Contact details
- Name:
- Dr Johan Siebers
- Qualifications:
- Doctorate (Philosophy), Leiden University; MA (Philosophy), Radboud University Nijmegen
- Position/Fellowship type:
- Director, Ernst Bloch Centre for German Thought
- Institute:
- Institute of Modern Languages Research
- Home institution:
- Middlesex University London
- Location:
- Institute of Modern Languages Research University of London Senate House Malet Street London WC1E 7HU
- Phone:
- +44 7809 469 795
- Email address:
- johan.siebers@sas.ac.uk
- Website:
- http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/view/creators/Siebers=3AJohan=3A=3A.html
Research Summary and Profile
- Research interests:
- Classics, Communications, Communities, Classes, Races, Culture, Language and Literature (German), Literatures in a modern language, Philosophy
- Summary of research interests and expertise:
- My main research interests are: 1) the central questions of philosophy: what can I know, what should I do (which includes, as philosophical practitioner Gerd Achenbach said, the sober question: what am I doing?), what may I hope for? My philosophical work often engages with (the history of) the question of being and the relation between thinking and being. I explore these questions in different ways and across different scholarly genres such as historical-interpretative essays, systematic articles, participation in interdisciplinary research and public interventions, including critical consultancy. Philosophy is an activity in its own right, like art, science and poetry. I am concerned to both strengthen the awareness of the irreducibility of philosophy as well as the presence of the voice of philosophy in other contexts. Both are orientations that resist the instrumentalisation of philosophy; philosophy is the practice of freedom or it is nothing. 2) Developing a philosophical understanding of communication. 3) Anticipation and temporality, especially in the context of questions concerning human community. Here, I am especially interested in the work of Ernst Bloch. 4) The relation between rhetoric and philosophy, and the philosophy of language (including the language of poetry, drama and prose). 5) The history and socio-cultural context of German philosophy since the waning of the middle ages, with a particular focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. I am available for research cooperation, Masters and Doctoral supervision in these areas. Finally, I have long felt a particular closeness in philosophical outlook to Parmenides and Empedocles and, although I did not become a historian of classical philosophy, I have named a philosophical journal after the latter: https://www.intellectbooks.com/empedocles-european-journal-for-the-philosophy-of-communication.
- Project summary relevant to Fellowship:
- I lead the Ernst Bloch Centre for German Thought and convene the German Philosophy Seminar at the Institute of Modern Languages Research.
- Publication Details
- Research Projects & Supervisions
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Available for doctoral supervision: Yes
- Relevant Events
-
Related events:
Date Details Ernst-Bloch-Gesellschaft The EBG organises annual conferences and other events; we also publish the Jahrbuch der Ernst-Bloch-Gesellschaft (Königshausen & Neumann).
Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication The journal Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication publishes work at the interface of philosophy and communication theory.
Temporal Belongings The AHRC funded Temporal Belongings research network brings together researchers interested in the relation between temporality and community.
German Philosophy Seminar podcasts Via the above link you can access many of the German Philosophy Seminars I have held at the IMLR.