Renée van Riessen is a Professor by special appointment of Christian Philosophy and visiting researcher at the Institute for Philosophy.

More information about Renee van Riessen

Inaugural lecture

Verder gaan dan Socrates? Over onderwijs, bezieling en innerlijkheid bij Kierkegaard en Levinas.

Personal information

Renée van Riessen (Lunteren 1954) holds the chair for Christian Philosophy. As extraordinary professor she teaches courses on philosophy in relation to the Christian and Jewish perspective (worldview); focussing on questions as the relation of finiteness and infinity; transcendence and immanence; the relation of self and other, and the art of living.

Besides the professorship in Leiden, she is senior lecturer of philosophy of religion at the Protestant Theological University (Groningen).

The Chair of Christian Philosophy

The Chair of Christian Philosophy was found in 1948 by the Association of Reformational Philosophy. This Association advances reflective thinking on the relation of philosophy, science and Christian religion.
 

Research

The first line of research concerns theories of transcendence in relation to moral, esthetic and religious experience (Levinas, Lyotard and Agamben).

The second line concerns the philosophical perspective of the soul and/or inner life, comparing and confronting classical Christian authors like Augustine, Kierkegaard and Dooyeweerd with positions in contemporary philosophy in the tradition of Husserl (Levinas, Marion, Lyotard, Derrida).

Key publications

• Renée D.N. van Riessen, Man as a Place of God, Levinas’ Hermeneutics of Kenosis, Dordrecht (Springer) 2007.

• Renée van Riessen (ed), Augustinus modern en postmodern gelezen, Budel (Damon) 2009.

• Renée van Riessen, ‘Creative Kenosis. Levinas and Christian Theology’, in: Responsibility, God and Society, Theological Ethics in Dialogue, Ed. J. De Tavernier et al., Leuven/Paris/Dudley, 2008 (143-162).