FWO (Research Foundation Flanders) and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (BELGIUM)
Post-Doc, Philosophy
Sciences Po, Paris, Political Science
Post-doc
About
See also: https://sites.google.com/site/wimweym/
Wim Weymans, was raised in Antwerp and holds degrees in history (MA), philosophy (PhD) and political theory (MPhil) from the universities of Cambridge and Leuven, Belgium. From January 2008 to December 2009 he was an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University where he taught human rights theory and history. Before that he was a Fulbright scholar at UC Berkeley (2006) and Visiting Scholar at NYU's Remarque Institute.
He is chiefly interested in French social, historical and political thought post-1968. Within this area he focuses on two related fields. One is an analysis of democratic societies and the threats that confront them. The other is the study of different approaches to understand and represent societies past and present in all their diversity. The works of Claude Lefort, Marcel Gauchet, Michel de Certeau and Pierre Rosanvallon have proved especially illuminating in both areas. In addition to essays in for example History & Theory, Thesis Eleven and The European Journal of Political Theory, he is currently writing a book entitled "Representing the People", which attempts to show how Lefort, Gauchet and Rosanvallon tried to grasp the evolution of democratic societies in both its totality and its complexity.
In the field of Political theory he has written on the problem of the current crisis of political representation and on debates on republicanism and political freedom, in particular in the work of Quentin Skinner. He is also engaged in an analysis of human rights theories, social critique, modernity and social exclusion. To this end he is currently focusing on thinkers such as Lefort, Gauchet, Foucault, Habermas and Arendt. He is keen to draw connections between theory and policy. He participated in recent debates on EU university policy, drawing on his own experience of working for the European Commission research policy division. He currently examines different ways to redefine the university ‘beyond the market and tradition’.
PUBLICATIONS (see also: https://lirias.kuleuven.be/cv?u=u0034379)
Articles on theories of democratic societies and their past
(8) (with Andreas Hetzel) "From substantive to negative universalism. Lefort and Habermas on legitimacy in democratic societies", Thesis Eleven. Critical Theory and Historical Sociology, Number 110 (2012) (accepted for publication).
(7) "Jenseits des Arendtschen Marxismus: Lefort über Gleichheit und Demokratie"; In Reinhard Heil, Andreas Hetzel, Dirk Hommrich (eds.), Unbedingte Demokratie: Fragen an die Klassiker neuzeitlichen politischen Denkens (Nomos Verlag, 2011, in press).
(6) “Revising Foucault’s model of modernity and exclusion: Gauchet and Swain on madness and democracy”, Thesis Eleven. Critical Theory and Historical Sociology, Number 98 (2009) 33-51.
(5) “Understanding the present through the past? Quentin Skinner and Pierre Rosanvallon on the crisis of political representation”, Redescriptions. Yearbook of Political Thought and Conceptual History (2007) 45-60.
(4) “Freedom through political representation? Lefort, Gauchet and Rosanvallon on the relationship between state and society”, European Journal of Political Theory, 4, 3, (2005) 263-282. (Also appeared in German).
(3) “Über den Nutzen der Ideengeschichte: Quentin Skinner's Verteidigung der republikanischen Freiheit gegen den modernen Staat”, Leviathan. Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, 33, 3, (2005) 384-390. (Also appeared in Dutch).
(2) “Pierre Rosanvallon und das Problem der politischen Repräsentation”; In Oliver Flügel, Reinhard Heil, Andreas Hetzel (eds.), Die Rückkehr des Politischen: Demokratietheorien heute (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004) 87-112.
(1) “Michel de Certeau and the Limits of Historical Representation”, History and Theory. Studies in the Philosophy of History, 43, 2, (2004) 161-178. (Also appeared in Spanish, German and Dutch).
Articles on European higher education policy
(4) "Reconnecting the humanities with the public: on how (not) to publish at European universities"; In Maarten Simons, Mathias Decuypere, Joris Vlieghe and Jan Masschelein (eds.), Curating the European university. Exposition and public debate (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2011) 113-120.
(3) "Democracy, knowledge and critique: rethinking European universities beyond tradition and the market”, London Review of Education, 8, 2 (2010) 117-126.
(2) “From coherence to differentiation: understanding (changes in) the European area for higher education and research”; In Robert Cowen and Andreas Kazamias (eds.), International Handbook of Comparative Education (Dordrecht: Springer, 2009) 561-576.
(1) “Review article: The merits and limits of using Foucault to criticize lifelong learning”, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 28 (2009) 589-596.
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