Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
The Website Against Philosophical Provincialism
Education
Born in 1964 in West-Germany. Nationality: German. 1983: ABITUR. Studies in RUSSIAN PHILOLOGY at the UNIVERSITY OF MUNSTER (Germany) leading to the pre-diploma (GRUNDSTUDIUM)
1985-90: Studies in PHILOSOPHY at the SORBONNE (Paris-I, France), entering into the first year in 1985 and finishing with a Maîtrise from the SORBONNE in 1990.
1990-93: Graduate student at OXFORD UNIVERSITY (England). Ph.D. thesis on the concepts of play and style in hermeneutics, structuralism, and Wittgenstein. Ph.D. from OXFORD UNIVERSITY in 1993.
Professional Experience
1993-1997: Four years of research as a postdoctoral fellow with scholarships from the Finnish government held at the UNIVERSITIES OF HELSINKI and TAMPERE (Finland). Research on Russian Structuralism and Russian/Baltic Semiotics in the Baltic countries and St. Petersburg (Russia). Teaching at the University of St. Petersburg.
1997-1999: Scholarship from the MAISON DES SCIENCES DE L'HOMME of Paris for a research on the "French connections" of Kuki Shuzo.
Since 1999 Associate member of the research group "Centre Japon" of the EHESS of Paris.
2000: Habilitation* at the EHESS of Paris.
2000-2004: 3 Years research on Nishida Kitaro in Japan at the KYOTO TECHNICHAL INSTITUTE, the NICHIBUNKEN CENTER and the JAPANESE-GERMAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE in Kyoto.
2005-2006 (24 months): Employed by the research centre "Cognition and Language" (CSCL) of ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY (China) financed by the Chinese Ministry of Education. Organization of the international conference "Cognition and the Study of Culture."
2007: Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the historically black TUSKEGEE UNIVERSITY (Alabama, USA)
2009 (September): Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the GULF UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY in Kuwait.
Some seminars taught:
1996: COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL DE PHILOSOPHIE in Paris: From Alienation to Deconstruction: From Russian Formalism to Andrei Tarkovski.
1999: COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL DE PHILOSOPHIE: Around Ingmar Bergman: A Stylistics of Dream.
2000: COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL DE PHILOSOPHIE: Chôra and Idyll: The Space of Dream.
2001: COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL DE PHILOSOPHIE: Nishida Kitaro: Intuition, Place, Dream.
2004: EHESS Paris: Pan-Asianism and Eurasianism: Philosophical Developments of Cultural Space in Russia and Japan 1900-1945.
*The habilitation is a kind of "second Ph.D." that has the "double weight" of a Ph.D. thesis and that can be submitted and defended not earlier than six years after having obtained the Ph.D. In many European countries, only holders of the habilitation are entitled to apply for positions of "professor" (I am aware that by now some countries have "internationalized" their systems and offer alternative -- American-style -- paths towards tenure).
