Chindilani Andekalithan

(she/her)

Research

Thesis

A hauntological phenomenology of pregnancy

In Western existential philosophy, there is a strong focus on death as something that brings meaning to life. As a goth with a penchant for the macabre, I agree.

However. A popular argument for this goes something like:

1. The finitude of human life is what makes it meaningful.
2. Death is what makes life finite.
3. Therefore, death is what makes life meaningful.

Finitude, however, has two ends. Something is finite because it will end, yes, but it is also finite because it began.

Might that mean, therefore, that existentially speaking, birth can teach us as much about what it means to be human as death can? 

Taking Heidegger's concept of Dasein and particularly its reliance on the uncanny as fundamental to Dasein's ontico-ontological style of being. my thesis explores the extent to which how we come to be affects who and how we are. 

Funding sources

Funded by the AHRC (SWWDTP).

Supervisors

Jonathan Mitchell