Vita

Christoph F. E. Holzhey is the founding director of the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, which he has directed since 2006. He read physics at Oxford (B.A. 1988) and received a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Princeton University in 1993 with a dissertation on the entropy and information loss of black holes. At Columbia University, he studied German Literature (MA 1994, MPhil 1996) and wrote a dissertation on paradoxical pleasures in aesthetics (PhD 2001). Returning to Germany, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (2001-03) and at the Universität Siegen (2003-06).

His research interests include paradoxical pleasures in literature and aesthetics; constructions of identity, gender and sexuality; theories of emergence, self-organization, and complementarity as figures of thought; science and aesthetics. He has directed the ICI Research Projects Tension/Spannung, including the foci Multistable Figures, Complementarity, Wholes Which Are Not One, Constituting Wholes, and ERRANS.

Show less

Selected Publications

Books / Edited Volumes

Articles

  • ‘Emergence that Matters and Emergent Irrelevance: On the Political Use of Fundamental Physics’, in Materialism and Politics, ed. by Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato, Marlon Miguel, and Ayşe Yuva, Cultural Inquiry, 20 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2021), pp. 253–68 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-20_14>
  •  ‘Weathering Ambivalences: Between Language and Physics’, in Weathering: Ecologies of Exposure, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Arnd Wedemeyer, Cultural Inquiry, 17 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2020), pp. 3–40 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-17_02>
  • ‘Conatus Errans: Paradoxe Lust zwischen Teleologie und Mechanik’, in Conatus und Lebensnot, ed. by Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky and Anna Tuschling (Vienna: Turia+Kant, 2017), S. 66–123
  • ‘Recantation without Conversion: Desire, Mimesis, and the Paradox of Engagement in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Petrolio’, in Mimesis, Desire, and the Novel: René Girard and Literary Criticism, ed. by Pierpaolo Antonello and Heather Webb (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2015), pp. 233-52
  • ‘Chaos déterminé entre information et entropie’, in: Chaos, ed. by Monique David-Ménard (Paris: Hermann, 2013), pp. 21-48
  • ‘Lacans Antigone: Zur Normativität des Lustprinzips und dessen Jenseits’, in Normativität des Körpers, ed. by Anne Reichold and Pascal Delhom (Freiburg: Alber, 2011), pp. 164–85
  • ‘On the Emergence of Sexual Difference in the Eighteenth Century: Economies of Pleasure in Herder’s Liebe und Selbstheit’, German Quarterly, 79.1 (2006), pp. 1–27

Show more

Publications

Books / Edited Volumes

Articles

  • ‘Emergence that Matters and Emergent Irrelevance: On the Political Use of Fundamental Physics’, in Materialism and Politics, ed. by Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato, Marlon Miguel, and Ayşe Yuva, Cultural Inquiry, 20 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2021), pp. 253–68 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-20_14>
  •  ‘Weathering Ambivalences: Between Language and Physics’, in Weathering: Ecologies of Exposure, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Arnd Wedemeyer, Cultural Inquiry, 17 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2020), pp. 3–40 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-17_02>
  • ‘Preface’ (with Arnd Wedemeyer), in Weathering: Ecologies of Exposure, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Arnd Wedemeyer, Cultural Inquiry, 17 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2020), pp. vii–xx <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-17_01>
  • ‘Preface’ (with Arnd Wedemeyer), in Re-: An Errant Glossary (Berlin: ICI Berlin, 2019), pp. vii-xv <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-15_01>
  • ‘Conatus Errans: Paradoxe Lust zwischen Teleologie und Mechanik’, in Conatus und Lebensnot: Schlüsselbegriffe der Medienanthropologie, ed. by Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky and Anna Tuschling (Vienna: Turia+Kant, 2017), S. 66–123
  • ‘Aktive Passivität? Spinoza in Pasolinis Schweinestall’ (with Manuele Gragnolati), in Conatus und Lebensnot: Schlüsselbegriffe der Medienanthropologie, ed. by Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky and Anna Tuschling (Vienna: Turia+Kant, 2017), S. 49–65
  • ‘Active Passivity? Spinoza in Pasolini’s Porcile’ (with Manuele Gragnolati), world picture 10 (2015), pp. 1–10
  • ‘Recantation without Conversion: Desire, Mimesis, and the Paradox of Engagement in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Petrolio’, in Mimesis, Desire, and the Novel: René Girard and Literary Criticism, ed. by Pierpaolo Antonello and Heather Webb (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2015), pp. 233–52
  • ‘Introduction’ (with Nikita Dhawan, Antke Engel, Jule Jakob Govrin, and Volker Woltersdorff), in Global Justice and Desire: Queering Economy (2015), pp. 1–28
  • ‘Epilogue: Tensions in Tolerance’ (with Luca Di Blasi), in Brown/Forst, The Power of Tolerance (2014), pp. 71–104
  • ‘Introduction’, in Multistable Figures (2014), pp. 7–21 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-08_01>
  • ‘Oscillations and Incommensurable Decisions: On the Multistable Use of Multistable Figures’, in Multistable Figures (2014), pp. 215–46 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-08_10>
  • ‘Kippbilder des Vitalen. Lebenswissen bei Canguilhem und Haraway’, in Situiertes Wissen und regionale Epistemologie (2013), pp. 121–39 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-07_06>
  • ‘Chaos déterminé entre information et entropie’, in Chaos, ed. by Monique David-Ménard (Paris: Hermann, 2013), pp. 21–48
  • ‘La lutte contre le chaos, la lutte contre l’opinion. Grandeurs intensives et sensation chez Gilles Deleuze et Hermann Cohen’ (with Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky), in Chaos, ed. by Monique David-Ménard (Paris: Hermann, 2013), pp. 181–97
  • ‘“La vera Diversità”: Multistability, Circularity, and Abjection in Pasolini’s Pilade’, in The Scandal of Self-Contradiction (2012), pp. 19–35 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-06_02>
  • ‘Introduction’ (with Luca Di Blasi and Manuele Gragnolati), in The Scandal of Self-Contradiction (2012), pp. 7–16 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-06_01>
  • ‘Lacans Antigone: Zur Normativität des Lustprinzips und dessen Jenseits’, in Normativität des Körpers, ed. by Anne Reichold and Pascal Delhom (Freiburg: Alber, 2011), pp. 164–85
  • ‘Tension In/Between Aesthetics, Politics, and Physics’, in Tension/Spannung (2010), pp. 13–45 <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-01_02>
  • ‘“The Lover of a Hybrid”: Memory and Fantasy in Aracoeli’, in The Power of Disturbance: Elsa Morante’s Aracoeli, ed. by Sara Fortuna and Manuele Gragnolati (London: Legenda, 2009), pp. 42–58
  • ‘Paradoxe Lust als das Unbewusste wissenschaftlicher Kränkungen’, in Das Unbewusste. Über das Verhältnis von Wissen und Geschlecht, ed. by Christina von Braun, Dorothea Dornhof, and Eva Johach (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009), pp. 157–72
  • ‘Weder noch, sowohl als auch. Zu Francisco Varelas Bio-Logik’, in Biomystik (2007), pp. 171–95
  • ‘Kon-Fusionen von Mystik, Wissenschaft und Sexualität in Robert Musils Törleß’, in Der untote Gott: Religion und Ästhetik in der deutschen und österreichischen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Olaf Berwald and Gregor Thuswaldner (Cologne: Böhlau, 2007), pp. 57–78
  • ‘Information zwischen Entropie und Einheit’, in Cybermystik, ed. by Luca Di Blasi (Munich: Fink, 2006), pp. 41–59
  • ‘Selbstorganisation am Rande der Mystik’, in Jenseits der entzauberten Welt. Naturwissenschaft und Mystik in der Moderne, ed. by Klaus Vondung and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer (Munich: Fink, 2006), pp. 121–37
  • ‘On the Emergence of Sexual Difference in the Eighteenth Century: Economies of Pleasure in Herder’s Liebe und Selbstheit’, German Quarterly, 79.1 (2006), pp. 1–27
  • ‘Lust’, ‘Schmerz’, in Emotionales Gesetzbuch: Dekalog der Gefühle, ed. by Rainer Maria Kiesow and Martin Korte (Cologne: Böhlau, 2005)
  • ‘Sexuelle Differenz Made in Italy. Bemerkungen zu einem US-Importversuch’, Die Philosophin, 29 (2004), pp. 122–29
  • ‘Dolore come gioia. Trasformarsi nel Purgatorio di Dante’ (with Manuele Gragnolati), Psiche, 2 (2003), pp. 111–26
  • ‘“Den Todesstreifen zum Radweg bügeln” – Erinnern und Schreiben zwischen Ruinen und ihrer Zerstörung in Reinhard Jirgls Hundsnächte’, Trans: Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, 15 (November 2003-): 5.16. ‘Apocalypse Now? Eschatologische Tendenzen in der Gegenwartsliteratur’ <http://www.inst.at/trans/15Nr/05_16/holzhey15.htm>
  • ‘Geometric and Renormalized Entropy in Conformal Field Theory’, with Finn Larsen and Frank Wilczek,  Nuclear Physics, B 424 (1994), pp., 443–67
  • ‘Black Holes as Elementary Particles’, with Frank Wilczek, Nuclear Physics, B 380 (1992), pp. 447–77