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Paul Hirst | |
|---|---|
| Born | Paul Quentin Hirst (1946-05-20)20 May 1946 Holbeton, England |
| Died | 17 June 2003(2003-06-17) (aged 57) London, England |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Academic advisors | Thomas Bottomore |
| Influences | |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | |
| Sub-discipline | |
| School or tradition | |
| Institutions | Birkbeck College, London |
| Influenced | Keith Jenkins |
Paul Quentin Hirst[a] (1946–2003) was a British sociologist and political theorist. He became Professor of Social Theory atBirkbeck College, London, in 1985 and held the post until his death from a stroke and brain haemorrhage.[2]
On 20 May 1946, Hirst was born inHolbeton,Devon. His father was in the armed forces and part of this childhood was spent in Germany. He went to grammar school in Plymouth, he studied social science at the University of Leicester, where he was taught bySami Zubaida, and took his master's in sociology at theUniversity of Sussex.[3]
Hirst took up a lectureship atBirkbeck College in 1969. In 1972, he was one of the founding members of the Department of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck. He was appointed Reader in Social Theory in 1978 and Professor seven years later.[2][3]
During the 1970s he became well known (along withBarry Hindess) as the main figure in Britishstructural Marxism. By the late 1970s and 1980s, however, Hirst had become a critic ofLouis Althusser's brand ofMarxism. Drawing uponMichel Foucault but alsoW. V. O. Quine andLudwig Wittgenstein, he criticised essentialism, epistemological discourses and the possibility of any general theory, in a move against careless sociological constructionist imperialism. In his work ondemocratic governance, he turned towards the ideas of the English political pluralists:John Neville Figgis,G. D. H. Cole, andHarold Laski. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hirst developed a theory ofassociationalism which attempted to revivesocial democracy by providing an alternative tostate socialism andfree-market liberalism. He also made important contributions tocritical legal theory.
His later work, withGrahame Thompson resulted in an influential criticism of fashionable theories of economicglobalisation, demonstrating the continued importance of the nation-state.[3] His book 'War and Power' is a historical-sociological analysis of the development of the modern state and state system and addresses some of current political challenges including climate change. His last book 'Space and Power' clearly demonstrated his intellectual scope. In the book he investigates the relationship between space and power, arguing that the exercise of power is both constrained by and shapes the character of the built environment.
WithMark Cousins,Colin MacCabe, andRichard Humphreys, he founded theLondon Consortium in 1993.[3] He chaired the executive committee of Charter 88 and was an early and regular contributor toopenDemocracy.
He died on 17 June 2003 inLondon.
