Dr Christopher Thomas
Lecturer
My profile
Biography
I am a lecturer in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University. My research interests include early modern philosophy–specifically the philosophy of Benedict Spinoza–, contemporary French philosophy–specifically the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Simone Weil–, aesthetics, and art theory.
Words of wisdom
“Knowledge of evil is an inadequate knowledge” (Spinoza, Ethics, IVP64)
Academic and professional qualifications
PhD Philosophy, University of Aberdeen
MA Contemporary Art Theory, Goldsmiths University of London
Expert reviewer for external funding bodies
Debates in Aesthetics (British Journal of Aesthetics) (2019)
Textual Practice Journal (2018)
Teaching
Why do I teach?
I teach for two reasons: Firstly, because I believe in the transformative potential of philosophy as a subject, and secondly because teaching is vital to my own research process.
How I’ll teach you
My teaching is informed by the various people who have had the greatest influence on my own career as an academic: Ask me about my teachers.
I will try to be as lucid and clear in my lectures as possible, and then go on to problematize the content of my lectures in the seminars. This will allow students to understand and absorb the content of the lecture, before engaging critically and in an original way with the lecture material.
Postgraduate teaching
Key Texts in Modern European Philosophy (MA)
Research outputs
Early Modern Philosophy, the philosophy of Benedict Spinoza, contempoary French Philosophy (especially the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Simone Weil), aesthetics and art theory.
Latest public philosophy piece: The Philosophical Salon: ‘Silence is Violence: Simone Weil on the Impossible Demands of Justice’
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Chapters in books
Thomas, C. (2017) 'Primary and Secondary Nature: The Role of Indeterminacy in Spinoza and Bartleby.' Philosophy After Nature.
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Internet publications
Thomas, C. (2022) Simone Weil’s Venice Saved: Pity, Beauty, Friendship. https://www.bloomsburyphilosophylibrary.com/article?docid=b-9781350930353&tocid=b-9781350930353-002.
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Journal articles
Thomas, C. (2021) 'Spinoza on Melancholy and Cheerfulness.' Dialogue, 61(1) pp. 161-176.
Thomas, C. (2020) 'Brancusi's Golden Bird and loy's "Brancusi's Golden Bird": A Spinozist Encounter.' Philosophy and Literature, 44(1)
Thomas, C. (2020) 'On religious and cultural objects: Articulate and inarticulate bodies in Spinoza's philosophy of nature.' European Journal of Philosophy, 29(1) pp. 90-104.
Thomas, C. (2020) 'Simone Weil: The Ethics of Affliction and the Aesthetics of Attention.' International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 28(2) pp. 145-167.
Thomas, C. (2019) 'Book review: The Routledge companion to seventeenth century philosophy.' British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 27(9) pp. 1243-1243.
Thomas, C. (2018) 'From Complex Bodies to a Theory of Art.' Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, 22(2) pp. 367-387.