Eric Santner was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Eric L. Santner is the Philip and Ida Romberg Distinguished Service Professor in Germanic Studies, and a leading scholar who integrates literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, political theory and religious thought in his work. He has also co-authored books and co-taught seminars with a wide range of experts, including philosophers, religious historians and anthropologists. His diverse scholarly pursuits are reflected in his forthcoming book, Untying Things Together: Philosophy, Literature, and a Life in Theory, which will be published by University of Chicago Press in Spring 2022.
A member of the UChicago faculty since 1996, Santner’s earlier books include Sovereignty, Inc.: Three Inquiries in Politics and Enjoyment (2020), co-authored with William Mazzarella and Aaron Schuster, which explores a new kind of authoritarian charisma embodied by figures like Donald Trump; The Royal Remains: The People’s Two Bodies and the Endgames of Sovereignty (2011), which reconsiders how democratic societies “metabolize” the principle of sovereignty formerly located in the body of the king; and The Psychotheology of Everyday Life: Reflections on Freud and Rosezweig (2001), which imagines a conversation between Sigmund Freud and Franz Rosenzweig that allows us to reimagine the nature of ethical and political life.