Antonio Negri

Antonio “Toni” Negri is a central figure of the “workerist” (Operaismo) reading of Marxism. Early in his career, he was appointed Professor of the Philosophy of Law at the Political Sciences Institute of the University of Padua, where he soon became Director. Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, Negri was a leader of the Italian social and political opposition movement. Following the repression of the social struggle in Italy, Negri was in exile in France (1983–97) and taught at the École normale supérieure and at the Collège international de philosophie of the University of Paris 8. There, he became close to Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Michel Foucault. Negri’s work focuses on the study of political philosophy (e.g. Descartes, Hegel, Leopardi, Spinoza, Marx, or the concept of “constituent power”), and, for the past twenty years, issues of globalization. The international success of his book Empire, co-authored with Michael Hardt, followed by Multitude, and Commonwealth, confirmed Negri as one of the most important thinkers in contemporary political debate. Now retired from his academic career, Negri lives and works in France and Italy, and continues to lecture at universities in France, Italy, and elsewhere.