The Department of Philosophy is pleased to announce the establishment of a new research centre, the Centre for Research in Post-Kantian European Philosophy. The new Centre aims to provide a unique forum for discussion and research in 19th and 20th century European philosophy, including interdisciplinary research with scholars across the humanities and social sciences.It will organise regular seminars, workshops and conferences to promote scholarly and innovative work in the field of post-Kantian European philosophy and provide a stimulating research environment for MA and PhD students and for Faculty.

Professor Keith Ansell-Pearson will feature in a forthcoming edition of In Our Time, to be broadcast on BBC Radio Four on Thursday 9 May 2019 at 0900. Professor Ansell-Pearson, who specialises in modern European philosophy and is the author of monographs on Bergson and Nietzsche, will discuss Bergson and the Question of Time with Melvyn Bragg and his fellow expert guests.

In Our Time is BBC Radio Four's flagship discussion programme exploring the History of Ideas, and has been presented by Melvyn Bragg since its inception in 1998. The programme's reputation and cultural impact is such that it is claimed to have "transformed the landscape for serious ideas at peak listening time".

The Philosophy Department welcomed Professor Etienne Balibar as its distinguished Guest Speaker on 11 February 2019, as part of the new research programme 'Philosophy in a Time of Crisis'. Professor Balibar's Public Lecture focused on 'Circulation and Hospitality as Fundamental Rights', and was recorded. It can now be viewed via the project website. www.philosophyx.co.uk

Summary Overview of Lecture:

As migrants and refugees in increasing numbers are subjected to extreme violence in their attempts at crossing borders to reach a more livable place, a fundamental reflection is needed to update the concepts which frame mankind’s treatment of its own mobility. This includes a critical return on the question of the “law of population” of capitalism, but also a juridical elaboration of the rights of circulation and hospitality which articulate territory, citizenship, and community. At stake, ultimately, is a political transformation of the world into a place where everyone can live a decent life.

Etienne Balibar is Emeritus Professor at Paris X Nanterre and Anniversary Chair of Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, London. He is an internationally recognized political philosopher and critical thinker, a leading voice in the Marxist tradition, and the author of Spinoza and Politics, The Philosophy of Marx and co-author of Race, Nation and Class and Reading Capital. In these, and many other seminal works, Professor Balibar has addressed fundamental questions such as racism, the notion of border, whether a European citizenship is possible or desirable; violence, identity and emancipation.

Amedeo Policante, a political philosopher and critical theorist in the Philosophy Department, whose research focuses especially on the study of violence, has been interviewed on Italian public radio (RADIO3 MONDO) in a programme dedicated to War and the Global Economy. Dr Policante discusses the new regimes of violence emerging from contemporary processes of globalization (the subject of his two previous monographs, The New Mercenaries and The Pirate Myth) and the relationship between neo-liberalism and the war on drugs. He elaborates on how the structural causes of contemporary violence are systematically obscured by the ubiquitous appeal to the concept of 'crisis' - one of the subjects of the Philosophy in a Time of Crisis research project (in collaboration with Professor Miguel de Beistegui). See link attached to hear Dr Policante's interview in full. https://www.raiplayradio.it/audio/2019/01/RADIO3--MONDO-a9d152f7-b7a3-4b69-9d6c-7fc8b46725a8.html

The important new series of Critical Guides, published by Edinburgh University Press and co-edited by Professor Ansell-Pearson (with Daniel Conway, Professor of Philosophy at Texas A+M) has now been launched. The series aims to enrich and enhance the reading and understanding of Nietzsche's writings for the benefit of students, teachers and scholars alike. Every volume will explore each text individually, and will incorporate new research and the latest scholarship to explain the seminal importance of Nietzsche's writing and to illuminate the significance of his body of work for contemporary thought.

The first volume in the series, entitled 'Nietzsche's Unfashionable Observations' by Jeffrey Church has just been published.

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/series-edinburgh-critical-guides-to-nietzsche.html