dr. (Sjoerd) S van Tuinen

Profile

Dr. Sjoerd van Tuinen is associate professor of philosophy at Erasmus School of Philosophy.

Rooted in continental philosophy, I am interested in metaphysics, aesthetics, social and political theory, and the history of philosophy. My work consists of commentary in classical and contemporary philosophy and multimedia engagements across the arts and humanities. I specialize in critical theories of art, image, affect, habit, debt, history, and care. All of my work is grounded in a pedagogical practice, and ecophilosophical reinterpretation, of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), which replaces the question 'what is?' with 'by what right?'.

I currently supervise projects on 'The Principle of Sufficient Reason: From Critique to Care' (PhD), 'Bergson, Synthetic Biology, and Neuroscience' (PhD), 'The Logic of Deliciousness: To Think Food Differently in the Case of Nordic Cuisine' (PhD), 'Reasonable Machines: Rational Paths, Models and Prospects in the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence' (PhD), 'The Politics of Austerity in Europe' (PhD), 'Articulations of Desire: Populism and the Future of Democracy' (Postdoc), and coordinate a long-standing study group in post-Kantian philosophy.

Key publications

Matter and Manner: From Mannerism to Continental Modal Metaphysics (forthcoming 2022, Bloomsbury Academic): Starting from an analogy between the sixteenth century and our own, revolving around the problem of ‘composition,’ this book demonstrates what it means to move ‘from matter to manner,’ that is, to counter reductionist tendencies and acquire a sense of the incompleteness of things. Drawing on Bruno, Leibniz, Bergson, Whitehead, Souriau, Simondon, Deleuze, Stengers and Agamben, it provides a unique combination of art history and philosophy centered around the theme of modal individuation, an original interpretation of Leibniz as practical philosopher, and a constructivist take on ‘the contemporary’ based on the notions of craftsmanship, alchemy and design.

Deleuze's Mannerist Aesthetics (forthcoming 2022, Edinburgh University Press): A critical and clinical perspective on mannerism in art history and media and visual studies. In distinguishing mannerism from the baroque, this book develops unknown aspects of Deleuze’s hermeticist inspiration in philosophy as well as affinities of his work with contemporary questions pertaining to the agency of images, the interface of psychiatry and art, and the politics of affect. With a focus on painting, music, and cinema.

Papers on critique and care: 'Elasticity and Plasticity: Immunology and the Crisis of Repetition', in: A. Radman & H. Sohn (eds). Critical and Clinical Cartographies. Edinburgh University Press (2017), 243-68. pdf  'Common Sense: From Critique to Care (Arendt beyond Arendt)' in: J. Brouwer & S. van Tuinen (eds.) To Mind is to Care (V2 Publishers, 2019), 124-57. pdf and a 2020 follow-up: 'Philosophy in the Light of AI: Hegel or Leibniz', in Angelaki. Journal for the Theoretical Humanities 25(4), 97-109, doi 

Two edited volumes on philosophy and art history: Speculative Art Histories. Analysis at the Limits (ed.) Edinburgh University Press, 2017. pdf Art History after Deleuze and Guattari (ed.) Leuven University Press, 2017. With Stephen Zepke. pdf and pdf

Papers on ressentiment: 'The Drama of Ressentiment: The Philosopher versus the Priest', in: C. Meiborg & S. van Tuinen (eds). Deleuze and the Passions, Punctum Books (2016), 79-102. pdf 'The Resentment-Ressentiment Complex: A Critique of Liberal Discourse', Global Discourse, 10.2 (2020), 237-53. doi  2021: ‘Authentic Ressentiment? The Polemics of Jean Améry’, Philosophy Today 65.4, 807-27. doi

Papers on the PSR: 'Difference and Speculation: Heidegger, Meillassoux and Deleuze on Sufficient Reason', in: A. Beaulieu & E. Kazarian & J. Sushytska (eds.), Deleuze and Metaphysics,  Lexington Books (2014), 63-90. pdf  2015: 'Deleuze: Speculative and Practical Philosophy', in: Armen Avanessian & Suhail Malik (eds.), Genealogies of Speculation. Materialism and Subjectivity since Structuralism. Bloomsbury (2015), 93-114. pdf  

Two Dutch volumes on French philosophy: Deleuze compendium, Boom. (2009, 1st, 2nd, 3rd editions) With E. Romein & M. Schuilenburg. pdf en pdf And: De nieuwe Franse filosofie. Denkers en thema's voor de 21e eeuw, Boom, 2011. With B. Ieven, A. van Rooden & M. Schuilenburg. pdf en pdf

Papers on anarchism and constituent power: 'Biomacht en biopolitiek: de inbedding van Foucault in het autonoom marxisme', in: Krisis. Tijdschrift voor actuele filosofie 2009.3 (2009), 68-85. With A. Griffioen. pdf And forthcoming 2021: 'Intersubjectivity and Transindividuality, or, Animal Monadology: Leibniz, Husserl, Deleuze, and the Composition of Worlds', Lo Sguardo. Rivista di filosofia.

Peter Sloterdijk – Ein Profil. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag / Stuttgart: UTB. (1st and 2nd editions, 2006) pdf and 2004 Dutch version English follow-ups: 'Critique Beyond Resentment. An Introduction to Peter Sloterdijk’s Jovial Modernity', Cultural Politics, 3/3 (2007) 275-306 doi 'Air Conditioning Spaceship Earth: Peter Sloterdijk’s Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm', in: Society and Space, Vol. 27.1 (2009), 105-18. doi  'A Thymotic Left? Peter Sloterdijk and the Psychopolitics of Ressentiment', in: Symploke, 18.1/2 (2011), 217-34. doi

Current writing

I am in the finishing stages of a monograph entitled Ressentiment: Pedagogy of a Concept. Starting from novel interpretations of Nietzsche and Améry, this book offers a comprehensive critique of discourses on ressentiment (and 'resentment'), demonstrating their polemical (in)consistencies and ideological performances, and proposing a new dialectic in which ressentiment and polemics no longer set the tone.

Short CV

After having studied sociology and philosophy in Rotterdam, Rome and Leipzig, I received a PhD in philosophy from Ghent University (2009, chapters) for a dissertation on Deleuze and Leibniz. In 2008-9 I worked as a lecturer at Maastricht University. Among many visiting appointments, I was visiting lecturer at Stellenbosch University (2005), visiting professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2013), research fellow at Humboldt University (2014) and Fordham University (2016), and a Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University (2017-18). I have received several research grants, among them the NWO VENI scholarship, and edited about two dozen volumes and special issues, including a series of theory books in collaboration with V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media (Rotterdam). I am also a founding member of the Erasmus Institute for Public Knowledge (EIPK) and editor for various journals including De Uil van Minerva, SATS, and Palgrave Communications. Some of my work is available here.

Courses taught

Graduate courses: The Principle and Function of Reason; Mannerism and Modernity; Political Affect; Leibniz Today (Neo-Monadologies); The Expressionist Aesthetics of Deleuze and Guattari; Alfred North Whitehead's 'Process and Reality'; Art Theory and Art Criticism; Metaphysics in Spinoza and Leibniz.

Undergraduate courses: Science, Culture and Technology; Ecophilosophy; Ontology and Metaphysics; Dialects and Difference; Aesthetics; Plasticity of the Human; Philosophy and Rhetorics; Philosophy and Film; Philosophy of History; Bergson and Continental Empiricism; Thesis Writing; Culture and Identity in a Globalizing Europe; Style and Modernity; Philosopy of Language; Disenchantment and Ideology; Cultural Pluralism; Philosophical Reading.

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