Iben Damgaard

Primary fields of research

Kierkegaard

Nietzsche

Ricœur

Ethics and Philosophy of Religion, Hermeneutics, Critique of Religion.

Identity and narrative: A critical Discussion of narrative Approaches to Identity.

Current research

• Jest and Seriousness in Kierkegaard's Writings.
• The Question of Dignity: plays a both crucial and controversial normative role since the middle of the 20th century. The concept has a long and manifold history, which is at stake also in the current ethical debates on the recognition of the equal dignity of all human beings. The Jewish-Christian and the (secular) humanistic tradition contains a plurality of attempts to define and justify the concept of human dignity. Is this, however, necessary for the concept to work as a norm of ethical orientation? I am interested in how the question of dignity arises as a concrete existential-ethical problem in human self-relation and relation to others.

• Biblical figures in modern Philosophy, Literature and Theology: I am working with the role of biblical figures in Kierkegaard’s thinking, and I am also investigating biblical figures in philosophical, literary and theological critique of religion, e.g. in Nietzsche’s and Dostoevsky’s rewritings and counterwritings of the figure of Jesus in critical aphorisms and narratives. I am interested in the border field between literature and theology and the possibilities of literature in relation to philosophical reflection on existential, ethical and religious questions.

CV