Dr. Gijs van Oenen
Dr. Gijs van Oenen (1959) is associate professor in practical philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Van Oenen studied political science at the University of Amsterdam and obtained his Masters degree in 1986. He received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1994, with a dissertation on legal philosophy.
Van Oenen has worked at the Haarlem Polytechnic, the University of Amsterdam, Webster University Leiden and the Academy for Architecture Rotterdam. Van Oenen has joined the Erasmus University in 1994.
In his research Van Oenen focuses on political theory, rule of law, 'gedogen' (forebearance), multiculturalism, architecture, (art &) public space and interpassivity. Currently, he is head of the research program ‘Interpassive metal fatigue’, sponsored by the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). In this project, the hypothesis is that people in modern democracy cannot manage to live up to our own promise of emancipated life, because the incessant democratic interaction and rational consent that modern society exacts from us, is becoming ‘too much of a good thing’ for us. Symptoms of this condition are now starting to show up, in the form of e.g. aversion, capsularization, detachment, disinterest and outsourcing. The research project aims to track down and analyse the symptoms of interpassivity in three main areas of modern social life: politics and governance; labor and economics; citizenship and public space. This project will run until 2012.
Van Oenen plays an active role in academic as well as in public political, social and philosophical debates.
