Associate Professor James Phillips
MA in Comparative Literature and Critical Theory (Monash), PhD in Philosophy (UTas)
I have been at UNSW since 2006, first as a Vice-Chancellor's postdoctoral fellow, then as an ARC Australian Research Fellow (2007-2011), before taking up a combined research-teaching position in Philosophy in the School of Humanities and Languages.
I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Queensland, undertook an MA in Comparative Literature and Critical Theory at Monash University, and was then awarded my Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Tasmania in 2002. During my doctoral studies I spent nine months in Innsbruck as an OeAD scholar and six months in Potsdam as a DAAD scholar. I have since then been a visiting research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh and a resident associate at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina.
Apart from the publications listed below, I have also translated two books: Christoph Menke, Tragic Play: Irony and Theater from Sophocles to Beckett (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009) and Alexander García Düttmann, Philosophy of Exaggeration (London: Continuum, 2007).
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
I am currently engaged in a book project on the philosophy of fiction, drawing on the concepts of "world" in Kant and Heidegger.
Forthcoming publications:
Busby Berkeley at Warner Bros.: Ideology and Utopia in the Hollywood Musical (New York: Bloomsbury, February 2025)
Philosophy Group Convenor
Research Committee Member - School of Humanities and Languages
My Research Supervision
Ph.D.: Finnegan Hassey on Arendt's concept of nationalism (joint supervisor: Jess Whyte)
MA: Sofia Kartavtseva on Sade and aesthetics
My Teaching
I teach political philosophy, aesthetics and the history of German philosophy.
In 2025 I will be teaching in T1 the philosophy component of ARTS4249 "Advances in the Humanities", in T2 ARTS2384 "Political Philosophy" and in T3 ARTS3360 "Examining Pivotal Texts" with a focus on Plato.