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DFG-Centre for Advanced Studies Imaginaria of Force

Photo: pixabay

Dr. Julia Weber

Photo: Bernd Brundert

Curriculum

Julia Weber is Einstein Junior Fellow at the Peter Szondi-Institute at Freie Universität Berlin. She studied German Literature, Philosophy and Psychology in Berlin, Lisbon, Vienna and Paris and completed her doctoral studies at Ludwigs-Maximilians-University in Munich with a dissertation titled Das multiple Subjekt. Randgänge ästhetischer Subjektivität bei Fernando Pessoa, Samuel Beckett und Friederike Mayröcker (Fink, 2010). She has been a Humboldt Fellow at Yale University from 2008–2010. From 2012 until 2020 she led the Emmy Noether Research Group “Bauformen der Imagination. Literatur und Architektur in der Moderne” at Freie Universität Berlin. In 2022 she completed her habilitation Dynameis. Bausteine zu einer Geschichte der Virtualität. Her research interests include theories of affect and emotion, the intersections between theories of space and subject formation, and the cultural history of virtuality. 

Publications (selection)

  • Dynameis. Bausteine zu einer Geschichte der Virtualität. (Habilitationsschrift, in preparation).
  • „Affekte in Bewegung. Ann Quins Passages im Dialog mit Virginia Woolf“. In: Rieger, Rita (ed.): Bewegungsszenarien der Moderne. Theorien und Schreibpraktiken physischer und emotionaler Bewegung. Heidelberg: Winter 2021, pp. 73–91.
  • Rethinking Emotion: Interiority and Exteriority in Premodern, Modern, and Contemporary Thought. (ed. with Rüdiger Campe). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2014.
  • Lebens- und Liebesarchitekturen. Erzählen am Leitfaden der Architektur. (ed. with Gerhard Neumann). Freiburg: Rombach 2016.
  • „‚The Darkroom of the Soul‘. Die Camera obscura als absolute Metapher einer neuen Epistemologie des Menschen?“ In: Agazzi, Elena (ed.): Tropen und Metaphern im Gelehrtendiskurs des 18. Jahrhunderts. Hamburg: Felix Meiner 2011, pp. 171–186.

Research project: Virtuality and Life Forces 

The project examines various philosophical approaches that conceptualize virtual forces as life forces. Starting with Aristotle's treatise De Anima, in which the Greek notion of dynamis – often translated as "ability", "power", "potency", "possibility" or "disposition" – was famously related to the soul and to fundamental questions about the foundation of life and vitality, I intend to investigate how Aristotle's understanding of virtual forces as invisible, but effective potencies, has shaped the philosophical discourse about life forces across different time periods. The project’s main focus lies on the various metaphors and models through which the unfathomable dynameis were deciphered and interpreted. What kind of epistemological configurations are at work in the different conceptions of virtual powers and how do they determine our understanding of (human) life?