Asad Haider, a noted scholar of political theory whose work explored Marxism, social movements and anti-racist thought, died unexpectedly Dec. 4.
Before joining York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies in 2021 as an assistant professor of politics, Haider earned a PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2018, following earlier studies at Cornell University.
His doctoral dissertation examined social movements in France and Italy during the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on how Communist parties and extra-parliamentary movements responded to shifting social and political conditions.
His broader research considered how political movements generate new ideas and strategies rather than mirror existing social categories such as class or identity. He studied major revolutions and liberation struggles to explore whether political action can be understood without assuming it expresses a fixed social foundation.
Haider’s academic career included appointments as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Penn State University and Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He was also founding editor of Viewpoint Magazine, a publication that combined journalism on contemporary social movements with intellectual histories and translations of revolutionary theory.
In 2018, Haider published Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump with Verso Books. The book traced the genealogy of “identity politics” and examined the theory and practice of mass organizations within the Black Freedom Movement. Widely reviewed and debated in outlets such as The Guardian and The New Statesman, the book was translated into Spanish, Portuguese and Korean.
Haider contributed to scholarly journals including History of the Present, Radical Philosophy and Comparative Literature and Culture, with additional work forthcoming in Décalages, Foucault Studies, South Atlantic Quarterly and Polity.
He was frequently invited to speak at universities and institutions worldwide, including in Germany, Brazil, China, Russia and across North America.