The Department of Germanic Studies presents

Ernst Bloch’s Speculative Materialism: Ontology, Epistemology, Politics

Dr Cat Moir, University of Sydney

Abstract

In her forthcoming (December 2019) book Ernst Bloch’s Speculative Materialism: Ontology, Epistemology, Politics, Cat Moir offers a new interpretation of the philosophy of Ernst Bloch. The reception of Bloch’s work has seen him variously painted as a naïve realist, a romantic nature philosopher, a totalitarian thinker, and an irrationalist whose obscure literary style stands in for a lack of systematic rigour. The book challenges these conceptions of Bloch by reconstructing the ontological, epistemological, and political dimensions of his speculative materialism. Through a close, historically contextualised reading of Bloch’s major work of ontology, Das Materialismusproblem, seine Geschichte und Substanz (The Materialism Problem, its History and Substance), this research presents Bloch as one of the twentieth century’s most significant critical thinkers.

About the speaker

Dr Cat Moir is a senior lecturer and head of the Department of Germanic Studies. She is an intellectual historian specialising in the history of European thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a particular focus on the German-speaking world. Her research is motivated by the question of how ideas simultaneously shape and are shaped by broader historical developments and cultural spheres. A key interest in this respect is the interface between philosophy, natural sciences, and the arts.

For more information, contact: Dr Brangwen Stone – brangwen.stone@sydney.edu.au