Susanna Lindberg is professor of Continental Philosophy at Leiden University. She teaches and conducts research in continental philosophy from German Idealism, Phenomenology and Poststructuralism until contemporary developments.

More information about Susanna Lindberg

Fields of interest

I am specialised in continental philosophy, especially its historical origins in German idealism and phenomenology and its contemporary developments in post-war French philosophy. In my work, I have explored the developments and ramifications of the entire field of modern European philosophy. In my recent writings, I have studied contemporary subjects such as ecology, technology, and globalization from the perspective of continental philosophy. I also work occasionally on philosophy of art.

Research

The starting point of my research was a work on a historical subject examined with a contemporary method: a comprehensive study on the relation between G.W.F. Hegel and Martin Heidegger, that was a not a simple comparison between dialectics and phenomenology but also a "double deconstruction" of each one by the other. The work was motivated by a methodological question: how can one read equitably and at the same time two philosophers whose methods exclude one another and actually define one another as non-philosophy? From Hegel's point of view, Heidegger's thinking of being falls outside of the sphere of reason and from Heidegger's point of view Hegel's reason hides the very possibility of ontology. In my work, I show how Hegel would answer to Heidegger's question of finitude and how Heidegger would answer to Hegel's question of recognition.

In a second phase of my research I concentrated more precisely on the subterranean ways in which a specific interpretation of nature developed by German Idealists was later inherited by 20th century phenomenology. In these traditions, nature was not studied as an epistemological object but in terms of an ontology of life. I expanded my studies from Hegel's philosophy to Schelling's Naturphilosophie, and from Heidegger to Jonas, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, and others. I showed how this tradition brought to the fore a thinking of animality in terms of an art or a technique of living; and as an theory of the elemental being that provides an alternative to onto-theology.

In the third, ongoing phase of my research I expand these ideas into studies of the contemporary lifeworld. In this work I suggest that classical existential, social and political philosophy cannot face the three major challenges of our time: globalisation, ecological crisis and development of technology. I develop ways of articulating human existence and co-existence anew in this specific situation.

I have always been interested in all arts, and this is why I have made a number of separate studies in the field of philosophy of literature, music and image. In recent years I have published studies on Martin Heidegger's, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe's, Jean-Luc Nancy's, Jacques Derrida's, Bernard Stiegler's and Peter Szendy's thinking of literature, art and music.

 

Grants and awards

The most recent grants awarded by:
Finnish Cultural Foundation (2020) (120 000 €)
Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation (2016) (28 000 €)
Kone Foundation (2012) (120 000 €)
Heinrich Hertz-Stiftung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen  (2007)
University of Helsinki Network for Europe Studies (2010) (210 000 €)

Curriculum vitae

Key publications

Activities