Faculty

**On Leave Fall 2026** For me, philosophy stems from the experience of talking to others in an attempt to understand the other person, myself as the other, as well as the world. Even though such conversation can never be completed, it is still meaningful at any point, and can be always carried on. It is in such conversation that humans are recognized as people; to be is to be is to be in dialogue with the other, from which we draw our meaning and well-being.

PhD 1990, Institute for Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences, Moscow.

Books

Critique of Bored Reason: On the Confinement of the Modern Condition. Columbia University Press, 2022.

Facets of Modernity: Reflections on Fractured Subjectivity. Rowman & Littlefield, 2021.

Neoplatonism in Late Antiquity. Oxford University Press, 2019. 

Productive Imagination: Its History, Meaning and Significance, (co-editor, with Saulius Geniusas). Rowman & Littlefied International, 2018.

The Concept of History, Bloomsbury, 2017.

"Philosophy and Political Power in Antiquity (co-editor, with Cinzia Arruzza). Brill, 2016.

Memory: A History, ed. Oxford University Press, 2015.

Comedy, Seriously: A Philosophical Study. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

The Other Plato. SUNY Press, 2012.

Dialectic and Dialogue. Stanford, 2010.

On Dialogue. Lexington, 2006.

Matter, Imagination and Geometry: Ontology, Natural Philosophy and Mathematics in Plotinus, Proclus and Descartes. Ashgate, 2002.

Metaphysik und Ethik. Theoretische und praktische Philosophie in Antike und Neuzeit. C.H. Beck, 1996.    

Journal Articles 

“What is Productive Imagination?” In: Productive Imagination: Its History, Meaning and Significance. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, pp. 1-28.

“The Eternal Return of the Other: Benjamin on the Social and Political Effects of Boredom in Modernity.” Social Imaginaries 4 (2018), pp. 135-157.

“Democracy and the Politics of Comedy.” Constellations 26 (2019), pp. 569-580.

“Histories Beyond History.” Existenz 14 (2019), pp. 43-68.

 “Laziness and the Cunning of Reason: Kant on Boredom.” Stasis 8, (2019), p. 122-136.

“Responsibility and Hope.” Bollettino della Società Filosofica Italiana 232, (2021), pp. 27-43.

“The Laughing Philosopher: The Affectionate Laughter of Agnes Heller.” Philosophy of Humor Yearbook 2 (2021), 2021, p. 149-162.