No hands in Amsterdam's lovely Vondel park
My name is Darian Meacham. I am currently a visiting philosophy lecturer at the University of the West of England, Bristol. When I am not in Bristol, I live in Brussels, Belgium with my wife Anna. I received my Doctorate in 2008 from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), where I worked at the Husserl Archives. My dissertation at KULeuven was entitled Phenomenological Approaches to the Political in Patočka and Merleau-Ponty. As you might guess from such a title, my research interests are in phenomenology and political philosophy. I am particularly interested in problems surrounding the concept of Europe and post-national political institutions, and the ethical and anthropological issues raised by the technological enhancement of the the human body and mind. More technically speaking, I try to approach these problems phenomenologically, through the ideas of Institution (Stiftung) and Style.
Below you can find some information about courses I am currently teaching, my current research projects and publications, and talks I’ll be giving in the near future. Here’s a link to my homepage at academia.edu.
Current Courses 2009-2010:
- Contemporary Continental Philosophy (more info in courses section of the website)
- Modern Philosophical Texts (more info in courses section of the website)
- Film and Philosophy (click here to see the course handbook)
Upcoming Lectures and Talks
- On April 21st, 2010, I’ll be at the University of the West of England, St. Matthias Campus, at 16:00. Title and topic TBA.
- On November 5th I was at the University of Limerick giving a talking on Hannah Arendt, Jan Patočka and the figure of the refugee in contemporary European political discourse. The talk is provisionally titled “‘Le bouc émissaire’ and the refugee: two themes on the future of a continent”
Selected Publications
- “Faith is in Things Not Seen” in eds. K. Semon and N. DeRoo. Merleau-Ponty at the Limits of Art, Religion and Perception. London: Continuum Press, 2010
- “The Noble and the Hypocritical Memory: Institution and Resistance in the Later Merleau-Ponty”, Philosophy Today SPEP Supplement 2009, pp. 233-43
- (in press) « L’histoire, l’Europe, et la vie : quelques réflexions sur les Essais hérétiques de Jan Patočka » in Jan Patočka. Existence, Histoire, et Monde Commun . Paris: éditions du Cercle Herméneutique
- D. Meacham & A-P. Papageorgiou. “Transgenerational Epigenetics or the Spectral History of the Flesh: A Merleau-Pontian Approach to Epigenetics”, Chiasmi International 9 (2008): 65-94
- “The Body at the Front: Corporeity and Community in Jan Patočka’s Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History”, Studia Phaenomenologica 7 (2007): 353-377
- “Caring for the Soul of Europe: Globalization’s challenge to Europe and the philosophy of Jan Patočka”, The Philosophy of Culture, Vol. II, ed. Boudouris. Athens: Ionia Publications, 2006, pp. 140-151
Translations
- Rancière, J. (2009) “Notes on the Photographic Image” in Radical Philosophy 156 (July/August 2009)
General Audience Publications
- “Science Funding: what would Patočka say?” in Opendemocracy.net September 25, 2009
Current research projects
I am currently working on an article on the concept of style.