- Philosophy, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Psychiatry, Social Philosophy, Phenomenology of the body, and 26 moreHistory of Psychiatry, History Of Madness And Psychiatry, Philosophy of Psychiatry, Boredom, Postpartum Depression and Chronic Boredom, Phenomenology of Temporality, Art and Boredom, Ephemeral Practice, Transience, History of Philosophy, Medical Humanities, Depression, Phenomenology of the Body (Philosophy), Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Philosophical Anthropology, Affect (Cultural Theory), Affect/Emotion, Hans Blumenberg, Time Perception, Philosophy of Time, Temporality (Time Studies), Sleep, Cosmic Pessimism, Pessimismo Cosmico, Eugene Thacker, and Pessimismedit
- I’m a philosopher working at the intersection of phenomenology, social philosophy and organization studies. My curr... moreI’m a philosopher working at the intersection of phenomenology, social philosophy and organization studies. My current research focuses on the affective dimension of time. I am interested in the pathologies of temporal experience - boredom, stress, depression - and how they affect and influence human existence. In particular, I focus on subject-formation and social interaction, exploring links to recent work in philosophy, literature and cultural studies. One aim is to develop a broader account of 'time-pressure' beyond the lack of time proper and thus to explore the affective force exerted by time in the interface between individual mental and personal capacities and social, cultural and technological infrastructures (organizations).edit
In this article, we explore China Mieville’s novel The City and the City as a literary experiment for analyzing the dynamics of public secrecy. We explore public secrets as an intrinsic part of organizational life and as a framework for... more
In this article, we explore China Mieville’s novel The City and the City as a
literary experiment for analyzing the dynamics of public secrecy. We
explore public secrets as an intrinsic part of organizational life and as a
framework for paying attention to the politics of organizing. First, we
focus on the novel’s invention and use of the verb ‘unseeing’ to bring
out the embodied and sensuous aspects of public secrecy as part of
organizational processes. Second we unfold how, although the content
of public secrets may turn out to be less spectacular than expected, it is
exactly their mundaneness which is key to their political importance.
This is important because in an increasingly disorganized and uncertain
world, secrecy proliferates and the visibility of secrecy is often a strategic
move to justify certain hidden actions.
literary experiment for analyzing the dynamics of public secrecy. We
explore public secrets as an intrinsic part of organizational life and as a
framework for paying attention to the politics of organizing. First, we
focus on the novel’s invention and use of the verb ‘unseeing’ to bring
out the embodied and sensuous aspects of public secrecy as part of
organizational processes. Second we unfold how, although the content
of public secrets may turn out to be less spectacular than expected, it is
exactly their mundaneness which is key to their political importance.
This is important because in an increasingly disorganized and uncertain
world, secrecy proliferates and the visibility of secrecy is often a strategic
move to justify certain hidden actions.
Research Interests:
We argue that the more time is being attended to in organization studies, the more it is concealed. The time being concealed is not the time of clocks or the linear passage of past, present and future, it is not the time of temporal... more
We argue that the more time is being attended to in organization studies, the more it is concealed. The time being concealed is not the time of clocks or the linear passage of past, present and future, it is not the time of temporal structures, and it is not the time of processual flow by which all substance is held as little more than a temporary arrest. In all these understandings time is treated as something available and, potentially, affirmative. Rather, it is a time that barely a few hundred years ago was considered a force always present and yet always against us. What, we ask, has happened to this time, the time beyond organization?
Research Interests:
In this article, we explore the affective dimension of human temporality. Drawing on the work of Michael Theunissen in his Negative Theologie der Zeit (Negative Theology of Time), we suggest that understanding time as affect may help shed... more
In this article, we explore the affective dimension of human temporality. Drawing on the work of Michael Theunissen in his Negative Theologie der Zeit (Negative Theology of Time), we suggest that understanding time as affect may help shed light on how people in organizational settings are influenced by and react toward time, once it comes to appear as an obstacle, rather than a resource to the unfolding of life. To capture such situations, we introduce the notion of 'chronopathic experience' and proceed to explore such experiences empirically among men incarcerated in Helsinki Prison. Here, we identify chronotelic behavior as a modality of activities directed toward dealing with the affective pressure exerted by time, as it comes to appear given, external, and meaningless. We argue that the affective dimension of human temporality can be drawn upon in other organizational contexts to clarify the notion of time pressure and to better understand temporality-related institutional pathologies like stress, boredom, and depression.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article explores the curious relation between the Aristotelian concept of melancholy and the contemporary concept of stress and stress management in organizations. Through a symptomatological reading of the most important... more
This article explores the curious relation between the Aristotelian concept of melancholy and the contemporary concept of stress and stress management in organizations. Through a symptomatological reading of the most important Aristotelian text on melancholy, Problems XXX, I, it identifies the mélaina cholé – the black bile – as the somatic subject of a higher order of self-management among extraordinary individuals and discusses how the conceptualization of this somatic subject has been popularized in the contemporary presentation of stress and stress management in popular literature. It discusses this popularization and its effects on three levels: the individual, the organizational and the managerial, suggesting that the properties, which used to be reserved for the extraordinary in character among politicians, poets, philosophers and artists has been popularized under the assumption of an anthropology, which subsumes the great, culturally constructive achievements under a general idea of Arbeitskraft, of labour power.
Even if people may always have been bored, 'boredom' as a phenomenon is not a universal feature of human existence. Rather it is deeply connected to organization as a reaction to the gradual emergence in Western culture of the management... more
Even if people may always have been bored, 'boredom' as a phenomenon is not a universal feature of human existence. Rather it is deeply connected to organization as a reaction to the gradual emergence in Western culture of the management and administration of time. As an acquired capacity of those able to tell and endure time in an organized manner, boredom is a perceived loss of meaning inferred by the lived experience of a discrepancy between the involvement with transient means in everyday life and their value in a larger vision of existence. But boredom also signifies a concurrent protest against such a loss, which potentially leads new possibilities with it. In this essay, I explore the connection between boredom and organization, focusing on these two interrelated aspects of the phenomenon: how boredom can be understood as an experience of a loss of meaning, but also how this loss itself can be viewed as an imperative towards meaning that remains the source of new forms of organizing.
Call centres are organised around the control and surveillance of employee performance, which naturally suggests the relevance of transactional leadership. In our case study, however, we find that leaders in a call centre pursue... more
Call centres are organised around the control and surveillance of employee performance, which naturally suggests the relevance of transactional leadership. In our case study, however, we find that leaders in a call centre pursue transformational leadership to the point where employees relate to their leaders, each others and their jobs in terms of love. To be able to encourage emotions of love in call centre workers can be seen as very successful transformational leadership, while challenging our basic assumptions about love as an authentic, higher order feeling. We use Plato's classic work on love to provoke and develop our common sense understanding of love and conclude that to see love as artificiality provides new possibilities in a transformational leadership practice.