Joseph Buttigieg

Joseph A. Buttigieg , William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of English and retired director of the Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Program at the University of Notre Dame, died Sunday (Jan. 27 2019). He was 71.

Background

“Joe was a superb scholar, an inspirational teacher and a pioneering leader as the inaugural director of the fledgling Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Program,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president. “We join with his many, many family and friends in mourning his passing. We will miss him at Notre Dame. God rest his soul.”

Raised on the Mediterranean island of Malta, Buttigieg earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Malta, a second bachelor’s degree from Heythrop College in London and his doctorate from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

He came to the United States in order to pursue his doctorate at the State University of New York, Binghamton, earning his Ph.D. in 1976 and becoming a U.S. Citizen in 1979.

In 1976 he moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, to teach at New Mexico State University, where he met and fell in love with a fellow new faculty member, Jennifer Anne Montgomery. They were married in El Paso, Texas, on January 6, 1980. Soon afterward, they moved together to South Bend, Indiana, where Joseph would serve on the faculty as a professor of English until his retirement in 2017.

Buttigieg joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1980 and, in addition to his service as director of the Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Program and as a faculty member in English, he was a fellow in the University’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies and Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the director of the Stamps Scholars Program at Notre Dame.

Buttigieg’s main areas of interest were modern literature, critical theory and the relationship between culture and politics. In addition to numerous articles, he was the author of a book on James Joyce’s aesthetics, “A Portrait of the Artist in Different Perspective.” He is also the editor and translator of the multi-volume complete critical edition of “Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks,” a project that has been supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Several of his articles on Gramsci, the Italian philosopher, writer and politician, have been translated into Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese. He was a founding member of the International Gramsci Society, of which he was president, and the Italian minister of culture appointed him to a commission of experts to oversee the preparation of the “edizione nazionale” (national edition/complete works) of Gramsci’s writings. Buttigieg also served on the editorial and advisory boards of various journals, and he was a member of “boundary 2,” an editorial collective that publishes a journal of literature and culture.

Buttigieg directed the Hesburgh-Yusko program from its first year in 2010 through 2017. The program is a merit-based scholarship and leadership development initiative that equips students to have a transformational impact on the world. It is named for the late Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president from 1952 to 1987 and one of the 20th century’s most influential leaders in the Catholic Church, higher education and national and international affairs, and Mark W. Yusko and Stacey Miller Yusko, who underwrote the creation of the program with a generous gift in 2009.

Hesburgh-Yusko scholars are evaluated according to four criteria: demonstrated leadership ability, distinguished academic accomplishment, sincere commitment to service and exemplary moral character. They receive four years of merit scholarship awards of $25,000 annually toward the cost of attending Notre Dame; intellectual engagement within a community of scholars participating in regular discussion forums, local initiatives and social activities throughout the academic year; four summer enrichment experiences based upon wilderness leadership, social justice, global inquiry and professional venture; and guidance and support from dedicated program staff and faculty mentors.

Buttigieg is survived by his wife, Anne Montgomery, who was a member of the Notre Dame faculty for 29 years, and his son, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend. ^[1]

Rethinking MARXISM

The Summer 1990 edition of the avowedly Marxist "Rethinking MARXISM" publication listed Joseph Buttigieg as a member of its "Advisory Board", along with veteran Soviet/Communist Party USA connected individuals including Rosalyn Baxandall, Johnnetta Cole of the Cuban DGI/KGB-created Venceremos Brigade and a one-time Board member of the Coca Cola company; Cornel West, the Princeton professor who passes himself off as a "democratic socialist" or "liberal" (the latter descriptive term used by Fox TV show host Tucker Carlson; and rabid Marxist (professor) Richard Wolff.

"Rethinking Marxism" describes one of its goals as: "We are interested in promoting Marxian approaches to social theory because we believe that they are an important factor in developing strategies for radical social change -- in particular, for an end to class exploitation and the various forms of political, cultural, and psychological oppression (including oppression on the basis of race and gender). We especially welcome research that explores these and related issues from a Marxian perspective." (Inside page of publication's cover).

Another key sentence which could apply to son Peter Buttigieg's presidential campaign of 2020 is as follows: "We are therefore interested in the complex intersection of class with economic, political, psychological, and all other social processes".

Is this one of the first uses of the concept of " intersectionality" as a Marxian tool for changing society, with it now being the key operational word of the U.S. Marxist Left and many Democrat Party members, especially Members of Congress?

Left Forum Advisory Board

In 2009 the Left Forum Advisory Board included Gilbert Achcar, Tariq Ali, Ashanti Alston, Anthony Arnove, Robin Blackburn, Barbara Bowen, Jack Bratich, Rose Brewer, Renate Bridenthal, Michael Brie, Stephen Brier, Stephen Eric Bronner, Paul Buhle, Joseph Buttigieg, Luciana Castellina, Angela Dillard, Stephen Duncombe, Hester Eisenstein, Barbara Epstein, Deepa Fernandes, Hector Figueroa, Harriet Fraad, Josh Freeman, Barbara Garson, Heather Gautney, Marvin Gettleman, Arun Gupta, Jack Hammond, David Harvey, Gerald Horne, Boris Kagarlitsky, Robin D. G. Kelley, Christine A. Kelly, Peter Kwong, Joanne Landy, Jesse Lemisch, Michael Lowy, Nivedita Majumdar, Manning Marable, Randy Martin, Liz Mestres, Susan O'Malley, Cathy Mulder, Leo Panitch, Christian Parenti, Thomas Ponniah, Barbara Ransby, Michael Ratner, Jan Rehmann, Gerardo Renique, Rainer Rilling, Colin Robinson, Nan Rubin, Roger Salerno, Stephen R. Shalom, Neil Smith, Richard Smith, Meredith Tax, Eleni Varikas, Victor Wallis, Joseph Wilson.^[2]

Boundary2

Joseph Buttigieg served on the editorial board of Boundary 2 with Paul Bove, Jonathan Arac, William Spanos, Michael Hays, Daniel O'Hara, Donald Pease, Margaret Ferguson and Nancy Fraser. ^[3]

In 2019 the board had changed:

Editorial Board: Charles Bernstein, John Beverley, Joseph Buttigieg, Rey Chow, Colin Dayan, Arif Dirlik, Nuruddin Farah, Margaret Ferguson, Anthony Grafton, Fredric Jameson, George Lamming, Marcia Landy, Gayatri Spivak, Wang Hui, Cornel West, Rob Wilson

Communist "Manifestivity"

On October 30 and 31, 1998 the Brecht Forum presented the "Communist Manifestivity to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto" at Cooper Union's Great Hall, New York.

Individual endorsers of the event included Joseph Buttigieg.^[4]

One of the many workshops at the Manifestivity was;

Can We Go from Cultural Imperialism to World Culture? with Amiri Baraka, Aijaz Ahmad, Joseph Buttigieg, Annette Rubinstein, Sonia Sanchez and N'Gugi Wa Thiongo. Moderator: Colleen Roach.