Tom Sojer
PhD- Project (English)
Sacred Tropes. Simone Weil's Scriptural Exercise of Philosophy.
The project explores micropolitics of reading, i.e., the transformational promise in practices altering the way one is reading oneself and world. Here, I focus on the writings of Simone Weil (1909–1943) and her concept of lecture (fr., reading). Against this backdrop, I apply traditional techniques of tropological exegesis. The umbrella term ‘tropology’ historically summons practices in different religious traditions that apply a performative hermeneutics of sacred text: This is, the meaning of divine text discloses reality in the way the text affects, is lived out, and turns out embodied in the reader’s life and history.
Considering Simone Weil’s transformational concept of lecture, I investigate the relationship between, on the one hand, >sensing< textual shifts in meaning when applying sacred tropes, and, on the other hand, performative shifts when acting out tropological exercises.
For Simone Weil, sensing sacred text, especially biblical tropes, provides textual instruments to shift thought and mind to encounter reality in human life in unexpected ways aiming at the sacred as the fugitive concreteness in everyday life rather than an fixed abstract concept of God.
Biographisches
Forschungsinteressen
Komplizenschaften
- Simone Weil Denkkollektivzusammen mit Martina Bengert (HU Berlin) und Max Walther (Bauhaus Universität Weimar)
- Rethinking Theologymit Emily King (Chicago Divinity), Gwen Dupré (Oxford Divinity), Joanna Winterø (University of Copenhagen), and Mac Loftin (Harvard Divinity)
- Teil des Sprecher*innenteams (2021-2023) des Nachwuchsnetzwerk Dogmatik und Fundamentaltheologie (und Religionsphilosophie)zusammen mit Hannah Judith (Uni Salzburg), Cornelia Dockter (Uni Bonn), Felix Fleckenstein (Uni Würzburg), und Stephan Tautz (Uni Freiburg)
Akademische Affiliationen
- seit 2021 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter an der Professur für Philosophie , Universität Erfurt
- seit 2019 prae Doc Mitglied im Theologischen Forschungskolleg Erfurt
- seit 2019 Fellow am Titus Brandsma Instituut der Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
- seit 2018 prae Doc member in der IGS Resonant Self-World Relations am MWK Erfurt und der Universität Graz (seit 2021 associated member)
- 2012-2018 Mitarbeit in Forschungsprojekten im Rahmen des Flemish Science Fund (19th century mysticism and nationalist politics), der Austrian Acadamy of Sciences (early modern cultural translations), des Austrian Integration Fund (Islamic Theologies in European contexts), und des Austrian Science Fund (contemplation and knowledge production)
Ausbildung
- Studium der Philosophie, Katholischen Theologie, und Klassischen Philologie in Innsbruck, London (Heythrop College) sowie Graz. Abschlüsse: Magister Fachtheologie und MA Religionspädagogik
- laufend Promotion in Philosophie an der Katholisch-Theologischen Fakultät Erfurt
