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Professor Christine Hauskeller

MA in Philosophy and Sociology, Dr phil in Philosophy

Professor (Philosophy and Sociology)

5129

01392 725129

Byrne House 13

 Office Hours are continuing online

Please write an email so that we can arrange a time to meet at MS Teams. 

Areas of Expertise:

I am a philosopher with training in sociology and psychology also. My research interests include a range of topics in Moral Philosophy and Empirical Ethics, Feminist Philosophy and Decolonizing Approaches; Frankfurt School Critical Theory, Philosophy of Medicine and the Life Sciences (especially psychedelic psychotherapy, genetics and stem cell research), and Science and Technology Studies.

Present research foci are

Philosophy and Psychedelics - for more info see sites.exeter.ac.uk/philosophyandpsychedelics/

- Decolonial and Feminist Ethics,

- Contemporary Relevance of Critical Theory and the Frankfurt School

- Philosophies of Nature 

- Life science epistemology, governance and practice (esp. stem cell research and genomics)

Commissions of Trust include

Leopoldina, German Academy of Sciences working group Ethic of Research with Brain Organoids 2020 - 22

German Zentrale Ethikkommission Stammzellforschung am Robert Koch Institut, 2014 - 2023  

BBSRC Science and Society Strategy Panel, 2010-2016

ERC Grant Panels 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, Vice Chair Synergy Panel 2019

Panel member for a range of  government and private research funding organizations across Europe. 

Visiting Fellowships

2019 Aug. - Sept.     Brocher Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland

2018 Sept. - Oct.      Beşikçizade Center for Medical Humanities, Istanbul, Turkey

2017 May - June      Visiting Fellow NUS and Nanyang Technical University, Singapore  

2015 Oct. - Dec.       Hanse-Wissenschafts-Kolleg, Delmenhorst, Germany

2015 June - July      Visit to Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

2014 Sep. - Nov.      Brocher Foundation, Geneva - Hermance, Switzerland

2008 Mar. - April      Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany

Research group links

Research interests

I have a long standing interest in the relationships between society and individuals: In studying processes of interdependence and co-constitution, how philosophy has conceptualized them and which institutions and practices, which power structures and knowledge formations shape cultures and horizons of living in the contemporary world.

My Ph.D. dissertation analyzed Judith Butler’s and Michel Foucault’s understandings of the subject from a perspective of Critical Theory. I have a longstanding interest in and teach feminist philosophy, with a focus on intersectionality, epistemology and ethics.

My postdoctoral research encompasses empirical studies on how moral values and cultural differences affect epistemic practices. I am particularly interested in the intersection of these four axes of social practice: knowledge production, ethical and social values, bioeconomies, science policy. Over the past 20 years I have zoomed in on various aspects of the space marked by these four axes. Case studies were on genetics, genomics or stem cell research have been pbulished widely. The originality of this work lies in a perspective that is shaped by my theoretical grounding in Critical Theory and the use of empirical methods to study normative practices.

Perspectives from social-political philosophy shape my work in the philosophy of biomedicine (paternalism, gender, identity, humanitarian practice). 

Research projects

Philosophy and Psychedelics (Epistemology, history, ethics, research practices politics)

Decolonial and Feminist Ethics

Stem Cell Science 

Humanitarian Ethics and Politics 

Genetics and the Politics of Identity

Research supervision

Please contact me via email with a project outline or a sketch of your initial  idea if you want to apply for supervision in the following subject areas: 

  • Philosophy and Psychedelics
  • Decolonial and Feminist Ethics and Philosopy
  • Frankfurt School Critical Theory 
  • Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine
  • Humanitarian Ethics
  • Norms and knowledge practices
  • Foucault

I hold a bi-weekly researcher colloquium in which we discuss draft student work, chapters as well as readings suggested by members of the group. The seminar is for my postgraduate students and researchers but open to others upon request. Please contact me via email to be added to the participant email list.

Research students

Current PhD research students

Yang Yiran "Evolution of the Emancipation Dimension of Andre Gorz's 'Work' Category." International PhD studentship Exchange. 2023-2024   

Arnulfo Gomez Oxlaj "Liberating the Savage Mind: A Decolonial Vindication of Mayan Philosophy" started 2022, University of Exeter Sactuary Scholarship. 

Sarah Bosworth "On the Relationship between Societal Expectations around Emotional Expression and Gendered Disparities in Leadership?", started 2022  

Mark Juhan Schunemann "The Sacrament in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", started 2022

Johanna Sopanen "The holobiont Self as a Framework for Understanding Relationshiops between humans, bacteria and fungi", started 2021  

Louise Hayward "The Ethics of Wild-Life Monitoring Devices", part-time, started 2020

Christina Meerstern "Speech, truth and normative arguments in political theory", AHRC funded PhD studentship. On long-term interruption.

Former PhD students:

Ahmet Karakaya, "Norms and Values in British and Turkish Muslim Bioethical Debates: Exploring the Tensions in Coexisting Secular and Religious Discours", International University of Exeter studentship. Completed 2024

Dr. Jack Lovell Price, "Adorno under the Spell: Utopia, praxis and the limits of critique“ AHRC-funded PhD student from 2015 to 2019.

Dr. Jaanika Puusalu, “Overconnected, Under-engaged: When Alienation Goes Online" PhD funded by an AHRC-studentship with an Estoanian Government maintenance grant, from 2014 to 2018.  

Dr. David Wyatt. 'Accomplishing Technical and Investigative Expertise in Everyday Crime Scene Investigation'. A study on the role perceptions, training and everyday routines of Crime Scene Investigators in England and Wales.
  ESRC PhD studentship, 2010-2015 

Dr
. Ayesha Ahmad. "Metaphysics in Scientific Medicine: The Making of the Human Embryo". Co-supervised by Jeffrey Bishop, Christine Hauskeller and Alan Bleakly at the Peninsula College for Medicine and Dentistry. Self-funded PhD in Medical Ethics at the Medical School.

Dr. Maren Heibges (ne Klotz).  "[K]information. Gamete Donation and the Constitution of Kinship through Knowledge Management in Britain and Germany – an Ethnographic Exploration". Maren won the Humboldt Prize 2013 for her dissertation. Supervisors: Christine Hauskeller and Stefan Beck in a Cotutelle between University of Exeter and Humboldt University Berlin.

Dr. Marco Liverani, 'European Bio-futures. Politics and Practice of Science Cooperation in the European Union’, in sociology, University of Exeter Egenis and College part-scholarship 2007 to 2010. 

Dr. Jean Louise Harrington. ‘Translational Space. An Ethnographic Study of Stem Cell Research’ESRC-funded Ph.D. studentship 2007- 2011. 

Dr. Hristina Petkova. "How Gene Tests Travel: Bi-national Comparison of the Institutional Pathways Taken by the Diagnostic Genetic Test for Maturity onset Diabetes of the Young Through the British and the German Health Care System". 
Part-scholarship from the College at Exeter University 2005 to 2009.

Biography

M.A. (1992) University Frankfurt on Main in Philosophy, Sociology and Psychoanalysis. MA dissertation (supervised by Axel Honneth, distinction).

Ph.D. (1999) Technical University Darmstadt. Dissertation on Michel Foucault's and Judith Butler's works, entitled "The Paradoxical Subject" (published monograph in German: Das paradoxe Subjekt, Unterwerfung und Widerstand bei Michel Foucault und Judith Butler, Tübingen edition diskord, 2000).

In January 1999 I was appointed postdoctoral researcher in a project to explore ethical aspects of the then new area of stem cell research and set up a mutlidisciplinary working group on the topic. I published some of its discusison as a book.

In 2002 I came to Exeter as a research fellow in the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society. I became its Co-Director (2009 - 2012), managing a team of over 30 people and setting up working gorups such as the genetics and identity workstream with the UKs ESRC Genomics Network.  

Since 2012 I have been teaching Philosophy and Sociology at Exeter University progressing to Professor.

I have served on many Expert Panels including the BBSRC Science and Society Strategy Panel, the workign group brian organoids at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2019-2023)  as well as the German Ethics Commission Stem Cell Research (since 2014). I have served on many research funding panels, including the European Research Council from 2010 to 2019 - when I was Vice-Chair of the ERC Synergy Panel-, and industrial as well as many research council panels across Europe and in the UK.

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