The Kojève We Never Read (feat. Igor Shoikhedbrod)

Alexandre Kojève's influence on intellectual life has been massive. His ideas have shaped major 20th century thinkers from Leo Strauss, Jacques Lacan to Georges Bataille. Today, most of us are familiar with Kojève's thought through his widely commented upon lectures delivered in Paris, 1933 - 1937 and subsequently published as the Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. This is the text that Francis Fukuyama re-interpreted in his infamous End of History and the Last Man essay and book. But Kojève seldom published his works and this has resulted in a partial and limited understanding of what Kojève really thought. I am joined by philosopher Igor Shoikhedbrod for a discussion on a missing, albeit recently translated, text by Kojève entitled Outline of a Phenomenology of Right. This is Kojève's most sustained vision of the universal and homogenous state and in this text he addresses the question of legal right, justice and indeed, of his vision for the communist society. We discuss how Kojève defines the political in contradistinction to Carl Schmitt, what his theory of anthropogenic desire and recognition truly is, and we address Fukuyama’s misreading of Kojève. We also explore why Kojève defines communism as the era of individualism and how his legal thought differs from other Marxist philosophers. In part two, we will dive deeper into Igor's essay, "Alternative Futures of Right in Pashukanis, Kojève, and Bloch" which is included in the book Kojève and Law: A Critical Examination, edited by Igor Shoikhedbrod. Igor Shoikhedbrod is an Assistant Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University. He obtained his PhD at the University of Toronto in 2018, his M.A in Political Science from York University in 2011, and he also holds a B.A from the University of Toronto with a concentration in Ethics, Society, and Law. His doctoral dissertation was awarded the Stephen E. Bronner Dissertation award in 2019 "for an outstanding Political Science dissertation finished within the previous year of the American Political Science Association Meeting which exemplifies the commitment to use scholarship in the struggle for a better world." In 2021, Igor won the Domenico Losurdo International Prize for his essay, "From Hegel to Nietzsche: Domenico Losurdo's Complex Relationship with Liberalism." Prior to his appointment at St. Francis Xavier University, Igor taught courses in political theory, legal theory, ethics, law, and political economy at Dalhousie University, as well as at the University of Toronto, where he won two awards for teaching excellence. Igor is the author of Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism: Rethinking Justice, Legality and Rights (2019) with Palgrave Macmillan. -- Thank you for your continued support of our work which allows me to bring you these discussions on seminal works in the history of Marxist thought and philosophy. If you find my work valuable, please become a Patron to gain early access to all of my interviews and videos and discounts on my public courses: https://www.patreon.com/c/emancipations