Ruben Pfizenmaier

Ruben Pfizenmaier is a fellow at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at the Justus Liebig University of Gießen. His PhD project “Formations of Practice. The Exercises of Ancient Rhetoric as Praxis of Subjectification” is supervised by Prof. Dr. Gerald Siegmund.

In this project and using manuals of ancient rhetoric as primary material, mainly Quintilian‘s Institutio oratoria, Pfizenmaier strives to sketch a description of the manifold transformative effects of practices and exercises, using especially concepts from phenomenology and practice theory. The project especially aims at an evaluation of the high hopes which after Michel Foucault’s ‘aesthetics of existence‘ have been directed towards the political value of technologies of the self and self-cultivation.

He studied philosophy and creative writing/cultural journalism (program Philosophy-Arts-Media) at the University of Hildesheim, philosophy and literature at University College Cork and holds a Master of Arts in philosophy from the Free University of Berlin. Additionally, he worked for several publishing houses.

His research interests include theories of embodiment and phenomenology, theories of subjectivity, intercultural/cross-cultural philosophy, ethics and aesthetics.