Expertise

critical theory; Marxism; the history of political thought; the history of the novel, especially the nineteenth-century European realist novel

Biography

Matthew J. Smetona is Associate Professor of Instruction in the Intellectual Heritage Program. His research interests center on critical theory, the history of political thought, and the history of the novel. His most recent book, Recovering the Later Georg Lukács: A Study on the Unity of His Thought, was published in 2023 by the MIT Press. A précis of the book will be published in the Jahrbuch der Internationalen Georg-Lukács-Gesellschaft. The book has been reviewed in Rethinking Marxism and Socialist History. 

His first book, Hegel’s Logical Comprehension of the Modern State, was published in 2013 by Lexington Books and reviewed in Perspectives on Politics. He is the author of peer-reviewed articles published in Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, Rethinking Marxism, Angelaki, Theoria, Telos, and Epoché; book chapters published in Georg Lukács and the Possibilities of Critical Social Ontology (Brill, 2019) and Hegel’s Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics (Routledge, 2018); a translation of an essay authored by Lukács from the German with an introduction forthcoming in Angelaki; and a book review published in The Philosophical Quarterly.

He serves on the editorial board of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities as a contributing editor, and he has served as a manuscript referee for the University of Michigan Press, Routledge, Historical Materialism, Rethinking Marxism, Theory & Event, European Journal of Political Theory, Constellations, Journal of Social Philosophy, Metodo, Moral Philosophy and Politics, and Political Research Quarterly. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Temple University.

Website

Selected Publications

Books:

• Recovering the Later Georg Lukács: A Study on the Unity of His Thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2023.
  - Reviewed in Rethinking Marxism vol. 36, no. 2 (2024): 291-295.
  - Reviewed in Socialist History vol. 2023, no. 64 (Autumn 2023): 72-86.
• Hegel’s Logical Comprehension of the Modern State. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013.
  - Reviewed in Perspectives on Politics vol. 12, no. 4 (Dec. 2014): 907-909.

Peer Reviewed Articles (Selected):

• “Lukács and the project of a Marxist literary history: Balzac and Dostoevsky.” Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory vol. 20, no. 3 (2018): 340-370.
• “Reification: A defense of Lukács’s original formulation.” Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities vol. 23, no. 5 (2018): 32-47.
• “Marx’s normative understanding of the capitalist system.” Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society vol. 27, no. 1 (Jan. 2015): 51-64.
• “Hegel and Marx on the spurious infinity of modern civil society.” Telos vol. 166 (Spring 2014): 122-142.

Chapters in Edited Volumes:

• “Lukács’s ontology of social being and the material basis of intentionality.” In Georg Lukács and the Possibilities of Critical Social Ontology, ed. Michael J. Thompson, 41-77. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019.
• “Hegel and the end of a particular historical development.” In Hegel’s Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics, ed. Michael J. Thompson, 301-325. London and New York: Routledge, 2018.

Translation:

• Georg Lukács, “The Problem of Perspective.” Translated from the German with an Introduction. Forthcoming in Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities. "Das Problem der Perspektive" (1956). In Georg Lukács Werke Band 4, Seiten 651 657. Neuweid & Berlin: Hermann Luchterhand Verlag, 1962-1986.

Invited Contribution: 

• Précis of Recovering the Later Georg Lukács. Forthcoming in Jahrbuch der Internationalen Georg-Lukács-Gesellschaft.

Book Review:

• Hegel and the Metaphysical Frontiers of Political Theory, by Eric Lee Goodfield. The Philosophical Quarterly vol. 66, no. 263 (Apr. 2016): 426-429.