Beverley Best, PhD
- Professor, Sociology and Anthropology
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Sign in to editResearch areas: Critique of Political Economy, Marxist Theory, Cultural and Critical Theory
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Biography
Education
Ph.D. Communication (SFU)Teaching activities
Areas of undergraduate teaching (and graduate supervision)
1. Economic Transformations in Capitalist Society (SOCI 323)
2. Capitalism and crisis (SOCI 428)
3. Karl Marx and the Critique of Political Economy (SOCI 429)
4. Utopia: Method and Critique (SOCI 4XX)
5. Consumer society (SOCI 3XX)
Areas of graduate teaching (and graduate supervision)
- Critical theory
- Karl Marx: Reading Capital
- Classical sociological theory
- Contemporary sociological theory
- Marxian Cultural Theory and Aesthetics
- Dialectical Thought
- Modernity and Revolution
Research activities
Research interests
Dr. Best researches the modalities of contemporary capitalist society and how these are expressed in conventions of perception and representation, dynamics of collective subjectivity, aesthetic ideologies, and cultural forms and practices. Her recent work focuses on the deep value dynamics of capital, as well as the social and ideological formations of that historical process. Dr. Best has also pursued studies of analytical methods such as critical theory, critique of political economy, and dialectics. She has recently published a book on these themes titled, The Automatic Fetish: The Law of Value in Marx's Capital (Verso, 2024).Current areas of research and graduate supervision
- Marxist theory and value critique
- Marx and aesthetics
- Financialization
- Capital and the dynamics of crisis
- The real subsumption of the university under capital
- Critiques of 'immaterial labour' and 'cognitive capitalism'
- Utopian theory, collective imaginaries, and the virtualities of the present
- Cultural dynamics of 'consumer society'
- Postmodern universalisms
- Representation, narrative and ideology critique
- The question of 'affect' in cultural and political theory
- social movements and the historical conditions of transformation
- transformations of work in global capitalism
Publications
Publications Representative of Current Research Areas
Books:
Beverley Best, The Automatic Fetish: The Law of Value in Marx's Capital London & NY: Verso, 2024.
Beverley Best, Werner Bonefeld, Chris O'Kane (eds.) Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory: Key Texts and Contributions to a Critical Theory of Society, Volume One. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Singapore: Sage, 2018.
Beverley Best, Werner Bonefeld, Chris O'Kane (eds.) Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory: Themes, Volume Two. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Singapore: Sage, 2018.
Beverley Best, Werner Bonefeld, Chris O'Kane (eds.) Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory: Contexts, Volume Three. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Singapore: Sage, 2018.
Beverley Best, Marx and the Dynamic of Capital Formation:An Aesthetics of Political Economy. NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Articles and book chapters:
Beverley Best, 'Marx's Critical Theory of Slavery.' Historical Materialism, (advance article; online publication: Jan, 2024).
Beverley Best, 'TheCommune is Our Payable Debt.' CulturalDynamics: Insurgent Scholarship on Culture, Politics and Power, 35:4, 2023.
Beverley Best, 'Wages for Housework Redux: Social Reproduction and the Utopian Dialectic of the Value Form.' Theory and Event, 24:3, 2021
Beverley Best, 'Political Economy Through the Looking Glass: Imaging Six Impossible Things About Finance Before Breakfast.' Historical Materialism, 25.3, 2017.
Beverley Best, 'Distilling a Value Theory of Ideology from Volume Three of Capital.' Historical Materialism, 23.3, 2015.
Beverley Best, 'Raymond Williams et la structure de sensibilité de la télérealité. Raymond Williams et les sciences de la culture.' J-F. Coté et A. Bélanger (Eds.). Laval, QC: University of Laval Press, 2015.
Beverley Best, 'Speculating without Hedging: What Marxian Political Economy can offer Laclauian Discourse Theory.' Critical Discourse Studies, 11 (3), 272-287, 2014.
Beverley Best, 'Marx and the Aesthetics of Political Economy.' American International Journal of Social Science, 2 (8), 10-19, 2013.
Beverley Best, ‘Fredric Jameson Notwithstanding’: The Dialectic of Affect. Rethinking Marxism, 23 (1), 2011.
Beverley Best, 'The Problem of Utopia: Capitalism, Depression and Representation.' Canadian Journal of Communication, 35 (4), 2010.