Research project
For a phenomenology of political affects
Summary of the research project
Democracy, long regarded as established and stable, is challenged by challenges, its own dysfunctions and populist rhetoric. Beyond this European and transatlantic perspective, there have been democratic challenges that have shaken authoritarian governments especially on the other side of the Mediterranean. In both cases, the function of expressing what is articulated in current political challenges and aspirations rests on political emotions or affects. The research project aims to help establish a concept of what a political affect is. For this he will use sociological, ethnographic and political science research to feed what a phenomenology of political affects will have to develop systematically. It will propose a collective approach to affects, will consider the affects at the symbolic rather than empirical level and thus methodologically speaking will systematically bring together the phenomenology of the affective body and the theories of practices to put the notion of affective subjectivation at the service of the philosophies of the political.
Biography
Studies in philosophy, history, French literature and political science in Bochum and Münster, Licentiate in Philosophy in Paris VIII (1993), studies at the IEP in Paris (1993). Research at Stony Brook State University of New York (1999). Doctorate in 2002. HDR in 2008. Lecturer and «Privatdozent» at the FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany (Remote University). 2009/10 Visiting Professor in Naples and Vienna. Since 2011 Professor in Practical Philosophy at the FernUniversität in Hagen. 2012-14 Dean of the Faculty of Cultural and Social Sciences. 2015-17 Chairman of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für phänomenologische Forschung («German Society for Phenomenological Research»).
