Bhaskar Sunkara

Bhaskar Sunkara
Born (1989-06-20) June 20, 1989 (age 35)
White Plains, New York, U.S.
Alma materGeorge Washington University
Occupations
  • Publisher
  • writer
  • editor
Years active2010–present
TitleFounder of Jacobin

Bhaskar Sunkara (born June 1989) is an American political writer. He is the founding editor of Jacobin, the president of The Nation, and publisher of Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy[1] and London's Tribune.[2] He is a former vice-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality as well as a columnist for The Guardian US.

Early life

Sunkara was born in the United States to parents of Indian ancestry who had immigrated to the US from Trinidad and Tobago a year before he was born. His father was a migrant from Andhra Pradesh while his mother's family had migrated to the island in the 19th century as indentured labourers from Punjab and Bihar.[1][3] Sunkara credited his politicization to his reading as a teenager: from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm he developed an interest in Leon Trotsky, reading his autobiography and Isaac Deutscher's three-volume biography, before progressing to the New Left, including thinkers such as Lucio Magri, Ralph Miliband, Perry Anderson and the journal New Left Review. He joined the Democratic Socialists of America at the age of 17, becoming editor of the DSA youth section's blog The Activist.[4] He went on to study history at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he conceived the idea of Jacobin: after his sophomore year, he missed two semesters due to illness, and spent the time reading Marxist works.

Career

By the summer of 2010, he was preparing to return to his studies and inspired to create the magazine, which launched online in September of that year and in print at the beginning of 2011.[1]

Sunkara described Jacobin as a radical publication, "largely the product of a younger generation not quite as tied to the Cold War paradigms that sustained the old leftist intellectual milieus like Dissent or New Politics".[5]

The New York Times interviewed Sunkara in January 2013, commenting on Jacobin's unexpected success and engagement with mainstream liberalism.[6] In late 2014, he was interviewed by New Left Review on the political orientation and future trajectory of the publication[1] and in March 2016 was featured in a lengthy Vox profile.[7]

Sunkara writes for Vice magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vox, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets.[6] He has appeared on the PBS Tavis Smiley program, MSNBC's Up with Chris Hayes, and the FX show Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell.

On February 23, 2022 The Nation named Sunkara to the role of president, replacing Erin O'Mara.[8] In June 2023, Sunkara led The Nation's relaunch of Bookforum magazine.[9]

Awards and recognition

In 2020, Sunkara was named to Fortune magazine's "40 Under 40" list under the "Government and Politics" category.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Anderson, Perry (November–December 2014). "New masses, new media: Bhaskar Sunkara "Project Jacobin" interview". New Left Review. II (90). New Left Review.
  2. ^ Waterson, Jim (August 31, 2018). "US journalist to revive Labour left magazine Tribune". theguardian.com. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
  3. ^ Sunkara, Bhaskar (December 1, 2014). "Bhaskar Sunkara Project Jacobin". New Left Review (90): 29–43.
  4. ^ "Lessons From the First Red Century". jacobinmag.com. Retrieved January 20, 2019.
  5. ^ "No Short-Cuts: Interview with the Jacobin". Idiom magazine. March 16, 2011. Archived from the original on July 11, 2019. Retrieved November 19, 2014.
  6. ^ a b Schuessler, Jennifer (January 1, 2013). "A Young Publisher Takes Marx into the Mainstream". The New York Times.
  7. ^ Matthews, Dylan (March 21, 2016). "Inside Jacobin: how a socialist magazine is winning the left's war of ideas". Vox. Retrieved March 26, 2018.
  8. ^ Room, Press (February 23, 2022). "The Nation Names Bhaskar Sunkara its New President". The Nation. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  9. ^ Dwyer, Kate (June 22, 2022). "Bookforum Is Returning, Months After Its Closure Was Mourned in the Literary World". The New York Times. Retrieved August 27, 2023.
  10. ^ "Bhaskar Sunkara | 2020 40 under 40 in Government and Politics". Fortune. Retrieved September 13, 2020.