About the MPLP

The Moishe Postone Legacy Project is a collaboration among Postone’s family members, friends, and former students. It seeks to make his work available to all, and to promote engagement with his ideas. We are currently working on the following projects.

Archive

We have been working to organize Postone’s literary estate and make it available to researchers. The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago Regenstein Library has agreed to hold the archive, which eventually will include physical papers, digital files, and audio-visual materials. 

Our first priority has been preparing the physical papers for transfer to Special Collections. Drawn from Postone’s offices and residence, these papers cover a wide range of subjects: from his scholarship, to his teaching, political engagements, and administrative roles. We have worked to identify and organize the items. We also have been developing a detailed index for the papers, as it will be some time before professional archivists are able to fully process the collection. We intend for this to serve as a preliminary finding aid for researchers. Much of this work is now finished: we have organized, indexed, and transferred 110 boxes of documents to Special Collections.

Currently we are working on the digital portion of Postone’s literary estate. This includes a range of subject matter similar to the physical papers, and we are working to produce a preliminary index for it as well. We also are scanning a selection of documents for inclusion on the website. You’ll find more information about the collection on the Archive pages.

Website

One of our main goals in creating this website is to make available an extensive collection of materials, in a range of media. In all respects, the site is a work in progress, and we will continue to develop and expand it. 

We will be working to include the following types of materials and resources:

  • A linked bibliography with all of Postone’s publications and interviews

  • Information on the collection of Postone’s papers that we are preparing for the archives

  • Scanned materials and digital files from the archive, including reading notes, manuscripts, and correspondence

  • Syllabi, transcripts, and audio and video recordings of classes, including iterations of his Marx seminars, his ‘Critical Theory and the 20th Century’ class, and his ‘The Present as History’ class 

  • Audio and video recordings of invited lectures, conference presentations, and interviews

  • Obituaries and recordings of memorial events

  • A bibliography of recent works engaging with Postone’s ideas

  • Information about conferences that we are supporting and calls for papers

Conference Support

We intend to support conferences engaging with Postone’s ideas and legacy. We hope to share more information on this soon, via our email newsletter and our Conferences & Events page.

Travel Grants

The Moishe Postone Legacy Project hopes to offer a limited number of small travel fellowships for those who wish to work with the archive. For more information, please visit our Fellowships page. 

Publications

We are working on a volume of previously published essays and articles, which Postone had been editing before his death, and we are exploring other publication possibilities. We are also supporting ongoing translation work. We hope to share updates on these projects soon.

Partnership with the Center for Transcultural Studies

The MPLP is housed and supported by the Center for Transcultural Studies (CTS), a leading research institution that creates new forms of cultural understanding for a rapidly internationalizing world. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the CTS provides advisory and infrastructural support for donations to the MPLP. The CTS sister webpage for the MPLP can be found here.

Copyright

©2024 Moishe Postone Legacy Project. All rights reserved. The contents of this website are copyrighted by the MPLP. Please contact us with any questions concerning use.

Support from the Alfred Landecker Foundation

The MPLP was generously seeded by a grant from the Alfred Landecker Foundation, which promotes a culture of remembrance and encourages critical thinking by bringing together a global network of scholars and activists. It seeks to raise awareness of the preconditions of the Holocaust, to combat group-based hatred with a focus on antisemitism, and to defend democracy.