By Telos Press · Sunday, July 19, 2015 Ben Agger passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday, July 14, 2015, after experiencing a brief illness. Part of the larger Telos community, as an advocate, reader, and supporter since the 1960s and 1970s in Toronto, Ben was a native of Oregon who became a undergraduate and graduate student at York University before receiving his PhD in Political Economy at the University of Toronto in 1976. After teaching at Bishop’s University in Quebec and the University of Waterloo in Ontario, he returned to the United States to work from 1981 to 1994 at SUNY-Buffalo. He then moved to the University of Texas-Arlington to be the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of Sociology until 1998. Since that time, he served as Professor of Sociology and Humanities as well as the Director of the Center for Theory.
Ben Agger was a truly a critical social theorist, a much admired teacher, a prolific author, and one of Telos‘s best friends. He will be missed.
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By Maxwell Woods · Monday, October 10, 2011 A Journal of No Illusions: Telos, Paul Piccone, and the Americanization of Critical Theory is now available from Telos Press. Maxwell Woods talked with co-editor Ben Agger about the influence Telos has had on his intellectual development.
Maxwell Woods: How do you view your article, “My Telos: A Journal of No Illusions,” and your relationship to Telos today?
 Ben Agger: There has been such an explosion of publishing and publications since the late 60s, when Paul [Piccone] started Telos, that I just can’t keep up with journals and books. I used to pore over the latest issue of Telos as important intellectual sustenance, especially the latest intellectual news from Europe. Today there is less urgency about “keeping up” with publications, even though Telos remains a central part of my intellectual identity. As I say in my chapter, Telos helped formed me as I and others grappled with a humanist and phenomenological Marxism that helped explain America and the world during the 60s and 70s. Telos was a primer, although often a difficult one, for all of us on the New Left who were using Hegel, early Marx, Husserl, Sartre, et al. to understand civil rights, the women’s movement, the war in Vietnam—and our opposition to them. It is a sad commentary on the decline of discourse, as I term it, that books and journals matter less in our Internet age of instantaneity.
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By Maria Piccone · Friday, October 7, 2011 On Tuesday, October 4, Telos Press hosted a book launch for A Journal of No Illusions: Telos, Paul Piccone, and the Americanization of Critical Theory at St. Mark’s Bookshop in New York City. Tim Luke (co-editor of the book), Russell Berman (editor of Telos), and publisher Mary Piccone (Telos Press) provided an engaging look at the history of a courageous and often controversial journal, its brilliant and volatile founder, Paul Piccone, and Telos‘s ongoing contributions to American intellectual life. We had an outstanding turnout—a testimonial to the past, present, and future of Telos, now celebrating its 43rd anniversary.
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By Telos Press · Saturday, October 1, 2011 Telos Press Publishing is proud to announce the newest addition to our book list: A Journal of No Illusions: Telos, Paul Piccone, and the Americanization of Critical Theory, edited by Timothy Luke and Ben Agger. Get your copy here.
In 1968, a young SUNY-Buffalo philosophy graduate student named Paul Piccone started a journal called Telos. No one then could have reasonably expected for it to become an intellectual institution. Originally conceived as the self-consciousness of the American New Left, the journal soon ranged more widely as its authors introduced European social theory and philosophy to a largely American audience unaware of these traditions. Piccone forged a “journal of no illusions” that was iconoclastic, skeptical, and yet motivated by the hope that critique and engagement could become constitutive principles for politics and everyday practices. In this book, an array of authors, many of whom participated in the development of Telos, examine the ongoing legacy of the journal, and address the ways in which Telos formed a generation of young intellectuals, who asked for a “critical theory” to understand both the impasses and possibilities for a progressive politics.
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By Telos Press · Wednesday, September 28, 2011 For all fans of Telos in the New York City area, we will be holding a book launch for A Journal of No Illusions: Telos, Paul Piccone, and the Americanization of Critical Theory, edited by Timothy Luke and Ben Agger, on Tuesday, October 4, from 7pm to 9pm, at St. Mark’s Bookshop, 31 Third Avenue, New York, NY.
In 1968, when Paul Piccone started a journal called Telos, no one could have reasonably expected for it to become an intellectual institution. Originally conceived as the self-consciousness of the American New Left, the journal soon ranged more widely as its authors introduced European social theory and philosophy to a largely American audience unaware of these traditions. Piccone forged a “journal of no illusions” that was iconoclastic, skeptical, and yet motivated by the hope that critique and engagement could become constitutive principles for politics and everyday practices. In this book, an array of authors, many of whom participated in the development of Telos, examine the ongoing legacy of the journal, and address the ways in which Telos formed a generation of young intellectuals, who asked for a “critical theory” to understand both the impasses and possibilities for a progressive politics.
Continue reading →
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