Barry Stocker
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Barry Stocker (Dr)(1966 – date) is an English philosopher, long based in Turkey, His numerous publications on European Philosophy, Wittgenstein, philosophy and literature, political and ethical philosophy have notably decoded the notoriously abstruse world of French philosopher Jacques Derrida.
Founding member of editorial board of theoretical hummanities and philosophy journal ‘Angelaki’ (2001-present)
Barry Stocker's interests include Liberal and Republican political philosophy. Like many he has moved from youthful Marxism to a more capitalist view of the world. He was an active Communist from the age of 15, attracted by the Eurocommunist attempt to synthesise Marxism, Liberal Democracy, and 60s social movements. During his doctorate he joined the Liberal Democrats, supporting the most free market and Classical Liberal elements in the party. H eis no longer politically acitve but is deeply engaged with Liberal and Republican ideas from Aristotle to Foucault, along with Livy, Machiavelli, Adam Smith, Kant, Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber and various others.
Stocker became interested in philosophy at school in Croydon. After undergraduate work in Philosophy at Warwick University (1984-1987), his interests settled on Continental European Philosophy and Pilosophy and Literature. MA work in Philosophy and Literature at Warwick was followed doctorate from the University of Sussex (following a start at the University of Southampton). Intitially he intended to focus on Literary Theory, mixed with European Philosophy, and planned a shift into Literary Studies. During his doctoral studies (under the supervision of Geoffrey Bennington, later personal influences included Barry Allen and Daniel Hutto) he gained a new interest in philosophical issues, including work in Analytic Philosophy. His doctorate was on Philosophy and Literature. The philosophy side concentrated on Derrida and the literary side concentrated on Beckett and Joyce.
He Taught at Yedipe University, Istanbul 1997-2007, after one semester teaching at the East Mediterranean University, Famagusta, Northern Cyprus. He joined Yeditepe when it was a new university and hoped for to help build a major department in a major new university. He worked on university projects, in particular the department journal, 'Yeditepe'de Felsefe'. Ultimately he found the university administration highly disappointing and was pushed to look for a new post when along with other foreigners he was obliged to leave university accommodation very suddenly in the middle of the academic year. This reflected an arbitrary and top down approach unredeemed by support or reward for academic achievements. He also failed to leave a mark on the planning of the university department, which never reflected his own ideas with regard to the program or its general activities.
He currently works full time at Istanbul Technical University, in the Department of Humanities and Social Science, where he has found a much more positive atmosphere. Philosophers in the Department aim to form a Department of Philosophy within a few years. He also teaches part time in the department of philosophy at at Boğaziçi University Istanbul, and has an honorary fellowship in the Department of Philosophy, University College London.
His work on Derrida aims to assess Derrida with regard to all schools of philosophy and resue Derrida's philosophy from uncritical adulation in a repetitive jargon. Derrida on Deonstruction was published by Routledge in 2006. He has edited Derrida: Basic Writings for Routledge who plan to publish it in 2007. He contributed to work round the 'New Wittgenstein' in Post-Analytic Wittgenstein which he edited for Ashgate Publishing. Other core interests include commentary on Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein; and philosophical themes of ethical agency, liberal political philosophy, the status of literary judgement, and the limits of language. He has published jounral articles and book chapters on those topics in the UK, USA, Canada, Poland, Bosnia and Turkey.
