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Student Profiles & Projects

Current Student Projects

A selection of PhD student profiles at Dundee:

Recent PhD and MPhil Theses and Dissertations

A Deleuzian Interpretation of Beckett's Linguistic Experiments

This project questions the perception of art and literature and critically analyses representation. Following the work of Gilles Deleuze, it offers a "clinical" interpretation of the work of Samuel Beckett and performs a reconfiguration between literature, philosophy and life. Accordingly, it explores Deleuze's reading of other philosophers concentrating on the work of Henri Bergson in relation to the Open Whole, the virtual, intensive multiplicity, and duration as well as the work of Leibniz, Foucault and Spinoza for their different analyses of subjectivity.

Realism in Religion

This thesis seeks to establish a realist view of religious texts, with particular reference to the Christian bible. The realism that is argued for is construed in terms of truth-evaluability, and via a sustained comparison with realism in the philosophy of science. The aim is not to comment on the individual truth-values of the various claims made in the bible. Rather, the thesis aims to establish a realist reading of this particular religious text because this is necessary for the notion of religious community. Without community, it is suggested, there can be no tolerance because there can be no genuine dialogue. Thus this project argues that far from breeding intolerance, realism is actually required for tolerance to be present.

Death and Affirmation: A 'Nietzschean' Critique of Christianity

The 'death' with which this project is concerned is the death of God, as announced and explored in the work of Nietzsche; the 'affirmation' is the affirmation of life in this world. The thesis is a Nietzschean critique of Christianity insofar as it rejects the 'holy lie' of the priest and the imposition of a transcendent teleology onto life. Central to the thesis is a critical examination of the relation between priest and believer, alongside a reading of The Anti-Christ as offering a reconfiguration of Christ. The thesis seeks to move beyond anthropocentrism via its focus on life as living and dancing through humanity, in a ceaseless movement between suffering and wonderment.

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