Student Profiles & Projects

PhD Student Profiles

Name	Research Topic
Mike Burns	The philosophical and religious writings of Søren Kierkegaard
Carrie Giunta	Philosophies of listening drawing on the work of Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy and Gayatri Spivak
Ryan Lewis	The conceptualization of ‘image’ from Henri Bergson’s philosophy
Andrew McDonald	An analysis of how pure difference functions as a form of language in the philosophy of Deleuze
Austin Smidt	Toward a transcendental historical materialist conception of the imagination
Rogi Thomas	The hermeneutical future of religion in the postmodern world according to Vattimo and Taylor

Recent PhD and MPhil Theses and Dissertations

A Deleuzian interpretation of Beckett's linguistic experiments
This project questioned the perception of art and literature and critically analysed representation. Following the work of Gilles Deleuze, it offered a "clinical" interpretation of the work of Samuel Beckett and performed a reconfiguration between literature, philosophy and life. Accordingly, it explored 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 sought to establish a realist view of religious texts, with particular reference to the Christian bible. The realism argued for was construed in terms of truth-evaluability, and via a sustained comparison with realism in the philosophy of science. The aim was not to comment on the individual truth-values of the various claims made in the bible. Rather, the thesis aimed to establish a realist reading of this particular religious text because this is necessary for the notion of religious community. Without community, it suggested, there can be no tolerance because there can be no genuine dialogue. Thus this project argued 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 was 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 was 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 was 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 sought to move beyond anthropocentrism via its focus on life as living and dancing through humanity, in a ceaseless movement between suffering and wonderment.