Martin Beck Matuštík was a signatory of Charta 77, fled his native Czechoslovakia for political reasons in 1977 and settled in the United States, where he is professor of philosophy at Purdue University, Indiana. Among his books are Postnational identity: critical theory and existential philosophy in Habermas, Kierkegaard, Havel (Guilford, 1993); Specters of Liberation: great refusals in the new world order (SUNY press, 1998); and Jűrgen Habermas: a philosophical-political profile (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).

Recent articles

Could the peaceful triumph of Czechs and Slovaks over communism fifteen years ago offer a model of democratic revolution to religious fundamentalists today?

Can America find its universal soul in being complexly human rather than eternally innocent? And can Europe's former "dissidents" find a fresh language of truth in which to challenge unjust United States power? Martin Matuštík invokes signifiers of Czech national identity and American history to address his current homeland and his former compatriots alike.