you know, adopted by inequality studies or sort of Weberian tradition. So looking at the intervention or the overlaps between Bourdieu and Marx is quite an important, exciting research. We have very exciting book coming out by Piranha Santella on Marx, social movement, Marxism, social movement and collective action. Again within social movement studies. This is a topic that is picking up some traction and this intervention is excellent in, in presenting new frontiers in this debate. I can go on, but I don't want to exhaust the patience of, of your audience. But it is quite clear that, you know, the audiences with various interests would find at least couple of titles in the series to dig into and hopefully have a critical engagement with new debates.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Yeah, very diverse and dynamic. So thank you very much for this short little conversation.

[Babakamini]

Babak, thank you very much for having me. And I hope to see, you know, I know that you're planning to feature some of the books in the series, so I'm excited to hear your conversation with these authors.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Yeah, absolutely.