By Tony Burns, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham
I am saddened to have to report that my best friend Ian Fraser has died at the relatively young age of 62. Ian was an active member of the PSA and was involved in both its Marxism Specialist Group and the Art and Politics Specialist Group. He organized panels on the theme of aesthetics and politics at PSA annual conferences and at the Political Theory Workshops at Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Manchester between 2007 and 2015.
Ian was a scouser from Walton in Liverpool. After not doing so well at school, and training to be a hairdresser, he eventually returned to education and took a Masters degree in Economics and Politics as a mature student at the University of Edinburgh (1987-1991). This was followed by a second masters degree, in political philosophy, at the University of York, which he completed in 1992. Ian then went on to research for a PhD on the theme of Hegel, Marx and the concept of needs, the subject of his first book, between 1993-1996. In that year (aged 31) he was appointed to his first post as a university lecturer, in the Department of Economics and Politics at Nottingham Trent University, which is where Ian and I met. Ian moved to Loughborough University in 2010, from where he took early retirement in 2022.
Ian Fraser was an outstanding researcher. He published four single authored monographs: Hegel and Marx: The Concept of Need (Edinburgh University Press, 1998); Dialectics of the Self: Transcending Charles Taylor (Imprint Academic, 2007); Identity, Politics and the Novel: The Aesthetic Moment (University of Wales Press, 2013); and Political Theory and Film: From Adorno to Žižek (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018). He co-authored The Marx Dictionary (Bloomsbury, 2011) with our friend Lawrence (Larry) Wilde. Ian and I also edited The Hegel-Marx Connection together (Palgrave, 2000).
Ian had a keen interest in continental philosophy and political thought. In his later writings he explores the question of how the theoretical frameworks of a number of continental theorists can contribute to our understanding of works of art, specifically novels and films. For example, in Identity, Politics and the Novel: The Aesthetic Moment, he explores Michel Houellebecq’s novel Atomised from the standpoint of the work of Henri Lefebvre; and in Political Theory and Film: From Adorno to Žižek, he considers how the writings of Julia Kristeva sheds light on David Fincher’s film Fight Club.
Ian’s writings earned him a well-deserved reputation both within the sphere of academia and in that of public engagement outside of it. For example, he participated in Laurie Taylor’s BBC4 series Thinking Allowed in 2010. In 2012, following in the footsteps of Quentin Skinner, Janet Coleman and Iain Hampsher-Monk, he was invited to present the Henry Tudor Memorial Address at Durham University.
On a more personal note, Ian was a keen fan of Liverpool F.C. He and his partner Sharon had a season ticket and made regular visits to Anfield. One of Ian’s favourite memories was his attendance, together with his brother Keith, at the Champions League Final in Istanbul in 2005, at which Liverpool F. C. beat A. C. Milan on penalties after being 3-0 down at half-time. Ian would have loved to have been around to see Liverpool win the Football League Premiership this year, but alas that was not to be. He will be greatly missed, not only by myself, but also and especially by Sharon.
