Ludger Hagedorn

Short Biography

Ludger Hagedorn (1967, Recklinghausen) studied Philosophy and Slavic Languages in Berlin at the Technical University (TU) and the Free University (FU). He obtained his doctoral degree from TU Berlin in 2002. For many years he has been actively involved in Patočka-Research at the IWM, where he was appointed as a Junior Fellow in 1997 and later became a Research Associate and Research Director. From 2005 to 2009, Hagedorn was holder of the Purkyne-Fellowship awarded by the Czech Academy of Sciences. As a lecturer, he has worked at Gutenberg-University Mainz and, for a number of years, at Charles University in Prague. He has also been a Guest Lecturer at Södertörns Högskola (Stockholm) in 2010 and in recent years at NYU Berlin.

Areas of Expertise: 

• Modernity and Secularization
• Jan Patočka
• Phenomenology
• Political Philosophy
• Philosophical Concepts of Europe
• Nietzsche’s Philosophy
• Czech and Slavic Thought

Selected Publications:

“Faith in the World.” Post-Secular Readings of Hannah Arendt, Frankfurt am Main, Chicago: Campus, Chicago University Press, 2021 (co-edited with Rafael Zawisza).

Phenomenologies of Sacrifice. Special Issue of Metodo. International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy 6, no. 2 (2018) (co-edited with Christian Sternad).

Beyond Myth and Enlightenment. Phenomenological Reconsiderations of Religion. Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT) 17, no. 2 (2018) (co-edited with Michael Staudigl).

Exploring the Undisclosed Meanings of Time, History, and Existence: Ricœur and Patočka as Philosophical Interlocutors. Special Issue of META. Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy IX, no. 2 (December 2017) (co-edited with Paul Marinescu).

The Heretical Perspectives of Jan Patocka. Labyrinth. An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics 19, no. 1 (Summer 2017) (guest editor).

“On Secularism and Its Discontents: Charting Pathways with a Phenomenology of Religion.” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT) 17, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 238–252 (co-authored with Michael Staudigl).

“Die ‘unermessliche Leichtigkeit und Zerbrechlichkeit des menschlichen Faktums.‘ Jan Patočka und die Krise des Humanismus.” Labyrinth. An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics 19, no. 1 (Summer 2017): 46–62.

Religion, War and the Crisis of Modernity. Special Issue of the New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy XIV (2015). London, New York: Routledge (co-edited with James Dodd)

[Complete List of Publications]

Former Affiliations at the IWM:
2011-2015 Research Director
2004-2005 Research Fellow
2000-2002 Research Associate