Signposts
I was born in Wuppertal (Barmen) – the birthplace of Friedrich Engels – in former West Germany in 1970. Here is how Engels speaks about Wuppertal:
“True, at first glance it seems otherwise, for every evening you can hear merry fellows strolling through the streets singing their songs, but they are the most vulgar, obscene songs that ever came from drunken mouths; one never hears any of the folk-songs which are so familiar throughout Germany and of which we have every right to he proud. All the ale-houses are full to overflowing, especially on Saturday and Sunday, and when they close at about eleven o’clock, the drunks pour out of them and generally sleep off their intoxication in the gutter.” (Engels, Letter from Wuppertal).
I had luck: philosophy was offered at my high school as an advanced six hour weekly course. I loved it. We read Nietzsche, Bloch, Marx, and other main philosophers. The course was taught by a recent philosophy PhD. I vividly remember that one of my Gymnasium’s final written and oral exams was on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. It was both terrifying and exciting. Though I initially thought of applying to the main Hamburg journalism school after Gymnasium (since I had worked as a freelance journalist in my hometown), studying protestant theology (which I gave up quickly), I ended up studying philosophy, art history, and sociology at the universities of Bamberg, Tübingen, and, right after the breakdown of the wall between East and West Germany, in the former East-German town of Jena. I also sometimes regret that I had not more seriously considered becoming a craftsman and interior designer, following my Dad’s footsteps, and (perhaps) avoiding our widespread contemporary academic alientation.
Due to the political changes in Germany and Europe at that time, the time in Jena was intellectually and politically fruitful because nothing seemed to be set in stone and all paths towards different futures seemed to be open. Political round tables and public discussions were everywhere. People wanted to enter the public realm and, in Arendt’s sense, wanted to be free. The closure of political and social thinking took place soon after that.
My academic teachers were Richard Münch (Bamberg), Otfried Höffe (Tübingen), Gonsalv Mainberger† (Jena), A. Aguirre† (Wuppertal), Walther Ch. Zimmerli, Albert Mues, and Wolfgang Welsch (Bamberg). I was awarded a rare fellowship from the Hesian State (Land Hessen) for promising young researchers (1997-99) as well as a federal fellowship by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG, 1999-02), which provided me a “full ride” as a graduate student. Fellowships for PhD students were not common in Germany. There were no academic employment opportunities for graduate students, as it is common in the Anglo-American world. I spent two years as a dissertation research fellow at Emory University in Atlanta (2000-02); I received an M.A. in philosophy, sociology, and art history from the University of Bamberg in 1997, and a Ph.D. in philosophy with a thesis on Heidegger and Husserl from the University of Marburg in 2002 under the directorship of W. Ch. Zimmerli (Philipps-Universität Marburg), D. Carr (Emory University), and A. Aguirre† (Bergische Universität Wuppertal). Working with Prof. Aguirre was a wonderful intense practice with weekly sentence by sentence readings of Husserl’s main works (mainly Ideas I and II). These were happy days! I miss them.
Before coming to MSU, I taught at the University of Marburg, at Seattle University, and at the University of Kansas. My main areas are Post-Kantian European philosophy (esp. German philosophy), social philosophy (esp. Marx, critical theory, globalization, technology), continental aesthetics, philosophy of culture, philosophical anthropology, and contemporary political philosophy [see also the department page for a short blurb: here].
Contact
Christian Lotz
Professor of Philosophy
Associate Chair and Director of the Graduate Program
Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University
368 Farm Ln, rm 503, South Kedzie Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
dept | 517.355.4490
fax | 517.355.1320
Education, Appointments, Awards
CV
You’ll find a link to my CV in the menu on top of this page.
Education
Ph.D. (Philosophy): Philipps-University of Marburg (2002)
Dissertation Umwelthandeln und Selbstbezug. Phänomenologie praktischer Subjektivität (370 p.), published on micro fiche [Advisors: Prof. Zimmerli, University of Marburg; Prof. Carr, Emory University].
Research Fellow (Philosophy), Emory University, Atlanta ( 2000-02)
M.A. (Philosophy, Sociology, and Art History): Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg (1997)
M.A. Thesis Gewissenhabenwollen in Heideggers Sein und Zeit (120 p.) [Advisor: Prof. Zimmerli, University of Bamberg]
B.A., equivalent, Zwischenprüfung (Philosophy, Sociology, and Art History): Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena (1993)
Undergraduate Studies: Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg (1990-91; 1994-1997); Eberhard-Karls University of Tübingen (1993-94), Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena (1991-93)
Professional Experience
Freelance Journalist (“Fester freier Mitarbeiter”, Permalencer), Westfälische Rundschau, editorial office Ennepetal (1987-1991), more than 500 published articles, 1989 and 1990 fixed-term replacements of full-time local editors [letter of confirmation] [selection of articles]
Regular and Visiting Appointments
Full Professor, tenured, Michigan State University (since 2015)
DAAD Visiting Professor, full time (W2), Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus (2011 and 2013)
Associate Professor, tenured, Michigan State University (2009-2015)
Assistant Professor, tenure-track, Michigan State University (2005-2009)
Assistant Professor, tenure-track, University of Kansas (2003-2005)
Adjunct Professor, Seattle University (2002-03)
Instructor, Philipps-University Marburg (1997-2000)
University Affiliations
Core Faculty of the Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (CERES), Michigan State University, since 2022
Global Studies Affiliated Faculty, Michigan State University, since 2022
Major Service Appointments
Director of the Graduate Program and Associate Chair, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 2022-
SPEP Executive Board, Member at large, Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), 2016-2019
Awards, Honors, Fellowships
Fintz Award for Teaching Excellence in the Arts and Humanities, College of Arts and Letters, Michigan State University, 2014
Teacher-Scholar Award, Office of the Provost, Michigan State University, 2009
National Fellowship; German Science Foundation; fully funded; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), 1999-2002
State Fellowship for Promising Young Academic Scholars; fully funded; Hessische Nachwuchswissenschaftlerförderung, Land Hessen, 1997-99
Research Areas
Research Area I: Continental Philosophy
Overview: I am working in the European tradition of philosophy in general, with a special focus on German phenomenology, Existentialism, and German Idealism. In my recent projects I was concerned with bridging central aspects of phenomenology and Frankfurt School inspired critical theory, and developing a concept of capital as enframing.
Representative publications in this area: From Affectivity to Subjectivity. Husserl’s Phenomenology Revisited, (London: Palgrave 2008); Vom Leib zum Selbst. Kritische Analysen zu Husserl and Heidegger (Freiburg: Alber 2005); “Ultima Ratio Decisions and Absolute Interiority. From Hegel to Bonhoeffer,” in Rethinking Interiority: Phenomenological Approaches, ed. Elodie Boublil and Antonio Calcagno, New York: SUNY Press 2023, 143-159; “Recollection, Mourning and the Absolute Past: Husserl, Freud and Derrida,” New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, Vol.3, Nr. 4, 2004, 121-141; “The Origins of One-Dimensionality. Husserl, Heidegger, Marcuse,” New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, 2025, 136-151.
PhD courses in this area: Intentionality and Beyond: From Husserl to Levinas; Heidegger: Being and Time; Intersubjectivity from Hegel to the Present; Augustine’s Confessions and Contemporary Philosophy; Husserl and Heidegger
Graduate/senior level courses in this area: Kierkegaard and Continental Philosophy; German Philosophical Anthropology; Sartre; Heidegger: Being and Time; Marcuse; Arendt; Gadamer and Hermeneutics; The Early Heidegger; Hegel; Foucault; Heidegger and Phenomenology; 19th Century Philosophy; Contemporary Continental Philosophy
Undergraduate courses in this area: Philosophy of Technology; Existentialism; Existential Problems of Human Life/On Being Human (GenEd)
Research Area II: Critical Social-Political Philosophy
Overview: I am working on aspects of a critique of political economy in relation to social ontology. In my view, Marx offers us a theory of Vergesellschaftung, social synthesis, and social knowledge. Recent work in European critical theory operates without a categorial analysis of contemporary society, and witout a basic idea of social reality. I am also interested in a first-generation holistic understanding of critical social theory that brings epistemological, metaphysical, economical, political, and cultural aspects of social philosophy together.
Representative publications in this area: The Capitalist Schema: Time, Money, and the Culture of Abstraction (Lexington Books, 2014, pbk. 2016); “Marxismus als Methode? Lukács und die Grundlegung einer kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie heute,“ Lukács 2021-2023. Jahrbuch der Internationalen Georg-Lukacs-Gesellschaft, Münster: Aisthesis Verlag 2023, 87-111; “Categorial Forms as Intelligibility of Social Objects. Reification and Objectivity in Lukács.,” in Confronting Reification. Revitalizing Georg Lukács’s Thought in Late Capitalism, ed. Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker, Leiden: Brill/Chicago: Haymarket Books 2020, 25-47; “Fiction without Fantasy. Capital Fetishism as Objective Forgetting,” Continental Thought & Theory, 2, 2017, 364-382
PhD courses in this area: Fundamentals of Political Philosophy: Schmitt vs. Arendt; Reification 2.0.; Materialist Societal Epistemology; Marx, Grundrisse; Marxist Philosophies; Contemporary European Political Philosophy; Critical Theory (co-taught with Todd Hedrick); Recent European Political Philosophy; Recent Anglo-American Philosophy of Technology
Graduate/senior level courses in this area: Adorno’s Social Philosophy and Theory of Society; Arendt and Luxemburg; Anarchism and Radical Democracy; Community, the Commons, and Political Resistance; State, Democracy, Power: Radical European Political Thought
Undergraduate courses in this area: Philosophy of Technology; Marx; Introduction to Social-Political Philosophy; Is Another World Possible? Global Capitalism and Post-Capitalism (GenEd); The Culture of Capitalism (GenEd)
Research Area III: Continental Aesthetics
Overview: Though I have worked less in this area in recent years, I remain interested on selected aspects of visual culture, esp. painting and photography, from a “hermeneutical” perspective, which is based on Gadamer’s philosophy of formed images [Gebilde] and Hegel’s concept of plasticity, both of which are related to how the German tradition conceptualized art and culture from Goethe to Beuys. Some ideas about image constitution and painting are presented in my book on Gerhard Richter.
Representative publications in this area: The Art of Gerhard Richter: Hermeneutics, Images, Meaning (London: Bloomsbury Press 2015, pbk 2017); “Sensuality, Materiality, Painting. What is Wrong with Jaspers’ and Heidegger’s van Gogh Interpretations?,” Van Gogh among the Philosophers: Painting, Thinking, Being, ed. David Nichols, Lexington Books 2018, 81-97; “Representing Capital? Mimesis, Realism, and Contemporary Photography,” The Social Ontology of Capitalism, ed. Daniel Krier and Mark P. Worrell, London: Palgrave 2017, 173-193; “Husserl, Expressionism, and the Eidetic Impulse in Brücke’s Woodcut,” Phenomenology and the Arts, ed. Peter Costello and Licia Carlson, Lanham: Lexington Books 2016, 91-119; “Depiction and Plastic Perception. A Critique of Husserl’s Theory of Picture Consciousness,” Continental Philosophy Review, 2/2007, 171-185.
PhD courses in this area: Architecture and Politics; The Sublime and Non-Representable; Philosophy of Culture; Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics in Critical Theory and Phenomenology
Graduate/senior level courses in this area: The Meaning of Photography: Recent Anglo-American Discussions; Philosophy of Poetry
Undergraduate courses in this area: Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory; Aesthetics: Kant-Nietzsche-Heidegger; Aesthetics: Kant vs. Hegel
Teaching
I believe that higher education is the opposite of “schooled learning,” “fixed curricula,” and “textbook education,” as it is common at US universities. “Academic study differs emphatically from school work” (Adorno).
My classes and seminars are based on a mix of lecture, open discussion, and close reading of texts. Under current societal conditions, true education in the humanities becomes increasingly difficult. Heidegger was already aware of it 75 years ago: “The sciences take on themselves the task of forming the exemplary concepts that in each case is necessary. These exemplary concepts are permitted only a technical-cybernetic function, while in contrast all ontological content is denied. Philosophy becomes superfluous.”
We should remain in skeptical distance to integrating students intellectually into the existing functional paradigms and the humanities should be seen as important as the sciences which are only one way of generating knowledge. Unfortunately, many believe today that the humanities deal with relativist issues, partly supported by relativist positions in the humanities themselves. The humanities, in my view, not only are key for educating responsible and critical citizens, but also can offer significant insights into what is. As such, philosophy ought to escape contemporary cultural relativism and its devastating consequences for the contemporary intellectual mindset, both in political and “spiritual” terms. The development of political judgement is blocked when everything is drowned in empty critiques of universalism, in hermeneutics of suspicion, and an undifferentiated rejection of our philosophical heritage.
In contrast, philosophy is a struggle with knowledge and truth, and we should resist the current trend to instrumentally reduce the humanities to service work (such as teaching “skills”), or reducing the humanities to “diversity” issues.
Teaching Evaluations
Selected student evaluations of large lecture classes: 2021 – 2017 – 2016 – 2015 – 2013 (for student comments scroll to the end of the pdfs)
Life Motto
“Niemand lasse den Glauben daran fahren, daß Gott an ihm eine große Tat will” (Luther); the sentence is difficult to translate, perhaps somehow like this: “No one should lose faith in God and his will to see a great deed in them” – engraved above the entrance hall of the old Wittenberg University; today’s Luther Haus.
In Memoriam of a Comrade: Socrates † (1999-2018)
Aristotle (2021-) & Hegel (2021-)
Christian Lotz 