Projects per year
Personal profile
Research interests
- Phenomenology
- Existentialism
- Kierkegaard
- Jan Patočka
- Stanley Cavell
- Philosophical Poetics
- Feminist Philosophy
- Aesthetics
- Philosophy of Religion
- Environmental Ethics
Erin welcomes enquiries from research students interested in working in any of these areas.
Overview
Erin Plunkett is senior lecturer in Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Hertfordshire. She is currently researching the ontology and ethics of possibility in Kierkegaard and Jan Patočka. She is the editor of Living in Uncertainty: Kierkegaard and Possibility (2023). She is also editor, along with Ivan Chvatik, of The Selected Writings of Jan Patočka: Care for the Soul (2022), a reader of key essays from the Czech phenomenologist.
Erin’s book A Philosophy of the Essay: Scepticism, Experience, and Style (Bloomsbury, 2018) draws from continental and analytic sources to argue for the philosophical relevance of style, making the case that the essay form is uniquely suited to address the sceptical problem and the limits of human knowledge.
Erin studied Comparative Literature and Religious Studies at Indiana University before pursuing a PhD in Philosophy at Royal Holloway University of London. She joined the Hertfordshire faculty in 2018.
Erin’s research reflects her interdisciplinary background. She considers the relationship of form to thought, particularly how genre and style inform what philosophy is able to say and what is considered philosophically relevant. She has pursued these questions in her contributions to three edited volumes in essay studies: Essay at the Limits (2021) and the Ediburgh Companion to the Essay (2022), and the Cambridge History of the British Essay (forthcoming)
Particular research interests are phenomenology, post-Kantian philosophy, Kierkegaard and existentialism, and the work of Stanley Cavell. Reasearch topics include possibility, anxiety, despair, beginnings, world (in phenomenology), receptivity, communication, and freedom. Other areas of interest include: European Romanticisms, philosophy of religion, feminist philosophy, environmental ethics, and philosophical approaches to literature.
Education/Academic qualification
Philosophy, PhD, Coming to Terms: Scepticism and the Philosophical Essay, Royal Holloway, University of London
1 Oct 2011 → 3 Mar 2016
Award Date: 3 Mar 2016
Religious Studies, MA, The Romantic Influence in Kierkegaard’s ‘Concept of Irony’, Indiana University (IU)
30 Aug 2004 → 1 May 2008
Award Date: 1 May 2012
Comparative Literature, MA, The Romantic Influence in Kierkegaard’s ‘Concept of Irony’, Indiana University (IU)
30 Aug 2004 → 1 May 2008
Award Date: 1 May 2012
Comparative Literature, BA, ‘Me, Krapp’: Existential Identity in Krapp’s Last Tape, Indiana University (IU)
30 Aug 1999 → 31 May 2003
Award Date: 31 May 2003
External positions
External Examiner, University of Western England
8 Aug 2022 → 9 Aug 2026
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
Projects
- 1 Finished
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Jan Patočka: Care for the Soul
Plunkett, E., Zucker, A. & Chvatik, I.
1/01/19 → 31/01/22
Project: Research
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Existence and Possibility
Plunkett, E., 24 Aug 2023, Kierkegaard and Possibility. Plunkett, E. (ed.). 1st ed. Bloomsbury Academic, 23 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
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Kierkegaard and Possibility
Plunkett, E. (ed.), 24 Aug 2023, London: Bloomsbury Academic. 240 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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The Thing of the Essay
Plunkett, E., 31 Oct 2022, The Edinburgh Companion to the Essay. Aquilina, M., Cowser, B. & Wallack, N. (eds.). Edinburgh University Press, p. 68-81 14 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
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Introduction to the Selected Works of Jan Patočka
Plunkett, E., 21 Apr 2022, The Selected Works of Jan Patočka: Care for the Soul. p. 1-24 24 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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The Selected Writings of Jan Patočka: Care for the Soul
Patocka, J., Plunkett, E. (ed.), Chvatik, I. (ed.) & Zucker, A. (Translator), 21 Apr 2022, 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 392 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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