Fellow 2026-2027 Oxana Timofeeva
Oxana Timofeeva is a philosopher whose work explores the intersections of critical anthropology, environmental humanities, metaphysics, and psychoanalysis. She is the author of several books, published by leading international presses and translated into numerous languages.
Her books include Freud's Beasty Boys: Sex, Violence and Masculinity (Polity, 2025), a feminist critical reconsideration of psychoanalysis; Solar Politics (Polity, 2022), a philosophical investigation of energy, ecology, and power; How to Love a Homeland (2020), a reflection on place, belonging, and resistance; History of Animals (Bloomsbury, 2018), which examines the role of animality in the philosophical tradition; and Introduction to the Erotic Philosophy of Georges Bataille (2009). Her forthcoming book, On the Soul: Notes from the Platonic Underground, explores the evolving philosophical concept of the soul from Plato to contemporary ecological and scientific thought.
Before relocating to Germany, Timofeeva served as Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Doctoral Program in Social Philosophy at the European University at St Petersburg, where she taught graduate seminars, supervised MA and PhD research, and contributed to curriculum development and externally funded projects. She left Russia after political repression following her public statements against the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a story that received international media attention, including a feature in Die Zeit.
She currently teaches philosophy at the University of the Arts (UdK) Berlin. She has held a Guest Professorship at the Centre for Applied Ecology (CAPE) at the University of Copenhagen, is a Senior Associate at the Institute for Global Reconstitution (IGRec, Berlin), and is a member of the Institute for Environment, Conservation and Sustainability in Toronto. As a member of the artistic collective Chto Delat, she has also been active in art and performance since 2005.
Timofeeva’s work is marked by a sustained engagement with questions of world, environment, violence, and the human/nonhuman distinction. She frequently collaborates across disciplines and organises international research initiatives and public events. She held a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2013-2014) and was a Fellow at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht (2010-2011). In addition to her books, she has published numerous essays and articles in academic journals and media, and worked for several years as an editor of academic journals. Since 2014, she has published a number of essays on the end of the world and the end of history, the zombie apocalypse, and nuclear catastrophism. Her work also reaches audiences beyond academia, with her interviews, public talks, and media appearances circulating internationally.