Ben Turner - Political Theorist
Ben Turner
Lecturer in Political Theory
I am a Lecturer in Political Theory in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. My research addresses questions relating to technology, work, ideology and ontology.
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My first book, Returning to Judgment, explores the place of political judgment in the work of Bernard Stiegler, and contrasts his approach with his predecessors in continental political theory, particular those within its various ontological turns. I have also published on other themes in Stiegler's philosophy and political thought, the role of ideology in contemporary continental philosophy (Stiegler, Malabou, Meillassoux) and the significance of the ontological turn in anthropology for political theory. Links to these papers can be found here.​
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I am currently working on a range of interrelated issues within the politics of work, technology and epistemological agency. These include whether contemporary post-work writing might be considered to be a distinct tradition in political theory (supported by the Leverhulme Trust), the impact of automated management technologies on workplace democracy, and how recent work in continental political theory might contribute to the problems examined by social epistemology, particularly when considering the impact of technological change. Across this work I also have an interest in recent methodological debates in political theory.
I can be contacted at B.Turner[at]qmul.ac.uk.
Research
My research to date has focused on the significance of the work of Bernard Stiegler to continental political theory, particularly in my first book Returning to Judgement in which I argue that he advocates for break with the reticence towards political judgement in the tradition.
This book was featured on the Hermetix Podcast and has been reviewed in Technophany.
I have also published on Stiegler's influences (such as Blanchot) and his views on ideology critique and work. Alongside this research I have also published on ideology critique in contemporary continental thought and on the relationship between the recent ontological turn in anthropology and the use of ontology in political theory (please see below for links to these publications).
I am currently working on several projects that build on these interests by pursuing the more active, judgment focused approach that I develop from Stiegler's work and by moving beyond the continental tradition:
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The Foundations of Post-Work Political Thought
Post-work thought is a term that has generated large amounts of attention both within political theory and beyond, however what this nascent tradition entails is still undetermined. From September 2024 I will be working on a Leverhulme Trust funded project that examines the scope of post-work thought, the shared features of its diagnosis of the harms of work, and how this diagnosis grounds its policy proposals.
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Algorithmic Management and Workplace Democracy
Adjacent to the development of post-work thought, there has been a revival of support for democratic reforms to the firm. I bring a contextualist approach to these demands, by exploring how algorithmic management may act as a feasibility constraint upon the pursuit of goods promised by workplace democracy.
Publications
Books
Turner, Ben. Returning to Judgement: Bernard Stiegler and Continental Political Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2023.
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Articles
Turner, Ben. ‘Situating Realism, the Ethnographic Sensibility, and Comparative Political Theory within the Methodological Turn in Political Theory’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations. Online First (2024). Available here.
–––. ‘”Above and Beyond the Market”: The Family, Social Reproduction and Conservatism in Bernard Stiegler’s Politics of Work.’ Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 26, no. 6 (2021): 68-85. Available here.
Turner, Ben & Lucas Van Milders. ‘Introduction: Why Should Political Theorists Care About Work?’ Theory & Event 24, no. 4 (2021): 1035-1049. Available here.
Turner, Ben. ‘The Limits of Culture in Political Theory: A Critique of Multiculturalism from the Perspective of Anthropology’s Ontological Turn.’ European Journal of Political Theory 20, no. 2 (2021): 252-271. Available here.
–––. ‘From Resistance to Invention in the Politics of the Impossible: Bernard Stiegler’s Political Reading of Maurice Blanchot.’ Contemporary Political Theory 18, no. 1 (2019): 43-64. Available here.
–––. ‘Affinity and Antagonism: Structuralism, Comparison and Transformation in Pluralist Political Ontology.’ Philosophy & Social Criticism 45, no. 1 (2019): 27-49. Available here.
–––. ‘Science and Ideology Revisited: Necessity, Contingency and the Critique of Ideologies in Meillassoux and Malabou.’ Theory & Event 22, no. 4 (2018): 865-890. Available here.
–––. ‘Ideology and Post-Structuralism after Bernard Stiegler.’ Journal of Political Ideologies 22, no. 1 (2017): 92–110. Available here.
–––. ‘Life and the Technical Transformation of Différance: Stiegler and the Noopolitics of Becoming Non-Inhuman.’ Derrida Today 9, no. 2 (2016): 177–98. Available here.
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Book Chapters
Turner, Ben. ‘Post-Work and the Problem of Recognition: A Defence of Working Time Reduction.’ In Debating a Post-Work Future: Perspectives from Philosophy and the Social Sciences, edited by Kory P. Schaff, Michael Cholbi, Jean-Phillipe Deranty & Denise Celentano, pp. 240-261. London: Routledge, 2024.
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–––. ‘Politicising the Epoché: Bernard Stiegler and the Politics of Epochal Suspension.’ In The Subject(s) of Phenomenology: Rereading Husserl, edited by Iulian Apostolescu, pp. 341-354. Dordrecht: Springer, 2020. Available here.