Comrades

Jacques Derrida

This guy is an Einstein in a sea of dummies, as far as I'm concerned. I translated one of his most important books, and after that, we became close. We kept engaging in close, take-'em-all-down conversations throughout the rest of his career. He taught me everything I know about deconstruction, and I still cite him left and right.

Karl Marx

If you ask me, Marx's words are something to live by. I am a lifelong Marxist, having long since pledged allegiance to the communist flag in my native West Bengal, where the rivers run red. (There is a deep and distinguished communist tradition in my hometown, and so I drank that particular Kool Aid while still young and impressionable.)

I believe that Marx is often cited without being fully understood. But when his works are read with care, they can still illuminate the workings of contemporary capitalism. This doesn't mean one can only read Marx and call it a day; there need to be some supplements, including feminist and deconstructionist essays. But Marx's texts are as important to feeding your brain as your morning breakfast, and they will always be part of my political and philosophical diet.

Paul de Man

Like lots of intellectuals of my generation, I have a fraught relationship with this dude.

De Man, a contemporary of Derrida and another key deconstructionist, was my teacher and my role model; I took cues from him in the classroom as well as on the page. I wrote my dissertation under his direction, and went on to reread and cite him regularly. But I took distance from him as well. I decided it wasn't enough to keep engaging with the European classics, de Man-style. You have to move into the wider, non-academic world and write about people who aren't old, white, rich European men. Just do it.

Antonio Gramsci

Gramsci has inspired me by putting "the problem of the school" front and center. An Italian communist hero, he died under Mussolini, so I never got to meet him face-to-face. But I read him in almost the same way that I read Marx: with great interest and even a peppering of reverence.

In fact, I think Gramsci provides one important supplement to the Marxist meal, because he's interested in art and culture as well as in political economy. I agree with him that human civilizations are built on more than just money and government. Look at my most recent book, An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization, and you'll see him everywhere.

Judith Butler

A female philosopher with a razor-sharp critical mind, Butler is one of the few U.S. intellectuals working today who I really respect. Unlike my approach to most folks, I cite Butler with an approving appreciation. Yes, we have different styles. But we can still get down together, as is shown by our joint publication, Who Sings the Nation State?.

Edward Said

Saïd was a fellow pioneering post-colonialist. His work was more old school than mine, which has always been cutting edge. But it's not for nothing that we're often mentioned together as the founders of postcolonial literary study.

Before us, English departments were places where men wearing elbow patches endlessly reread the greats: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and so on. Saïd and I worked to broaden the canon, and you have us to thank for the much wider variety of material you get to study in English classes now. You're welcome.

Michel Foucault

I have had my differences with Foucault and Deleuze, but I continue to learn from them. In "Can the Subaltern Speak?" I wrote about the limitations of their philosophy, which I found to be Eurocentric and insufficiently attentive to the experience of real subalterns, or multiply oppressed peoples. (See "Buzzwords" for the skinny on the subaltern.)

Yet, there's no denying the intelligence of these two guiding lights in French theory, and I admit I learned a lot from both of 'em.

Rivals

There's nothing I hate more than Angry and Not-So-Angry White Men who feel entitled to preach despite their stunning ignorance about the world. Some examples:

• Frederic Jameson, postmodernist and poser extraordinaire;
• Slavoj Zizek, whose pop theory cheapens and dilutes Marxism (though I admit the guy's not all bad); and
• Terry Eagleton, who I will never forgive for his London Review takedown of me.