Cat Moir
I am Senior Lecturer in Germanic Studies and Chair of the Germanic Studies Department at the University of Sydney, where I also contribute to the European Studies programme.
I am an intellectual historian specialising in the history of European thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a particular focus on the German-speaking world. My research is motivated by the question of how ideas simultaneously shape and are shaped by broader historical developments and cultural spheres. A key interest in this respect is the interface between philosophy, natural sciences, and the arts.
I have published widely on the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and related figures, particularly Ernst Bloch; the German Aufklärung (Enlightenment) and its reception; German idealism and romanticism; historical materialism; and Weimar-era thought. My first monograph, Ernst Bloch’s Speculative Materialism: Ontology, Epistemology, Politics, will be published by Brill in 2019.
My research is concerned with studying the thoughts of the past in all their richness and diversity, and as such I take a pluralistic approach to methodology. Much of my work uses a reception theory paradigm to understand how ideas move and change through time and across linguistic and cultural boundaries. I am also interested in intermediality in intellectual history—how ideas are constructed and conveyed through images, sounds, and objects—and in intellectual history ‘from below’, in sources produced and consumed in everyday contexts as opposed to by professional intellectuals and academics.
My current project explores the impact of the rise of the life sciences on left-wing social and political thought and practice in Europe from the early 19th century to 1933.
I am an intellectual historian specialising in the history of European thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a particular focus on the German-speaking world. My research is motivated by the question of how ideas simultaneously shape and are shaped by broader historical developments and cultural spheres. A key interest in this respect is the interface between philosophy, natural sciences, and the arts.
I have published widely on the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and related figures, particularly Ernst Bloch; the German Aufklärung (Enlightenment) and its reception; German idealism and romanticism; historical materialism; and Weimar-era thought. My first monograph, Ernst Bloch’s Speculative Materialism: Ontology, Epistemology, Politics, will be published by Brill in 2019.
My research is concerned with studying the thoughts of the past in all their richness and diversity, and as such I take a pluralistic approach to methodology. Much of my work uses a reception theory paradigm to understand how ideas move and change through time and across linguistic and cultural boundaries. I am also interested in intermediality in intellectual history—how ideas are constructed and conveyed through images, sounds, and objects—and in intellectual history ‘from below’, in sources produced and consumed in everyday contexts as opposed to by professional intellectuals and academics.
My current project explores the impact of the rise of the life sciences on left-wing social and political thought and practice in Europe from the early 19th century to 1933.
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Articles by Cat Moir
Book chapters by Cat Moir
deeper understanding of the concept of anthropological materialism, and to highlight the parallels between Büchner’s thought and Benjamin’s.
Monographs by Cat Moir
Edited books by Cat Moir
Reform and revolution have been two forms of response to crisis that have shaped Europe’s history. To understand Europe’s present, we must understand that past. This interdisciplinary book considers, through the prism of several landmark moments, how the dynamics of reformation and revolution, and the crises they either addressed or created, have shaped European history, memory, and thought.
Special journal issues by Cat Moir
Papers by Cat Moir
deeper understanding of the concept of anthropological materialism, and to highlight the parallels between Büchner’s thought and Benjamin’s.
Reform and revolution have been two forms of response to crisis that have shaped Europe’s history. To understand Europe’s present, we must understand that past. This interdisciplinary book considers, through the prism of several landmark moments, how the dynamics of reformation and revolution, and the crises they either addressed or created, have shaped European history, memory, and thought.