Robert Sinnerbrink
BA Sydney, PhD Sydney
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After studying medicine, creative writing, film, and philosophy, Robert was awarded his PhD on Hegel, Heidegger, and the Metaphysics of Modernity at the University of Sydney in 2002. During his postgraduate research period he spent six months studying at the Humboldt Universitaet in Berlin. He has taught philosophy at a number of institutions, including the University of Sydney, UTS, UNSW, The College of Fine Arts, and Macquarie University, before commencing as an associate lecturer in the Department in July 2002. Robert is Chair of the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy (ASCP), a book review co-editor for the journal Critical Horizons, a member of the Sydney Society for Literature and Aesthetics, the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, and has been a co-convenor of the Sydney Seminar for the Arts and Philosophy. |
Teaching
Robert currently teaches or has taught the following units:
- PHIL131 Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics
- PHIL132 Philosophy, Morality and Society
- PHIL250 Aesthetics
- PHIL254 Freedom and Alienation
- PHIL351 Social Philosophy
- PHIL356 Contemporary European Philosophy
- PHIL365 Philosophy and Cinema
- Honours Seminars: Contemporary political philosophy and the problem of recognition; Advanced Aesthetics; Heidegger and Nietzsche
Graduate Supervision
- Emma Robinson, Psychoanalysis, Cinema, and the Cultural Politics of Memory: Nostalgia and the Work of Mourning in Kieslowski’s Trois Coleurs Trilogy (passed 2004).
- Berndt Sellheim, L’absente de tous bouquets: Linguistic Negativity in Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, PhD (passed 2008) [co-supervised with Jean-Philippe Deranty].
Current Students
- Paolo Bolanos, PhD candidate. Topic: Nietzsche and Adorno on the ethics of thinking
- Marco Crespo, MA candidate. Topic: Heidegger and Aristotle
- Adam Tate, PhD candidate. Topic: The Confrontation between Heidegger and the Tradition
- Altaf Hossein, PhD candidate. Topic: Nietzsche on Truth
List of publications
Book
Understanding Hegelianism (Chesham: Acumen Press, 2007)
Critique Today (edited with Jean-Philippe Deranty, Nicholas Smith, and Peter Schmiedgen) (Leiden: Brill, 2006)
Recognition, Work, Politics: New Directions in French Critical Theory (edited with Jean-Philippe Deranty, Danielle Petherbridge, and John Rundell) (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
Book chapters
“Hugo Münsterberg” in Felicity J. Colman (ed.) Film-Philosophy: Key Thinkers (Stocksfield: Acumen, 2009 forthcoming).
"Power, Recognition, and Care: Honneth's Critique of Poststructuralist Social Philosophy" in D. Petherbridge (ed.) The Critical Theory of Axel Honneth (Leiden/Boston: Brill, forthcoming).
“Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line and the Question of Heideggerian Cinema” in V. Karalis (ed.) Heidegger and the Aesthetics of Living (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008) (forthcoming).
“Sein und Geist: Heidegger’s Confrontation with Hegel’s Phenomenology” in P. Ashton, T. Nicolacopoulous, and G. Vassilacopoulos (eds.) The Spirit of the Age: Hegel and the Fate of Thinking (Melbourne: Re.press, 2008), pp. 185-204.
"Misrecognition and Moral Injury: Reflections on Honneth and Bernstein" in M. Sharpe, J. Freddi, M. Noonan (eds.), Trauma, Historicity, Philosophy (with Special Essays by Agnes Heller and Gyorgy Markus) (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007), pp. 282-301.
"Critique, Hope, Power: Contemporary Challenges of Critical Theory" (with Jean-Philippe Deranty and Nicholas H. Smith) in Critique Today (ed. R. Sinnerbrink, J-P. Deranty, N. H. Smith, P. Schmiedgen) (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 1-21.
Recognitive Freedom: Hegel and the Problem of Recognition, in J. Rundell, D. Petherbridge, J. Bryant, J. Hewitt, J. Smith, Contemporary Perspectives in Critical and Social Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 271-295.
Violence and Subjectivity: Domination and Subjection in Hegel and Nietzsche? in Anatomies of Violence: An Interdisciplinary Investigation, ed. R. Walker, K. Brass, and J. Byron (Sydney: RIHSS Publications, 2000), pp. 37-50.
Articles
“The Hegelian ‘Night of the World’: Zizek on Subjectivity, Negativity, and Universality”, International Journal of Zizek Studies, Special Issue on Zizek and Hegel, vol. 2, no. 2, 2008, pp. 1-21. Available online at: http://www.zizekstudies.org/index.php/ijzs/article/view/136/222
“Time, Affect, and the Brain: Deleuze’s Cinematic Aesthetics (Review-article), Film-Philosophy, vol. 12, no. 1, April 2008, pp. 85-96. (Available online at: http://www.film-philosophy.com/2008v12n1/sinnerbrink.pdf
"Sein und Geist: Heidegger's Confrontation with Hegel's Phenomenology" in "Rethinking the Place of Philosophy with Hegel", Special Issue of Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol 3, nos. 2-3, 2007, pp. 132-152. Available online at: http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/154/104
"The Politics of the Multiple: On Alain Badiou's Being and Event" in Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy and Social Theory 8(1), August 2007, pp. 96-115.
"Grace and Violence: Questioning Politics and Desire in Lars von Trier's Dogville" in Scan: Journal of Media Arts Culture, vol 4. no.2 August 2007. Available online at: http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display_synopsis.php?j_id=11
"A Heideggerian Cinema? On Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line," Film-Philosophy, December 2006, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 26-37. Available as pdf.
"Ereignis, Technology, Art: Poetic Dwelling in the Later Heidegger," Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 16, no.1, June 2006, pp. 81-94.
"Cinema and its Shadow: Mario Perniola's Art and its Shadow," Film-Philosophy, "Continental Film Philosophy Today," vol. 10. no. 2, September 2006, pp. 31-38. Available as pdf.
"Nomadology or Ideology? Zizek's Critique of Deleuze" in Parrhesia. A Journal of Critical Philosophy, No. 1, July 2006. Available as pdf.
"Deconstructive Justice and the 'Critique of Violence': On Derrida and Benjamin," Social Semiotics, vol. 16. no. 3. September 2006. pp. 485-497.
"From Machenschaft to Biopolitics: A Genealogical Critique of Biopower" in Critical Horizons, November 2005, Vol. 6, Issue 1, pp. 239-265.
"Critique, Hope, Power: Contemporary Challenges of Critical Theory" (co-authored with Jean-Philippe Deranty and Nicholas H. Smith) in Critical Horizons, November 2005, Vol. 6, Issue 1, pp.1-21.
“Cinematic Ideas: David Lynch's Mulholland Drive,” Film-Philosophy, Vol. 9. No. 34, June 2005. Available online.
“Recognitive Freedom: Hegel and the Problem of Recognition?” Critical Horizons, Vol. 5, 2004, pp. 271-295.
"Heidegger and the 'End of Art'", Literature and Aesthetics, Vol. 14, No. 1, June 2004, pp. 89-109.
"Hegel and the Mythology of Manys", International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2003, pp. 235-244.
We Hyperboreans: Platonism and Politics in Heidegger and Nietzsche, Contretemps: an Online Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 3, July 2002. Available online at: http://www.usyd.edu.au/contretemps/3July2002/sinnerbrink.pdf.
Active Slaves and Reactive Masters, Deleuze's Anti-Dialectical Nietzsche, Social Semiotics, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1997, pp. 147-160.
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover: A Discourse on Disgust, in Film: Matters of Style, special edition of Continuum: The Australian Journal of Culture and Media, ed. Adrian Martin Vol. 5, No. 2, 1990, pp. 352-365. Available online at: http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/5.2/Sinnerbrink.html
Reviews
Simon, Glendinning, The Idea of Continental Philosophy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006) (Book Note), Australasian Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming).
“Review Essay: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Lynch But Were Afraid to Ask Lacan,” Todd McGowan, The Impossible David Lynch (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), in South Atlantic Review, vol. 72, no. 4, Fall 2007, pp. 128-132.
Alison Ross, The Aesthetic Paths of Philosophy: Presentation in Kant, Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Nancy (Stanford University Press, 2007) in Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy, no 3, 2007. Available online at: http://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia03/parrhesia03_sinnerbrink.pdf
Daniel Frampton, Filmosophy (London: BFI Press, 2006) in Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind, volume 1, no. 2, Winter 2007, pp. 109-115.
Elliot L. Jurist, Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture and Agency (MIT Press, 2002) in "Rethinking the Place of Philosophy with Hegel", Special Issue of Cosmos and History, vol 3, nos. 2-3, 2007, pp. 389-395. Available online at: http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/177/133
Nikolas Kompridis, Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory Between Past and Future (the MIT Press, 2006) in Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy and Social Theory, vol. 8, issue 2, 2007, pp. 266-271
Hegel on Ethics and Politics, ed. Robert B. Pippin and Otfried Hoffe, trans. Nicholas Walker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. xviii + 340. ISBN 0-521-81814-1 in Bulletin de Litterature hegelienne XV, Archives de Philosophie, 2005 (http://www.archivesdephilo.com/)
'Alice Ormiston, Love and Politics. Re-Interpreting Hegel (Albany: State University of New Press, 2004), pp. ix + 164. ISBN 0-7914-6067-3" in Bulletin de Littérature hegelienne XV, Archives de Philosophie, 2005 (http://www.archivesdephilo.com/)
Rosemary Cowan, Cornel West: The Politics of Redemption (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003) in The Australian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 40, No. 1, March 2005, p. 163.
"Endings. Questions of Memory in Hegel and Heidegger," Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, Vol 47/48, pp. 96-100.
Translations
Axel Honneth, “The Irreducibility of Progress: Kant’s Account of the Relationship between Morality and History”, with Jean-Philippe Deranty, Critical Horizons, 8(1), 2007, pp. 1-17.
Axel Honneth, ‘The Work of Negativity: A Psychoanalytical Revisioning of the Theory of Recognition’, trans. R. Sinnerbrink, Critical Horizons, vol. 7, no. 1, 2006, pp. 101-111.
Current research
Robert's research interests are in the areas of philosophy of cinema, critical theory, contemporary French and German philosophy, Hegel, Heidegger, social philosophy, and aesthetics. He is currently researching a project on philosophical approaches to cinema and writing a book on Hegel, Heidegger, and Critical Theory.
Administrative responsibilities
- Philosophy Honours Convenor
- member of Philosophy Undergraduate Committee
- Philosophy representative on BSocSci Committee
- Library Committee
Contact details
Location: Building W6A Room 724
Phone: (61 2) 9850 9935
Fax: (61 2) 9850 8892
Email: rsinnerbrink@scmp.mq.edu.au
Officer hours: Mon 2-4; Wed 2-3