For fuller information about me, including research interests, publications and postgraduate supervision, please visit http://christopherwatkin.com/
As an undergraduate I read Modern and Medieval Languages (French and German) at Jesus College, Cambridge from 1998-2002, with a wonderful year in Paris as part of my study. In 2002-03 I completed an MPhil in European Literature and Culture, with essays on Derrida and Calvin (a fascinating pair of thinkers to look at together), and a dissertation on Paul Ricœur’s writing on justice. I then received AHRC funding to complete a PhD from 2003-2006, which became the book Phenomenology or Deconstruction?
After that I spent a year without a regular job, supervising and teaching at various colleges in Cambridge and applying for Junior Research Fellowships. I am very grateful to Magdalene College for the opportunity to work as the Lumley Junior Research Fellow from 2007-09, giving me the chance to get underway with the project that became Difficult Atheism. Gradually working my way further up Castle Hill, I then took up a temporary university lectureship in French and fellowship at Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall) in Cambridge from 2009-11, before moving with Alison my wife to Melbourne in 2011 to take up a senior lectureship in French Studies at Monash University. In addition to teaching and research duties I currently serve as convenor of the French program and as Honours coordinator for the school of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash.
I’ve just written two posts on Bruno Latour’s Jubiler ou les tourments de la parole religieuse (Rejoicing, or the Torments of Religious Speech). The first is on Latour’s distinction between rhythm and melody in religious language, and the second sketches a comparison between Latour’s Jubiler and Jean-Luc Nancy’s L’Adoration around the theme of love. Read more
