Magdalena Scherl

Building PT, Room 3.1.27
Phone +49 941 943-3554
Magdalena.Scherl@politik.uni-regensburg.de

Research Interests

Political Philosophy and Anthropology of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Politics and Gender, Feminist Theories, Queer Theory

Modern Republicanism and Citizenship

Post-Structuralism

Curriculum Vitae

Magdalena Scherl studied Political Sciences, German Literature and History at the University of Regensburg. In her Master’s thesis, entitled “Bürgerinsein,“ she analyzed the gender bias in the modern concept of the citizen, focusing on John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Since October 2009 Magdalena Scherl has been pursuing her PhD project entitled “Vergebliche Einheit, unheilbare Spaltung. Geschlechterordnung und Republik bei Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” and working as a research and teaching assistant at the Chair of Political Philosophy and the History of Ideas at the University of Regensburg.

PhD project: Vergebliche Einheit, unheilbare Spaltung. Geschlechterordnung und Republik bei Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[Roughly speaking: The Irrecoverable Loss of Unity – the Unfixable Split. Republic and the Order of Sex in the Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau]

The project analyzes the interrelated topics of the republic as a political ideal and the concept of gender and sexuality in the works of Rousseau. From this starting point, the research aims at highlighting one of the fundamental problems of Rousseau’s thoughts from a new perspective: the irrecoverable loss of the original unity of the subject. Rousseau‘s republic tries to supplement the lost unity of the self by creating a collective political unity. Given the irreparable split of the subject, which comes about with socialization, the political ideal nevertheless remains essentially unstable. I will follow the assumption that the dialectics of unity and split of the subject structures Rousseau’s thoughts in depth. The interrelation of the republican ideal and the order of sex is rather a symptom of this fundamental problem. Thus, the analysis of the concept of sex and desire allows a deeper insight into the ambivalences of the republican ideal and Rousseau’s philosophy as a whole.  

Publications

Karlfriedrich Herb and Magdalena Scherl, eds. Rousseaus Zauber: Lesarten der Politischen Philosophie. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2012. Print.

Magdalena Scherl. “Freunde, Bürger, Soldaten: Republikanische Tugend und Männlichkeitsideal bei Rousseau.” Rousseaus Zauber: Lesarten der Politischen Philosophie. Ed. Karlfriedrich Herb and Magdalena Scherl. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2012. 113- 128. Print.

---. Rev. of Rousseau and Radical Democracy by Kevin Inston. Francia-Recensio 1 (2012). Web.

Karlfriedrich Herb, Kathrin Morgenstern, and Magdalena Scherl. “Im Schatten der Öffentlichkeit: Privatheit und Intimität bei Jean-Jacques Rousseau und Hannah Arendt.” Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik 19 (2011): 275- 298. Print.