SHORT CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME
Brendan Moran
CURRENT POSITION
Associate Professor of Philosophy
(and Adjunct Associate Professor of German)
University of Calgary
ADDRESS
Department of Philosophy
University of Calgary
2500 University Dr. NW
Calgary AB
T2N 1N4
CANADA
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: +1 (403) 220-5064
PRINCIPAL INTERESTS
 Continental European Philosophy from 1900 to today
 German Philosophy and Literature from late 18th century to today
 Philosophy and Art (especially Literature); Aesthetics
 Social and Political Philosophy
RECENT EXTERNAL ACADEMIC AWARDS
SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada)
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books
Wild, Unforgettable Philosophy in Early Works of Walter Benjamin. Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books (Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, 2005), 436 pages. Partly as an
illustration of Benjamin’s theory of the proper name, which is discussed in the book, a
“pseudonym” (Monad Rrenban, an anagram of Brendan Moran) is given as the author’s
name.
Philosophy as Renegade. Benjamin’s “Kafkan” Politics. Forthcoming.
Edited Books
Philosophy and Kafka. Co-edited with Carlo Salzani. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013
(paperback, 2015).
Brendan Moran
Towards the Critique of Violence: Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben. Co-edited with
Carlo Salzani. London, UK: Bloomsbury Press 2015.
Selected Articles and Book Chapters
“Exception, Decision, and Philosophical Politics: Benjamin and the Extreme.” Philosophy and
Social Criticism. 40:2 (2014), 145-70.
“An Inhumanly Wise Shame.” Philosophy as a Literary Art, ed. Costica Bradatan. London:
Routledge, 2014, 63-75.
“Nature, Decision, and Muteness.” In Brendan Moran and Carlo Salzani eds. Towards the
Critique of Violence: Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben. London, UK:
Bloomsbury Press, 2015, 73-90.
“Kafkan Study.” Boundary 2. Special Issue on Walter Benjamin, Pedagogy and the Politics of
Youth, edited by Howard Eiland and Matthew Charles, 2015.
“Philosophy and Ambiguity in Benjamin’s Kafka.” In Kafka and the Universal, eds. Arthur
Cools and Vivian Liska. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015.
“Anxiety and Attention.” In Brendan Moran and Carlo Salzani eds., Philosophy and Kafka.
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013, 201-27.
“Introduction,” with Carlo Salzani in Brendan Moran and Carlo Salzani eds., Philosophy and
Kafka. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013, 1-15.
“Introduction,” with Carlo Salzani in Brendan Moran and Carlo Salzani eds., Towards the
Critique of Violence: Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben. London, UK:
Bloomsbury Press, 2015, 1-18.
“Weltperson in Salomo Friedlaender’s Schöpferische Indifferenz.” In Jason Dockstadter,
Hans-Georg Möller and Günter Wohlfart eds. Selfhood East and West.
De-constructions of Identity (Reihe: Weltphilosophien im Gespräch. Band 8. [Series:
World Philosophies in Conversation. Volume 8]). Nordhausen: Verlag Traugott Bautz,
2012, 111-124.
“Kafka’s Prophecy, with Benjamin and Agamben.” Philosophy Today. SPEP Issue (2011),
edited by Cynthia Willett and Leonard Lawlor, 285-291.
“Politics of Creative Indifference.” Philosophy Today. Vol. 55, No. 3 (Fall 2011), 321-36.
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Brendan Moran
“Foolish Wisdom in Benjamin’s Kafka.” In Hans-Georg Möller and Günter Wohlfart eds.
Lachen – Ost und West/ Laughter – Eastern and Western Philosophies. (In the series:
Welten der Philosophie.) Freiburg/ Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 2010, 175-92.
“An Inhumanly Wise Shame.” The European Legacy. Vol. 14, No.5 (August 2009), 573-85.
“Metaphysics as Ontology: Walter Benjamin.” In David G. Murray ed., Proceedings of the 3rd
World Metaphysics Conference. Rome: Idente, 2009.
“The ‘Forgotten’ as Epic Vorwelt.” Chapter 6 in Maria Margaroni, Apostolos Lampropoulos,
and Christos Hadjichristos eds. Layering: Rethinking Contact, Historicity and Critique
Across the Humanities. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2015.
Review Essay and Book Review
“Time, Guilt, and Philosophy.” The European Legacy, vol. 18:2 (2013), 221-25. Review-essay
of Peter Fenves, The Messianic Reduction. Walter Benjamin and the Shape of Time
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).
Review of Graeme Gilloch, Walter Benjamin – Critical Constellations. Philosophy in Review/
Comptes rendus philosophiques. Vol. XXIII, No. 1 (February 2003), 31-33.
TRANSLATIONS
German to English
with Carlo Salzani, of Bettine Menke, “’Zur Kritik der Gewalt’: Techniken der
Übereinkunft, Diplomatie, Lüge,” in Hendrik Blumentrath et al. (eds.), Techniken der
Übereinkunft. Zur Medialität des Politischen, Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2009, pp.
37-56; trans. “‘Critique of Violence’: Techniques of Agreement, Diplomacy, Lying,” in
Brendan Moran and Carlo Salzani (eds.), Towards the Critique of Violence: Walter
Benjamin/Giorgio Agamben, 2015, 19-37.
French to English
with Carlo Salzani, of Antonia Birnbaum, “Variations du destin,” “Préface,” in Walter
Benjamin, Critique de la violence et autres essais, trans. Nicole Casanova. Paris: Payot
& Rivages, 2012, pp. 7-51; trans. “Variations of Destiny,” in Brendan Moran and Carlo
Salzani (eds.), Towards the Critique of Violence: Walter Benjamin/Giorgio Agamben,
2015, 91-105.
TEACHING (at the University of Calgary)
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PHIL 595 Contemporary French Philosophy (Directed Readings Course)
PHIL 589 European Theories of the End of Art
PHIL 469 Twentieth Century European Philosophy
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Brendan Moran
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PHIL 459 The Philosophy of Hegel
PHIL 435 Special Topics in Aesthetics (Selected Readings in Recent Aesthetics)
PHIL 399 Existentialism
PHIL 369 (or 309) Nineteenth Century European Philosophy
PHIL 331 Philosophy of Religion
PHIL 315 Philosophy in Literature
PHIL 201 Problems of Philosophy
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HUMN 305 The Human Situation 1 (Humanities Courses that were on either Suffering
in Philosophy, Literature, and Religion or Wisdom in Philosophy, Literature, and
Religion).
HUMN 307 The Human Situation 2 (Humanities Courses on Love in Philosophy,
Literature, and Religion).
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COLT 517 European Theories of the End of Art. Programme of Comparative Literature.
Offered jointly with PHIL 589
COLT 517 European Literary Theory. Programme of Comparative Literature.
COLT 399 Art and Life in European Literature. Programme of Comparative Literature.
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ENGL 517 Walter Benjamin and the Literary. Department of English
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