A. Kiarina Kordela
Contact
German StudiesHumanities Building, Room 209
651-696-6374
651-696-6428 (fax)
Director, Critical Theory; Professor of German Studies & Chair
Focuses on critical theory, philosophy, literature and literary theory, intellectual history, critical political economy, psychoanalysis, political theory, film theory, analysis of ideology, and biopolitics
Humanities 211C
651-696-6524
[email protected]
Kiarina Kordela is Professor and chair of German Studies and founding Director of the Critical Theory Program. She received her Ph.D. at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
She is the recipient of Macalester鈥檚 2014 Outstanding Teaching Award and Macalester鈥檚 2019 Trustee Award for 鈥渆xtraordinary excellence in teaching, advising, research, scholarly work, and service.鈥
In addition to German language courses, Professor Kordela teaches cross-listed courses in English toward both the German major/minor and the Critical Theory concentration, such as 鈥溾橠ead White Men鈥 in the Era of Antiracism,鈥 鈥淢etaphysics in Secular Thought,鈥 鈥淢arx, Religion, and Biopolitical Race,鈥 鈥淢arx, the Imaginary, and Neoliberalism,鈥 鈥淕erman-French Dialogues in Critical Theory,鈥 鈥淰alue鈥 (a course on aesthetic theory in its relation to economic and ethical values), 鈥淪pinoza鈥檚 Eco-Society,鈥 and 鈥淭heoretical Approaches to European and American Cinema.鈥
Her alternate-year courses 鈥淎 Kafkaesque Century鈥 (a literature course focusing on Franz Kafka鈥檚 work) and 鈥淐inema Studies鈥 are taught in English and are open to all students. However, German majors or minors can take the course(s) with an additional German component if they want the course(s) to count among their German-taught courses (in the latter case, students read the texts, make several of their oral presentations and write the writing assignments in German).
Some of professor Kordela鈥檚 numerous articles in academic journals and anthologies have been translated in several languages. She is also the author of three book monographs聽Epistemontology in Spinoza, Freud, Marx, Lacan: The (Bio)Power of Structure聽(Routledge, 2018),聽Being, Time, Bios: Capitalism and Ontology聽(SUNY Press, 2013)鈥攁vailable also in Italian translation (Ombre Corte, 2017)鈥攁nd聽Surplus: Spinoza, Lacan聽(SUNY Press, 2007), as well as聽the co-editor of the聽two-volume collection聽Spinoza鈥檚 Authority: Resistance and Power in the Ethics听补苍诲听Resistance and Power in the Political Writings聽(Bloomsbury, 2018), and of the collection聽Freedom聽and Confinement in Modernity: Kafka鈥檚 Cages聽(Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011).
For further publications and scholarly activities, see聽.