(Sophie) S van Balen

Profile

Sophie van Balen (MA) is PhD researcher at Erasmus School of Philosophy and Lecturer Humanities at Erasmus University College. She also is head of the program board at philosophical café Felix & Sofie in Amsterdam. In her PhD project, which received NWO-funding within the research program PhD in the Humanities (2021), Sophie van Balen develops a politics of air, air pollution and breathability in face of ecological crises. To this end, she brings together foam theory (Sloterdijk, 2016) with a new materialist, more than human politics of care, informed by philosophical ethnographic fieldwork. Together with dr. Irene van Oorschot and Maaike van Papeveld (MA), Sophie van Balen furthermore works on the societal research project ‘Voel je het veranderen?’ into the citizen experiences of a changing climate in the city of Rotterdam which received funding from Rotterdams Weerwoord. In 2019, Sophie van Balen co-organised the fourth biennial conference in Performance Philosophy ‘Between Institution and Intoxication: How does Performance Philosophy Intervene?’ and was guest-editor together with Ricarda Franzen (UvA) for the subsequent journal issue.