About

Massimiliano Tomba is a Professor in the Department of History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz, with a focus on time and temporalities, Marxism, critical theory, and modern and contemporary political thought. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from the University of Pisa and has taught Political Philosophy at the University of Padova in Italy. His research specializes in German classical philosophy, and he has been involved in an international project since 2012 aimed at rethinking dominant schemes of interpretation of global society to overcome Eurocentrism in concepts of universalism, space, and time. His scholarly work explores a wide range of topics including Hegel, Kant, Marx, Walter Benjamin, the French Revolution, fascism, historical revisionism, Italian workerism, new social movements, and the impact of financial crises on democracies in Europe and the United States. Tomba's publications include books such as 'Krise und Kritik bei Bruno Bauer,' 'La vera politica,' 'Marx’s Temporalities,' 'Attraverso la piccola porta,' and 'Insurgent Universality,' the latter of which was co-winner of the 2021 David and Elaine Spitz Prize for the best book in liberal and democratic theory published in 2019. His work has been translated into multiple languages, reflecting its international influence. His research interests encompass Continental philosophy, political theory, critical history, materialist inquiry, and modern history. He develops accounts of multiple temporalities to challenge unilinear models of historical time, investigates alternative legacies of modernity, and explores concepts such as anachronism as sources of philosophical and political innovation. Tomba has received numerous fellowships and honors, including positions at Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Columbia University, and the University of Hamburg, among others.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Law and economics
• History
• Psychology
• Philosophy
• Aesthetics

Selected publications

• Teleology and Revolution

  Political Theology · 2026-03-26

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• From the Editors

  Political Theory · 2025-11-09

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• Social Property in The Cochabamba Water War, Bolivia 2000

  Water · 2025-02-07

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In August 1995, the World Bank vice president Ismail Serageldin stated that “the wars of the [21st] century will be about water” (163; see Shiva vii). It was not a prediction. It was a declaration. A declaration of war. A war being fought for access to natural resources and the way to manage them. But the war reaches back, and in depth, to mobilize other historical strata. It began 500 years ago with colonialism, with the imposition of new property relations, with the imposition of the state and the parallel depoliticization and atomization of the social. However, under the surface of a war for access to and appropriation of land, water, and natural resources, another war was taking place – that between incompatible legal and economic systems. One war follows a well-known script: with greater or lesser violence, it will accompany the struggle for the appropriation of increasingly scarce resources. Instead, the other “war” has always opened, and can open up, new scenarios and put an end to the colonial, appropriative parable. This article investigates the tensions between these incommensurable trajectories.

  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  History of the Present · 2025-04-01

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  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 1525

  History of the Present · 2025-04-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The Peasants’ War occurred with a backdrop of numerous conflicts stemming from incompatible political, legal, and religious differences. The clash between Müntzer and Luther represents just one aspect of a larger conflict. The established legal system faced a crisis, with the nobility upholding traditional customs and privileges while princes and territorial rulers sought to consolidate power through a newly enforced legal framework. Peasants and ordinary people disrupted this dichotomy by traveling an alternative path rooted in “godly law” and the “Christian common good.” Although violently suppressed and its proponents massacred, this alternative path remains an unfinished possibility within the Western theory and history of modernity.

  PublisherDOI

• From the Editors

  Political Theory · 2024

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Technique and Politics

  2024-07-19

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Technological innovations in production systems, new forms of authoritarianism, and the crisis of traditional values. These are some of the dimensions that characterise the social and cultural background in which different thinkers in the twentieth century began to reflect on the profound modifications of the notion of individuality. Considering four thinkers – Ernst Jünger, Theodor W. Adorno, Antonio Gramsci, and Walter Benjamin – this chapter investigates their analysis of the new articulation of the relationship between the individual and collective, the possible trajectories of this articulation, and their implications for the present time. Jünger intensifies technology to the point of envisioning a total mobilisation of labour capable of giving rise to a new human type and social order. Adorno intensifies the “organic composition of man” to the total liquidation of the individual. Gramsci intensifies Fordism and Americanism to make them the basis for a total and molecular transformation of ways of thinking and operating. Given these differences and the contributions of these three conceptual persons, the chapter aims to think with Benjamin to offer a different angle on the transformations of capitalism, technology, perception, and the human type in the early twentieth century.

  PublisherDOI

• From the Editors

  Political Theory · 2024-11-03

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  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The prism of exploitation. Marx’s analysis of the world market

  Cultural Dynamics · 2024-08-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In this article, I explore Karl Marx’s evolving understanding of the temporal dimensions within capitalism, particularly focusing on his reflections during the 1850s and 1860s. This period marks a significant shift in Marx’s theoretical framework, prompted by his in-depth analysis of the world market and diverse modes of exploitation. The article highlights coexisting forms of exploitation and their entanglement in terms of temporalities. From this perspective, capitalism and its history can be investigated as a complex interplay of temporal layers rather than a linear progression. Marx’s 1858 letter serves as a starting point, emphasizing the importance of accumulation as a long-term process and the challenges of a revolutionary project in a globalized capitalist context. Finally, the paper emphasizes Marx’s mature writings, where he envisions the potential for combining historical layers to challenge capitalism. This nuanced understanding has contemporary implications for globalized capitalism and social change discussions.

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• From the Editors

  Political Theory · 2023-12-22

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  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Riccardo Bellofiore

  6 shared

• Corine Lobjoie

  Sorbonne Université

  4 shared

• Antoine Pélissolo

  Institut Mondor de Recherche Biomédicale

  4 shared

• Vélina Negovanska

  4 shared

• H. Lipski

  Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

  4 shared

• D. Montefiore

  Sorbonne Université

  4 shared

• Kevin Olson

  3 shared

• Banu Bargu

  3 shared

Awards & honors

• Fellow, Shelby Cullom Davis Center Department of History, Pr…
• Member of the Institute for Advanced Study (School of Social…
• Distinguished Visiting Fellow (Advanced Research Collaborati…
• Visiting Scholar, Columbia University, New York, 2012
• DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) Fellowship, Un…