Professor Christopher Norris BA (London); Ph.D. (London)

Research

Research interests

• philosophy of language
• Epistemology
• philosophy of science
• Modern Continental Philosophy
• Aesthetics
• Literary Theory

Teaching

Teaching interests

• philosophy of science
• Epistemology
• philosophy of language
• modern continental philosophy (especially the work of Jacques Derrida)

Current teaching

As well as contributing to the Mind, Thought and Reality first year module, I teach the following second and third year undergraduate modules:

• French Philosophy: Sartre to Derrida
• Philosophy and Literary Theory
• Philosophy of Science and Critical Theory
• Deconstruction

I also teach the following at postgraduate level:

• 'Analytic and Continental Philosophy'
• Core course on 'Philosophy of Language in the Two Traditions'
• Course option on 'Deconstruction' and 'Topics in Recent Analytic Philosophy'
• 'Music, Culture and Politics' (jointly taught with colleagues in the Music and History Departments)
• Contributions to courses on Aesthetics, Critical Theory, and the New Musicology.

Biography

Christopher Norris is  Distinguished Research Professor in Philosophy at the University of Cardiff,  Wales and has taught at many universities around the world. He has written more  than thirty books on aspects of philosophy and literary theory, among them The  Deconstructive Turn; The Truth About Postmodernism; Spinoza and the Origins of Modern Critical  Theory; Quantum Theory and the  Flight from Realism; Philosophy of Language and the Challenge to  Scientific Realism; On Truth and Meaning; Fiction, Philosophy and  Literary Theory; Badiou's Being and Event: a reader's guide and (most recently) Re-Thinking the Cogito: naturalism, rationalism and the  venture of thought.

His books and articles on Jacques Derrida have appeared  at fairly regular intervals over the past twenty-five years, and have lately  been concerned with the implications of Derrida's work for epistemology and  philosophy of logic and language. His latest book Derrida, Badiou and the  Formal Imperative is due for publication later this year. He also writes  about issues in aesthetics and philosophy of art, having published the  monograph Platonism, Music and the Listener's Share and edited the  volumes Shostakovich: the man and his music and Music and the  Politics of Culture.

His teaching includes undergraduate and MA courses on  philosophy of language, French Philosophy: Sartre to Badiou, Deconstruction,  Philosophy and Literary Theory, and Twentieth-Century Philosophy in the Two  Traditions. Over the past thirty years he has lectured at many universities around  the world and has been a visiting professor at Berkeley, Tulane University,  City University of New York, Dartmouth College (School of Criticism and  Theory), the University of Santiago de Compostela, and elsewhere.

His current  main interest is in the relationship between philosophy and poetry, including  the idea of verse as a way of addressing philosophical themes.