Peter Beilharz (born 13 November 1953) is an Australian
sociologist. He is professor of critical theory at
Sichuan University, Chengdu, PRC. Previously he was professor of sociology and remains Emeritus Professor at
La Trobe University, Melbourne (best contact; La Trobe). He is adjunct professor at
Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia. Beilharz is founding editor of the international journal of social theory Thesis Eleven published by Sage.[1]
From 2002 to 2014 he was the director of the Thesis Eleven Centre for Cultural Sociology at La Trobe University. He is best known for his work in
social theory and
socialism, for his intellectual biography of the Australian art historian,
Bernard Smith, and his several books on the eminent Polish sociologist,
Zygmunt Bauman.
Beilharz was born on 13 November 1953 in
Melbourne, Australia.[2] He attended Croydon High School and Rusden College. After a short experience of teaching at high school he went to Monash University, where he completed a doctorate on
Trotskyism in 1984.[3] He taught at
Monash University,
RMIT, and
Melbourne University before replacing
Ágnes Heller at La Trobe in 1988, where he progressed from lecturer through to personal chair in 1999.
Beilharz has written or edited thirty books, including Labour's Utopias (1992), Postmodern Socialism (1994), Transforming Labor (1994), Imagining the Antipodes (1997) and Zygmunt Bauman – Dialectic of Modernity (2002) and 200 papers.
Beilharz, P. (1979) "Trotsky's Marxism-Permanent Involution?"
Telos 39, Spring 1979.
Beilharz, P. (1987) Trotsky, Trotskyism and the Transition to Socialism, London, Croom Helm; New Jersey, Rowman and Littlefield.
ISBN978-0-389-20698-9
Beilharz, P. (1992) Labour's Utopias: Bolshevisims, Fabianism, Social Democracy, London and New York, Routledge paperback, 1993.
ISBN0-415-06616-6
Beilharz, P. (1992) Arguing About the Welfare State: the Australian Experience, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, co-authored with M. Considine and R. Watts.
ISBN1-86373-096-6
Beilharz, P. (1992) Social Theory: A Guide to Central Thinkers, Editor, Sydney, Allen and Unwin.
ISBN1-86373-163-6
Beilharz, P. (1992) Between Totalitarianism and Postmodernity, co-edited with G. Robinson and J. Rundell, Boston, MIT.
ISBN0-262-52179-2
Beilharz, P. (1994) Transforming Labor: Labour Tradition and the Labor Decade, Sydney, Cambridge University Press.
ISBN0-521-43237-5
Beilharz, P. (1994) Postmodern Socialism: Romanticism, City and State, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press.
ISBN0-522-84535-5
Beilharz, P. (1997) Imagining the Antipodes: Culture, Theory and the Visual in the Work of Bernard Smith, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press.
ISBN0-521-58355-1
Beilharz, P. (1998) Fabianism and Feminism, co-edited with C. Nyland, Aldershot, Ashgate.
ISBN1-84014-307-X
Beilharz, P. (2000) Zygmunt Bauman – Dialectic of Modernity, Sage Publications, London, California, New Delhi.
ISBN0-7619-6734-6
Beilharz, P. (ed.) (2001) The Bauman Reader, Blackwell, Oxford, Boston.
ISBN0-631-21491-7
Beilharz, P. (ed.) (2002) Zygmunt Bauman – Masters of Social Thought, 4 vols., London, California, New Delhi, Sage Publications.
ISBN0-7619-7127-0
Beilharz, P. and Hogan, T. (eds) (2002) Social Self, Global Culture: An Introduction to Sociological Ideas, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
ISBN0-19-551572-2
Beilharz, P. (ed.) (2005) Postwar American Critical Thought, 4 vols., London, California, New Delhi, Sage.
ISBN978-0-7619-4415-7
Beilharz, P. and Hogan, T. (eds) (2006) Sociology – Place, Time and Division, Oxford University Press.
ISBN978-0-19-555097-9
Beilharz, P. and Manne, R. (eds) (2006) Reflected Light: La Trobe Essays, Melbourne, Black Inc.
ISBN978-1-86395-246-0
Beilharz, P. (2009) Socialism and Modernity, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press,
ISBN978-0-8166-6086-5
Beilharz, P. (2015) Thinking the Antipodes: Australian Essays, Melbourne, Monash University Publishing,
ISBN978-1-922235-55-8
Beilharz, P., Hogan, T. and Shaver, S. (2015) The Martin Presence:
Jean Martin and the Making of the Social Sciences in Australia, Sydney, UNSW Press,
ISBN9781742232164