Chris Watkin

Chris Watkin is a lecturer in the department of French at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Murray Edwards College. His publications include Phenomenology or Deconstruction? (Edinburgh University Press, 2008), Difficult Atheism (Edinburgh University Press, 2011) and From Plato to Postmodernism (Bristol Classical Press, 2011). Difficult Atheism argues that ‘atheism’ as traditionally conceived is increasingly inadequate to describe the positions taken by French philosophers today, and that philosophical atheism is, as yet at least, non-existent. From Plato to Postmodernism takes the reader on a cultural journey through 3000 years of Western history, telling the story of the philosophy, literature, music and art that has shaped Western civilization. He is currently working on the notion of equality in contemporary thought and society. Chris completed his doctoral thesis in philosophy (on the relation of deconstruction and phenomenology) at Cambridge University in 2006, looking particularly at the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricœur, Jean-Luc Nancy and Jacques Derrida.