Ruth Rebecca Tietjen

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My research is situated at the intersection of philosophy of emotions, philosophy of religion, anthropology, ethics, and political philosophy. I feel committed to the idea of critically engaged philosophy - i.e., a philosophy that addresses pressing problems of today’s world and aims at making an existential or political difference.

Within the project “Antagonistic Political Emotions,” I am mainly researching the affective dimension of fanaticism, fundamentalism, and populism. Particularly, I am interested in religious fanaticism and fundamentalism. I am exploring the ethical and political ambiguity of religious zeal and the role of fear, fraternity terror, self-reflexive anxiety, and uncertainty in the genesis of extremism.

Besides researching political emotions, I am a passionate existential philosopher, working on phenomena such as loneliness, melancholy, and mortality and exploring the edges of language.