Gopal Balakrishnan

Gopal Balakrishnan was a professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.^[5]

Gopal Balakrishnan
Born	(1966-02-27) February 27, 1966 (age 59)[1] New Delhi, India[2]
Occupation	scholar
Academic background
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles (Ph.D., 1998) (M.A., 1993) Cornell University (B.A., 1989)[2]
Thesis	'The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt' (1998)
Doctoral advisor	Robert Brenner, Perry Anderson[3]
Academic work
Discipline	Historian
Sub-discipline	European Intellectual History
Institutions	University of California, Santa Cruz (2005-2019) University of Chicago (2001-2005)[4]
Website	gopal-balakrishnan.com

Education

Balakrishnan studied European intellectual history and historical sociology at UCLA during the 1990s with Perry Anderson, Robert Brenner, Rogers Brubaker, and Michael Mann. He worked on political thought, intellectual history, and critical theory. Prior to his appointment at UC-Santa Cruz, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago.

Career

Balakrishnan joined the University of California, Santa Cruz as a faculty member and later became a tenured professor. In 2006, he was appointed associate professor in the university’s History of Consciousness Department.^[6]

Scholarly Work

Balakrishnan’s academic work has been the subject of discussion in several independent scholarly publications. A review in the American Historical Review characterized his book The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt as a systematic study that situates Schmitt’s political theory within the broader crises of twentieth-century European history.^[7]

In a review for Newsday, critic Scott McLemee described The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt as a “stimulating” examination of Schmitt’s political thought, noting that the book engages with themes that remain unsettling in contemporary debates.^[8] In Boston Review, William E. Scheuerman praised Balakrishnan’s The Enemy for “usefully highlight[ing] those facets of [Schmitt’s] thinking that anticipate present‑day left‑wing political and intellectual concerns.”^[9]

His essays in New Left Review on geopolitics, sovereignty, and economic stagnation have also been referenced in critical-theory scholarship for their engagement with debates on state power and the long-term trajectory of global capitalism.^[10]

Controversy

In 2017, a number of people published allegations that Balakrishnan had committed sexual assault on multiple occasions. UC Santa Cruz launched an investigation in 2017 that was extended in May 2018.^[11][12] In October 2018, Balakrishnan remained on paid administrative leave.^{[13][14][15][16]} He subsequently resigned as a member of the editorial board of the New Left Review.^[4] In September 2019, he was fired from his position at UCSC, becoming the first tenured faculty member to be fired at UCSC.^[17][18]

Selected publications

Books

• Balakrishnan, Gopal; Anderson, Benedict, eds. (1996). Mapping the nation. Verso.
• Balakrishnan, Gopal (2000). The enemy: an intellectual portrait of Carl Schmitt. Verso.
• Balakrishnan, Gopal, ed. (2003). Debating Empire. Verso.
• Balakrishnan, Gopal (2009). Antagonistics: capitalism and power in an age of war. Verso.

Articles

• Balakrishnan, Gopal (September–October 2000). "Hardt and Negri's Empire". New Left Review. II (5). New Left Review.

Review of the book Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.

• Balakrishnan, Gopal (September–October 2003). "Algorithms of war". New Left Review. II (23). New Left Review.

Review of the book The Shield of Achilles by Philip Bobbitt.

• Balakrishnan, Gopal (September–October 2009). "Speculations on the stationary state". New Left Review. II (59). New Left Review.
• Balakrishnan, Gopal (November–December 2010). "The coming contradiction". New Left Review. II (66). New Left Review.

Review of the book Valences of the Dialectic by Frederic Jameson.