Mathijs Peters
University lecturer
- Name
- Dr. M.A. Peters
- Telephone
- +31 71 527 2176
- m.a.peters@hum.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- 0000-0003-0375-0002
Mathijs Peters is a university lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society.
More information about Mathijs Peters
Research
I am mainly interested in different forms of critique: social, cultural, literary, philosophical, and political. This interest originated in a concern with the normative basis of the critical writings of authors like Nietzsche, Adorno, Habermas and Foucault on religion, culture, society, conceptuality and subjectivity. My focus then shifted to corporeality and the role that bodily suffering and bodily empathy play in the moral and critical theories of Schopenhauer, Adorno and Merleau-Ponty. Studying these authors, I expanded my focus to the critical potential of literary works, analyzing writings by Tolstoy, De Sade, Kafka, Proust, Beckett, Pessoa and Coetzee. A similar interest made me explore different representations of alienation as developed by Hegel, Marx, Fromm, Marcuse, Honneth, Camus, Thoreau, Houellebecq and more. This same interested sparked a focus on that which could be understood as the opposite of alienation, resulting in research on Hartmut Rosa’s concept of resonance, especially on its aesthetic dimensions. Currently, I am focused on the critical potential of modern, popular culture, mainly of popular music, as well as on representations of selfhood in graphic novels and on social media.
Curriculum vitae
Before coming to Leiden, I studied philosophy at Utrecht University and spent a year at the philosophy and political science departments of the New School for Social Research, expanding my knowledge of Critical Theory, Moral Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and German Ideology. This year in New York was funded by a Nuffic Talentenbeurs and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. Subsequently, I undertook my PhD-research at the University of Essex, UK. During this time, I also spent a year at the Institut Catholique de Paris to study French Phenomenology. Following my PhD-research in Essex, I worked as a research fellow at the Kolleg Postwachstumsgesellschaften of the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany, and lectured at Utrecht University's Ethics Institute.
Teaching acitivities
At Leiden University, I teach at the department of Literary and Film studies. I also teach various courses at the Leiden University College in The Hague.
University lecturer
- Faculty of Humanities
- Centre for the Arts in Society
- Literatuurwetenschap
- Peters M.A. & Horsman Y. (2024), Co-Mix, Re-Mix: A conversation between comics scholars Yasco Horsman and Mathijs Peters. In: Hengel G. van & Purtić I. (Eds.), Remix Comix. Novi Sad: LED-Art. 116-119.
- Peters M.A. (2024), Fighting against the Dying of the Present: On Nostalgia, Resonance, and Edgar Reitz’s Heimat. In: Liere L. van den & Sremac S. (Eds.), Trauma and Nostalgia: Practices in Memory and Identity. Heritage and Memory Studies no. 24. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 153-178.
- Peters M.A. (2023), Ways to salvation: on Schopenhauer’s theory of self-negation and salvation. In: Bather Woods D. & Stoll T. (Eds.), The schopenhauerian mind. Routledge Philosophical Minds. London: Routledge. 311-324.
- Peters M.A. (2023), Subverting the restorative nostalgia of black metal: reading Swiss band Zeal & Ardor through an Afropessimistic lens, Popular Music and Society 46(5): 466-484.
- Peters M.A. (2023), Zeal & Ardor's antiracist Nietzschean Götterdämmerung, PopMatters : .
- Peters M.A. & Majid B. (2022), Exploring Hartmut Rosa's Concept of Resonance. London: Springer International Publishing.
- Peters M.A. (2021), Space Dogs: A haunted story of cruelty and compassion, Film International 19(1): 70-76.
- Peters M.A. (2021) Op de vuist: een aanstekelijk overzicht van vijftig jaar protestliedjes waar wel iets meer muziek in had mogen zitten. Review of: Laurens Ham, Op de vuist: Vijftig jaar politiek en protestliedjes. Vooys: tijdschrift voor letteren 39(3): 73-77.
- Peters M.A. (2021), Orwellian Times: On Manic Street Preachers’ ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’’, PopMatters : .
- Peters M.A. (2020), Reification and the Duty to Work Through the Past: On Critical Theory and Temporality, New German Critique 47(2): 107-138.
- Peters M.A. & Majid B. (2020), Re-Enacting History: The colonial gaze of Francis Alÿs’ film Sandline, Film International 18(4): 29-45.
- Peters M.A. (2020), Popular Music, Critique and Manic Street Preachers. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Peters M.A. (2020), On IDLES' Danceable Relatable Battle Hymns, popmatters.
- Peters M.A. (2017), ‘‘How Much Truth Can a Spirit Endure?’ – A Nietzschean Perspective on the Posthumous Intellectual Legacy of Manic Street Preachers’ Lyricist Richey Edwards, Rhizomes : Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge 31: .
- Peters M.A. (2016), Erich Fromm on Resonance and Alienation, Fromm Forum 20: 24-34.
- Peters M.A. (2016), The One Truly Philosophical Problem: Arthur Schopenhauer, Leo Tolstoy and Albert Camus on the Question of Suicide, The Journal of Camus Studies : .
- Peters M.A. (2015), Between Alienation and Resonance: Atomization and embedment from Schopenhauer to Camus, from Hegel to Honneth, and from Thoreau to Houellebecq, Working Paper der DFG - KollegforscherInnengruppe Postwachstumsgesellschaften 4: 1-117.
- Peters M.A. (2015), "The Zone of the Carcass and the Knacker": On Adorno's Concern with the Suffering Body. In: Hammer E. (Ed.) Theodor W, Adorno II. Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers no. 2 London: Routledge.
- Peters M.A. (2015), Adorno Meets Welsh Alternative Rock Band Manic Street Preachers: Three Proposed Critical Models, Journal of Popular Culture 48(6): 1346-1373.
- Peters M.A. (2014), Schopenhauer and Adorno on Bodily Suffering: A Comparative Analysis: Palgrave-Macmillan.
- Peters M.A. (2014), A Giant Gutter in outer Space: On the Schopenhauerian Themes in HBO’s television series True Detective, Film International : .
- Peters M.A. (2013), Will and Flesh: Schopenhauer and Merleau-Ponty on Corporeality, Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch 94: 91-114.
- Peters M.A. (2013), ‘The Zone of the Carcass and the Knacker’ – On Adorno’s Concern with the Suffering Body, European Journal of Philosophy 23(4): 1238-1258.