I am Professor of Political Philosophy of Europe and work at the intersection of social and political philosophy, political phenomenology, and philosophy of emotions. I am particularly interested in issues regarding the normativity and the prosocial or disruptive nature of affective phenomena in social, collective, and political contexts, such as the appropriateness of political emotions, emotions and climate change, social emotion regulation and emotional alienation, collaborative self-deception, collective or institutional distrust, hatred, moral outrage and Ressentiment, fanaticism, feelings of inequality or powerlessness, affective injustice, and related affective antagonistic mechanisms in intergroup conflicts. I also work on statehood, solidarity, belonging, biases in social cognition, collective imagination and the social imaginary, as well as critical, feminist, and political epistemology (especially on collective beliefs, epistemic injustice, and disinformation).

My philosophical orientation is pluralistic and emphatically interdisciplinary. I engage equally with contemporary and historical and analytic and phenomenological/continental philosophical positions, but also draw on theoretical and empirical findings from the social sciences, in particular from research on social movements, nationalism studies, sociology, and social and political psychology.

Before coming to Flensburg, I was Associate Professor at the Center for Subjectivity Research (CFS) at the University of Copenhagen (2020-24), PI of the FWF research project Antagonistic Political Emotions (University of Vienna and University of Copenhagen, 2019-23), Senior Researcher at the University of Jyväskylä (2018-19), Visiting Fellow at the research center "Affective Societies" at FU Berlin (2017), Marie-Curie Fellow and Postdoc at the University of Copenhagen (2014-18), and Postdoc at the University College Dublin (2012-13). I obtained my PhD (summa cum laude) 2010 at the University of Vienna with a dissertation on "Consciousness, Intentionality, and Mental Representation: Husserl and Analytic Philosophy of Mind" (published by de Gruyter 2012).

I served as an ad-hoc-referee for over 70 journals and publishers (e.g., Mind, Analysis, The Monist, OUP or CUP) and research agencies (e.g., ERC). I am member of the Editorial Board of the journals Philosophy and Society and Phänomenologische Forschungen, and since 2023 I am also Associate Editor of Emotion Review. Within the framework of the Carlsberg Foundation research project Who are We?, I am also affiliated with the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen as a Recurrent Visiting Professor.

You can find my detailed CV here.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=czazvFoAAAAJ&hl=de

https://uni-flensburg.academia.edu/ThomasSzanto

• Political Philosophy (esp. nationalism studies, populism, political identification, social cohesion)
• Social Philosophy and (Non-ideal) Social Ontology
• Critical and Political Phenomenology
• Political Emotions (esp. hatred, resentment, Ressentiment, trust/distrust, feelings of solidarity, belonging, inequality and powerlessness)
• Climate Emotions
• Normativity and Fittingness of Emotions
• Ethics and Politics of Climate Change
• Affective Injustice
• Social Imaginary and Collective Imagination
• Critical, Feminist, and Political Epistemology

Contribution to and referenced in magazine article Election Anxiety Is Telling You Something: A Big Event Should Prompt Big Feelings (by Shayla Love), Oct. 25, 2024, The Atlantic

Interview-Partner for the German National Broadcast feature, Verpönte Emotionalität. Über Chancen und Risiken von Gefühlen in der Politik [], Okt. 27, 2022, Deutschlandfunk

Interview-Partner for the German National Broadcast feature 80. Todestag von Edith Stein: Vordenkerin der Empathie [], Aug. 7, 2022, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

Public Philosophy Contribution: "Why Should We Give a Damn? On Shared Emotions." The Philosopher 108/4, 32-37 (2020)

PhD Co-Supervision

 2023 - Nathan Biglietti, École Normale Supérieur, Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris: "The nature and unity of the phenomenology of collective experience" (Co-supervisor: Elisabeth Pacherie)

2022 - Julia Zaencker, University of Copenhagen: "The Plurality of Reciprocity: Second-Person Engagement and its Status in the Formation of We-Perspectives" (Co-supervisor: Dan Zahavi)

2022 - Tris Hedges, University of Copenhagen: "Us and Them: Normalisation and Alienation in Intergroup Relations" (Co-supervisor: Dan Zahavi)

2022 - 2024 Rosario Croce, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa: "Constitution and Social Structures: Revisiting the Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality" (Co-supervisors: Alfredo Ferrarin, Andrea Staiti; Defended: May 20, 2024, summa cum laude)

2019 - Linas Tranas, University of Cologne & University of Copenhagen (Co-tutela): "Shared Emotions" (Co-supervisors: Thiemo Breyer, Mikko Salmela)

2019 - 2024 Olli-Pekka Paananen, University of Jyväskylä: "The Ego and its Home: A Husserlian Phenomenology of Being-at-Home" (Co-supervisors: Sara Heinämaa, Joona Taipale)

External  Review/Examination

2024 Lucius Tan, University of Exeter: "The Phenomenology and Psychopathology of Feeling Out of Place" (External Reviewer/Examiner) (passed without correction)

2021 Minna-Kerttu Kekki, University of Oulu, Faculty of Education: "Learning from Others in Media-Based Public Debate: A Phenomenological-Philosophical Analysis" (Thesis Reviewer)

2017 Maria Chiara Bruttomesso, University of Verona, Department of Philosophy (External Assessment Board Member of PhD-Proposal Defense)