Converting Christianity: Heidegger and Kierkegaard on Radical Change
792 Neilson St Berkeley, CA 94707
Brent Sockness; Thomas Sheehan
As a study of “conversion” in the works of Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, my dissertation has two principal aims. The first is to present an account of how the phenomenon conversion––seen as a radical reorientation in one’s self-understanding––functions within existential thought, somewhat counterintuitively, as the criterion of a person’s “authenticity.” Using the problem of conversion as a lens, the second aim of my project is to show how philosophical and religious models of self-transformation are intertwined at the very heart of existentialism, revealing a battle over the status of religious ideas in an increasingly secular intellectual landscape.
Courses Taught (Stanford University): Winter 2010, “Nihilism,” RELIGST 139 Spring 2008,“Majors Seminar,” RELIGST 290 Courses Assisted (Stanford University): Spring 2008, “Daoist Thought, Daoist Religion” RELIGST 116 Winter 2008, “Chuang Tzu,” RELIGST 212 Fall 2007, “Sufi Islam,” RELIGST 124 Spring 2007, “Gender, Violence, and the Body in Ancient Religion,” CLASSGEN 11 Fall 2006, “Heidegger, the Self, and God,” RELIGST 278
Publications “Karl Löwith: In Search of a Singular Man,” in Kierkegaard Research, vol. 8/I (Ashgate), forthcoming 2012. “Heidegger on the Essence of Poetry and the Fate of Form,” Mantis: A Journal of Poetry and Translation VII, Winter 2008. “A Subtle Butcher––On the Question of Grace in the Zhuangzi,” Atopia, http://www.atopia.tk/index.php/gratia12/, Issue XI, July 2008 Papers Presented August 2011, “The Life of the Fatal Leap: The Salto Mortale from Lessing to Lukács,” Annual Research Seminar, Søren Kierkegaard Forskningscenteret, Copenhagen. March 2011, “The Aesthetics of Authenticity,” American Comparative Literature Association, Vancouver, BC. July 2010, “Die Frage der Disziplinarität in Heideggers Kierkegaard-Auslegung [The Question of Disciplinarity in Heidegger’s Interpretation of Kierkegaard],” Paper Presented to Seminar on Heidegger and German Idealism, Freiburg, Germany April 2010, “Presupposition and the Logos of Change,” Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses Conference, Oxford Centre for Theology and Modern European Thought December 2009, “Kierkegaard and Heidegger on Authenticity,” Kierkegaard Circle Group Meeting at the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division. June 2008, “The Apparent Conversion of Zhuangzi,” Colloquium on Violence and Religion Conference, University of California, Riverside.
2010-2011, G.J. Lieberman Fellow in the Humanities; 2010 DAAD Research Grant; 2009, Centennial Teaching Assistant Award, Stanford University; 2005–2006, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Humanistic Studies
2010, DAAD Visiting Scholar, Philosophy Faculty, Albert-Ludwigs Universität, Freiburg, Germany; 2009, Summer Fellow, The Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN