Federica Gregoratto

I am currently Interim Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Lucerne (Switzerland).

Previously, I have been guest professor at Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Konstanz (Germany), visiting scholar at the New School for Social Research in New York, postdoctoral fellow/lecturer at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), at the Excellence Cluster “Normative Orders”, Goethe Universität in Frankfurt a.M. (Germany), and at Università Ca’ Foscari in Venice (Italy). My PhD is from Ca’ Foscari, Venice, as well. I have moreover a so-called “Habilitation” in Philosophy (which is the qualification to become Full Professor in the German academic system).

The Hegelian tradition of critical theory and social philosophy is my philosophical and intellectual home — namely, as Donald Winnicott would say, the place where I come from. My main research interest is to bring this tradition into conversation with American pragmatism, feminist philosophy and the philosophy of emotions. In the last years, I have been mostly occupied and preoccupied with love (and its end), and I guess I will continue to work on that.

I have two new(ish) projects: the first is dedicated to a social-critical philosophy of psychic suffering, aiming in particular to understand depression as a form of “affective injustice.” The second examines potential German and English (early) Romantic contributions to contemporary debates on recognition theory.

I have a column for the Italian online magazine Le Parole e Le Cose (“L’amore ai tempi del neoliberalismo” — “Love in the Time of Neoliberalism”), where I ponder over and host reflections on relationships, sexuality, pop culture and politics. I like to contribute to public philosophy, and I am developing — through teaching and various engagements — a conception and practice of philosophy as a form of socio-personal therapy.

I live in Zurich (Switzerland), and talk and write in English, Italian and German.