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Staff Profile

Dr Lorenzo Chiesa

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Convenor of Critical Theory and Practice Faculty Research Group, Lead on NU/ZRC SAZU Global Partnership

Background

I am a philosopher who was educated in Canada (International Baccalaureate, UWC Lester B. Pearson College, Victoria, British Columbia), Italy (MA-BA, University of Trieste), and the UK (PhD, University of Warwick).

I have published and taught extensively on psychoanalysis, philosophy of religion, biopolitics, French and Italian thought, and Marxism.

My books include Subjectivity and Otherness (MIT Press, 2007); The Italian Difference (Re.press, 2009; edited with Alberto Toscano); Lacan and Philosophy (Re.press, 2014); Italian Thought Today (Routledge, 2014); The Not-Two: Logic and God in Lacan (MIT Press, 2016); The Virtual Point of Freedom (Northwestern University Press, 2016); Zhelanie i Naslazdenie (Skifia Print, 2020); Das Trojanische Schloss (NDFJ, 2025); and God Is Undead. Psychoanalysis for Unbelievers (Bloomsbury, 2025) (with Adrian Johnston). I translated several books by Agamben and Virno into English and by Žižek into Italian. My own monographs and articles were translated into 10+ languages.

I was previously Professor of Modern European Thought at the University of Kent, where I founded and directed the Centre for Critical Thought. I held visiting positions at institutions in continental Europe, the US, and Asia. I served as co-director of the GSH - Genoa School of Humanities, in Italy.

I am the editor of a series on Italian radical thought (Insubordinations) at the MIT Press. 


Research

My research lies at the intersection of ontology, psychoanalysis, and political theory.

Questions regarding subjectivation, the origins, transmission and modification of social structures, and the ontological and political nature of the human animal are crucial concerns in all strands of my current and recent investigations. My orientation is realist and materialist.

I recently published a book on atheism and agnosticism in psychoanalytic philosophy, co-authored with Adrian Johnston, titled God is Undead. Psychoanalysis for Unbelievers (Bloomsbury, 2025), which aims at further exploring some of the concepts I outlined in The Not-Two (MIT Press, 2016). I am currently writing a monograph on Lacan and Badiou, their "homologous" formalised ontologies and psychoanalysis as a truth-procedure, tentatively titled Letter and Event. Badiou, Lacan, and the Future of Psychoanalysis (to be submitted to the MIT Press).

Over the last five years, I translated Paolo Virno's The Idea of World (Seagull Books, 2022) and Convention and Materialism (MIT Press, 2021), Elvio Fachinelli's The Still Arrow (Seagull Books, 2021), and Anna Kuliscioff's The Monopoly of Man (MIT Press, 2020). 

Teaching

2024-2025

UG teaching:

Semester 1:

Italian Thought

Ancient Philosophy 1 -- Plato

Project (stage 3)

Semester 2:

Philosophy and Psychoanalysis

Ancient Philosophy 2 -- Paul

Project (stage 3)

Three events for the MLitt Philosophy

PhD supervision:

Matthew Collins, "Aesthetics of the Real: from Sublimation to the Sexual Non-Relation" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor) (successfully completed in December 2024)

Holden Rasmussen, "Lacan and Bataille. Desire, Drive, Inner Experience" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor) (to be submitted in Spring 2025)

Zoe Waters, "Silvia Federici, Gendered Capitalism, and the Future of Women's Autonomy" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor) (to be submitted in Autumn 2025)

Sam Briault, "Through a Glass Dialectically. Visions of Contemporary Dialectical Materialism" (primary supervisor)

Arne Beswick. "The Redistribution of Experience. Justice as Fairness" (fully funded by AHRC) (secondary supervisor) (to be submitted in Spring 2025)

Moritz Herrmann, "The Contingency of the Transcendental. Lacan as a Reader of Kant" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Emily Monaghan, "The 'Sex' of Politics: Sexual Difference and Political Ontology" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Matt Colquhoun, "Anti-Oedipus/Pro-Antigone: Deleuze's Orphaned Philosophy" (fully funded by AHRC) (secondary supervisor)


2023-2024

UG teaching:

Semester 1:

Sabbatical

Semester 2:

Italian Thought

Philosophy and Psychoanalysis 

Project (stage 3)

PhD supervision:

Matthew Collins, "Aesthetics of the Real: from Sublimation to the Sexual Non-Relation" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Holden Rasmussen, "Lacan and Bataille. Desire, Drive, Inner Experience" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Zoe Waters, "Silvia Federici, Gendered Capitalism, and the Future of Women's Autonomy" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Sam Briault, "Through a Glass Dialectically. Visions of Contemporary Dialectical Materialism" (primary supervisor)

Arne Beswick. "The Redistribution of Experience. Justice as Fairness" (fully funded by AHRC) (secondary supervisor)

Moritz Herrmann, "The Contingency of the Transcendental. Lacan as a Reader of Kant" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Emily Monaghan, "The 'Sex' of Politics: Sexual Difference and Political Ontology" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Matt Colquhoun, "Anti-Oedipus/Pro-Antigone: Deleuze's Orphaned Philosophy" (fully funded by AHRC) (secondary supervisor)


2022-2023

UG teaching:

Semester 1:

Italian Thought

Philosophy and Psychoanalysis 

Project (stage 3)

Semester 2:

Philosophy and Religion

Project (stage 1 and 3)

Two events for the MLitt Philosophy (women philosophers and psychoanalysis)

PhD supervision:

Gioele P. Cima, "Towards a Dissident Subject: A Philosophical Reading of Elvio Fachinelli" (fully funded by the Newcastle University Iland Scholarship) (primary supervisor)

Matthew Collins, "Lacan's Contribution to Agamben's Theory of Sovereign Power" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Holden Rasmussen, "Lacan and Bataille. Desire, Drive, Inner Experience" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Zoe Waters, "Silvia Federici, Gendered Capitalism, and the Future of Women's Autonomy" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Sam Briault, "Through a Glass Dialectically. Visions of Contemporary Dialectical Materialism" (primary supervisor)

Arne Beswick. "The Redistribution of Experience. Justice as Fairness" (fully funded by AHRC) (secondary supervisor)

Moritz Herrmann, "The Contingency of the Transcendental. Lacan as a Reader of Kant" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Emily Monaghan, "The 'Sex' of Politics: Sexual Difference and Political Ontology" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Matt Colquhoun, "Anti-Oedipus/Pro-Antigone: Deleuze's Orphaned Philosophy" (fully funded by AHRC) (secondary supervisor)

MLitt supervision:

Fenn Waterston [Italian theory; feminism; critique of ideology]


2021-2022

UG teaching:

Semester 1:

Italian Thought

Philosophy and Psychoanalysis 

Project (stage 2 and 3)

Semester 2:

Philosophy and Religion

Project (stage 1, 2, and 3)

Two sessions for the MLitt Philosophy (the Imaginary and the Symbolic in Lacan)

PhD supervision:

Gioele P. Cima, "Towards a Dissident Subject: A Philosophical Reading of Elvio Fachinelli" (fully funded by the Newcastle University Iland Scholarship) (primary supervisor)

Matthew Collins, "Lacan's Contribution to Agamben's Theory of Sovereign Power" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Holden Rasmussen, "Lacan and Bataille. Desire, Drive, Inner Experience" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Zoe Waters, "Silvia Federici, Gendered Capitalism, and the Future of Women's Autonomy" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

Sam Briault, "Through a Glass Dialectically. Visions of Contemporary Dialectical Materialism" (primary supervisor)

Arne Beswick. "The Redistribution of Experience. Justice as Fairness" (fully funded by AHRC) (secondary supervisor)

MLitt supervision:

Fenn Waterston [Italian theory; psychoanalysis; critique of ideology]

I welcome applications from potential doctoral students. I supervised to successful completion PhD theses on French and Italian contemporary thought, biopolitics, psychiatry and philosophy, psychoanalysis and literature, and autobiographical writing and philosophy.


2020-2021

UG teaching:

Semester 1:

Philosophy, Culture, and Society [Italian Theory: Emancipation and the Politics of Life]

Project (stage 2)

Semester 2:

Philosophy and Religion [Paul, Today]

Power, Knowledge, Desire [Psychoanalytic Socio-Political Theory: from Freud to Zizek]

Project (stage 1 and 2)

Two sessions for the MLitt Philosophy ("Introduction to Italian Theory" and "Lacan and Foucault: Author, Subject, Structure")

PhD supervision:

Gioele P. Cima, "Towards a Dissident Subject: A Philosophical Reading of Elvio Fachinelli" (fully funded by the Newcastle University Iland Scholarship) (primary supervisor)

Matthew Collins, "Lacan's Contribution to Agamben's Theory of Sovereign Power" (fully funded by AHRC) (primary supervisor)

MLitt supervision:

Mike Spencer, "Sexuality and Divinity in Lacan"


2019-2020

UG teaching

Semester 1:

Philosophy, Culture, and Society [Italian Theory: Emancipation and the Politics of Life]

Ancient Philosophy (part 2) [The Sophists, Socrates, and Plato] 

Semester 2:

Philosophy and Religion [Paul, Today]

Power, Knowledge, Desire [Psychoanalytic Socio-Political Theory: from Freud to Zizek]

Project (stage 1)

Two sessions for the MLitt Philosophy (on Lacan and Foucault)

MLitt supervision:

Mike Spencer, "Sexuality and Divinity in Lacan"


Publications

  • Articles

    • Chiesa L. Badiou/Lacan-Badiou. Beyond Anti-Philosophy. Filozofski Vestnik 2024, 45.
    • Chiesa L. »Sam tega ne vem in tudi vi tega ne morete vedeti«: Freudov agnosticizem?. Problemi 2023.
    • Chiesa L. On Some Questions Prior to Any Possible Treatment of Lacan's Theory of Discourses as Political. CT&T: Continental Thought and Theory 2022, 4(2), 346-374.
    • Chiesa L. Il primo grammo di godimento: Lacan lettore di Genet. PHI/PSY. Rivista di filosofia e psicoanalisi 2021, 1, 55-70.
    • Chiesa L. Anthropie: Poleg načela ugodja. Problemi 2021, 21(9-10).
    • Chiesa L. Anthropie: Beside the Pleasure Principle. CT&T: Continental Thought & Theory 2020, 3(2), 189-205.
    • Chiesa L. ¿Cristianismo o comunismo? El hegelianismo marxiano y el marxismo hegeliano de Žižek. Revista Iconoclasia 2020, 2.
    • Chiesa L. The Trojan Castle: Lacan and Kafka on Knowledge, Enjoyment, and the Big Other. Crisis and Critique 2019, 6(1), 29-65.
    • Chiesa L. Notes on Revolution and the Southern Question: Gramsci with Lenin. Stasis 2019, 6(2), 66-80.
    • Chiesa L. Superpolitically Apolitical: On Agamben's Use of Bodies. Journal of Italian Philosophy 2018, 1, 22-26.
    • Chiesa L. Lenin and the State of the Revolution. Crisis and Critique 2017, 4(2), 107-131.
    • Chiesa L. The Absence of the Sexual Relationship: A Transcendental Invariant of the Species?. Paragraph 2016, 39(1), 82-92.
    • Chiesa L. The First Gram of Jouissance: Lacan on Genet's Le Balcon. The Comparatist 2015, 39, 6-21.
    • Chiesa L. Psychoanalysis, Religion, Love. Crisis and Critique 2015, 2(1), 56-71.
    • Chiesa L. The Body of Structural Dialectic: Badiou, Lacan, and the ‘Human Animal’. Journal of Badiou Studies 2014, 3(1), 1-23.
    • Chiesa L. Umano, inumano e umanesimo nella "Critica della ragion dialettica" di Sartre. aut aut 2012, 353.
    • Chiesa L. Of Bastard Man and Evil Woman, or, The Horror of Sex. Film Philosophy 2012, 16(1).
    • Chiesa L, Timofeeva O. Of (Post-)Socialist Animals and Plants: Lysenko with Platonov. Umbr(a) - A Journal of the Unconscious 2012.
    • Chiesa L. Christianity or Communism? Zizek's Marxian Hegelianism and Hegelian Marxism. Revue International de Philosophie 2012, 66(3).
    • Chiesa L. Wounds of Testimony and Martyrs of the Unconscious: Lacan and Pasolini contra the Discourse of Freedom. JEP European Journal of Psychoanalysis 2011, 32(1).
    • Chiesa L, Ruda F. The Event of Language as Form of Life: Agamben's Linguistic Vitalism. Angelaki 2011, 16(3).
    • Chiesa L. The Bio-theo-politics of Birth. Angelaki 2011, 16(3).
    • Chiesa L. Hyperstructuralism's Necessity of Contingency. S: Journal of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique 2010.
    • Chiesa L. The World of Desire: Lacan Between Psychoanalytic Theory and Evolutionary Biology’. Filozofski Vestnik 2009, 2.
    • Chiesa L. Lacancı Hakikatin Marksist Maddecilik Olarak Olası Ele Alınış Biçimini Önceleyen Düşünceler. MonoKL 2009, 6-7.
    • Chiesa L. Topology of Fear. Subjectivity: International Journal of Critical Psychology 2008, 24.
    • Chiesa L. The Gift of Grace: on Dogville. Film-Philosophy 2008, 12(1).
    • Chiesa L. Giorgio Agamben-ui Francesco-pa-jeok jon-jae-ron. Jawum and Mowum 2008.
    • Chiesa L, Toscano A. Agape and the Anonymous Religion of Atheism. Angelaki 2007, 12(1).
    • Chiesa L. Lacan with Lars von Trier: Tragic Transgression and Symbolic Reinscription. Angelaki 2006, 11(2).
    • Chiesa L. Count-as-One, Forming-into-One, Unary Trait, S1: Number in Badiou and Lacan. Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 2006, 2(1).
    • Chiesa L. Le Ressort de l’Amour: Lacan’s Theory of Love in His Reading of Plato’s Symposium. Angelaki 2006, 11(3).
    • Chiesa L. The Subject of the Imaginary (other). Journal for Lacanian Studies 2005, 3(1).
    • Chiesa L, Toscano A. Ethics and Capital: Ex Nihilo. Umbr(a): A Journal of the Unconscious 2005.
    • Chiesa L. Lucid Unreason: Foucault with Artaud. Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy 2002, 13.
    • Chiesa L. Il dolore di Artaud. aut aut 2001, 304.
    • Chiesa L. La lucida sragione: Artaud e Foucault. aut aut 1998, 285-286.

  • Authored Books

  • Book Chapters

    • Chiesa L. Supreme Being-in-Evil, Criminal Good, and Criminal Desire. In: C. Owens, ed. Studying Lacan’s Seminar VII. Routledge, 2022. Submitted.
    • Chiesa L. Insomnia@Work: Between Neo-Workerism and Psychoanalysis. In: Carson R; Halligan B; Penzin A; Pippa S, ed. Politics of the Many : Contemporary Radical Thought and the Crisis of Agency. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021, pp.171-184.
    • Chiesa L. Bredvid Lustprincipen. In: Lerner P; Wessely T, ed. Freud och Dodsdriften. Hägersten: TankeKraft, 2021.
    • Chiesa L. Lenin and the Transitional-Revolutionary State. In: Magun, A, ed. The Future of the State: Philosophy and Politics. Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.
    • Chiesa L. Obsessional Desire in Seminar V: The Exploits of Tantalus. In: Carol Owens and Nadezhda Almqvist, ed. Studying Lacan's Seminars IV and V: From Lack to Desire. Abingdon: Routledge, 2019, pp.189-200.
    • Chiesa L. Author, Subject, Structure: Lacan Contra Foucault. In: Bou Ali N, Goel R, ed. Lacan Contra Foucault: Subjectivity, Sex, and Politics. London: Bloomsbury, 2019, pp.55-80.
    • Chiesa L. Lacan with Evo-Devo?. In: Goldbach, J; Godley, JA, ed. Inheritance in Psychoanalysis. Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 2018, pp.44-56.
    • Chiesa L. The State of Communism: Badiou, Stalin, Lenin. In: Finkelde, D, ed. Badiou and the State. Baden Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2017, pp.127-150.
    • Chiesa L. Exalted Obscenity and the Lawyer of God: Lacan, Deleuze, and the Baroque. In: Nedoh,B; Zevnik,A, ed. Lacan and Deleuze. A Disjunctive Synthesis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
    • Chiesa L. Jouissance in Lacan's Seminar XX: Prolegomena to a New Reading. In: Miguel de Beistegui, Giuseppe Bianco, and Marjorie Gracieuse, ed. The Care of Life: Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Bioethics and Biopolitics. London and New York: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2015, pp.295-308.
    • Chiesa L. Pasolini e l'aborto: tra biopolitica e tanatopolitica. In: Messina,D, ed. Corpus XXX. Pasolini: Petrolio-Salo'. Clueb, 2012.
    • Chiesa L. Ernesto Laclau, rivoluzionario borghese. In: Melegari,D, ed. Democrazia radicale e populismo. Ombre Corte, 2012.
    • Chiesa L. Notes Towards a Manifesto for Metacritical Realism. In: Potocnik, M; Ruda, F; Volker, J, ed. Beyond Potentialities? Politics between the Possible and the Impossible. Diaphanes, 2011.
    • Chiesa L. “Christianisme ou communisme? L’hégélianisme marxien et le marxisme hégélien de Žižek”. In: Moati, R, ed. Autour de Slavoj Žižek: Psychanalyse, Marxisme, Idéalisme Allemand. Presses Universitaires de France, 2010.
    • Chiesa L. Giorgio Agamben’s Franciscan Ontology. In: Chiesa, L; Toscano, A, ed. The Italian Difference. Between Nihilism and Biopolitics. Re.press, 2009.
    • Chiesa L. A Theatre of Subtractive Extinction: Bene Without Deleuze. In: Cull, L, ed. Deleuze and Performance. Edinburgh University Press, 2009.
    • Chiesa L. Pasolini, Badiou, Žižek en de erfenis van de christelijke naastenliefde. In: T. Bakker and R. Brouwer, ed. Liberticide: Kritische reflecties op het Neoliberalisme. Utrecht: Uitgeverij IJzer, 2008.
    • Chiesa L. Of Teaching and the University Discourse. In: I. Parker and S. Revelli, ed. Psychoanalytic Practice and State Regulation. Karnac Books, 2008.
    • Chiesa L. Pasolini and the Ugliness of Bodies. In: L. Polezzi, C. Ross, ed. In Corpore: Bodies in Post-Unification Italy. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007.
    • Chiesa L. Pasolini, Badiou, Žižek und das Erbe der christlichen Liebe. In: M. de Kesel and D. Hoens, ed. Wieder Religion? Christentum im zeitgenössischen kritischen Denken (Lacan, Zizek, Badiou u.a.). Turia + Kant, 2006.
    • Chiesa L. Lacan with Artaud: j’ouïs-sens, jouis-sans, jouis-sens. In: S. Žižek, ed. Lacan: The Silent Partner. Verso, 2006.
    • Chiesa L. Jacques Lacan. In: J. Wintle, ed. New Makers of Modern Culture. Routledge, 2006.
    • Chiesa L. Alain Badiou. In: J. Wintle, ed. New Makers of Modern Culture. Routledge, 2006.
    • Chiesa L, Cantone D. Tutto quello che avreste sempre voluto sapere su Hitchcock e non avete mai osato (non) chiedere a Žižek. In: S. Žižek, ed. Dello sguardo e altri oggetti. Saggi su cinema e psicoanalisi. Campanotto, 2004.

  • Edited Books

  • Editorials

    • Chiesa L, Nedoh B, Piasentier M. Introduction. Italian Biopolitical Theory and Beyond: Genealogy, Psychoanalysis, and Biology. Paragraph 2016, 39(1), 1-9.
    • Chiesa L. Editorial Introduction. Towards a New Philosophical-Psychoanalytic Materialism and Realism. JEP European Journal of Psychoanalysis 2011, 32(1).
    • Chiesa L. Editorial Introduction. Biopolitics in Early Twentieth-First-Century Italian Theory. Angelaki 2011, 16(3).
    • Chiesa L, Toscano A. Introduction to The Italian Difference. Between Nihilism and Biopolitics. 2009.
    • Chiesa L. Nota del curatore, in S. Žižek, America Oggi: Abu Ghraib e altre oscenità del potere. 2005.
    • Chiesa L, Cantone D. Nota dei curatori, in S. Žižek, Il soggetto scabroso – Trattato di ontologia politica. 2003.