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Department of Philosophy

Sr. Res. Assoc. Dr. Simon Hajdini

Simon Hajdini is Senior Research Associate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, where he teaches social and political philosophy. He is a Fulbright alumnus and regular Visiting Faculty at The University of Chicago.

He specializes in critical theory, political economy, hyperstructuralism and psychoanalysis. At present, he is researching and writing on the sensorial politics of social divisions. His latest book is What's That Smell? A Philosophy of the Olfactory (MIT Press, 2024).


RECENT & UPCOMING TALKS

"Biohybrid Enjoyments: On Freud and Biotechnology," University of Ljubljana (7 December 2024)

"Kafka's Martyrdom of Ridicule: On Hunger as Function and Ornament," University of Chicago (21 November 2024)

"Sense & Sensation," University of Illinois Chicago (12 November 2024)

"A Scentimental Education: Freud on Smell and the Origins of Culture," Concordia University, Montreal (3 April 2024)

"What's That Smell?" book launch, Freud Museum London (18 March 2024)


ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

2024  (Spring-Summer) Visiting Scholar, Department of Germanic Studies, The University of Chicago

2024  (Winter) Visiting Scholar, Centre for Sensory Studies, Concordia University, Montreal

2021–  Senior Research Associate (tenured since 2022), Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana

2021  (Spring) Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, The University of Chicago

2017–2020  Visiting Scholar, Department of Germanic Studies, The University of Chicago

2016–2017  Fulbright Postdoctoral Visiting Scholar, The University of Chicago

2016–2021  Research Associate, Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana

2016–  Assistant Professor (tenured since 2022), Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana

2014–2016  Research Fellow, Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana


EDUCATION

PhD  University of Ljubljana (Philosophy), 2012

BA    University of Ljubljana (Philosophy), 2004

BA    University of Ljubljana (Comp. Lit.), 2004


RESEARCH GRANTS

Names at the Tip of the Nose: Naming, Smell, and Truth

TYPE: basic research project. FUNDING SOURCE: Slovenian Research Agency. DURATION: 10/1/2022 – 9/30/2025. ROLE: PI with research team. STATUS: ongoing.

This project addresses the relationship between names and smells, taking its cue from the tip-of-the-nose phenomenon, indicating a well-documented human inability of odor-identification. The project relates this impossibility to the fact that, in Indo-European languages at least, smells altogether lack proper names. We name smells either eponymously by relating them to their sources or synesthetically by borrowing their names from the other senses. Smells stand for lexical voids and represent the singular site of a universal linguistic disturbance: a universal olfactory anomia. The primary objective of the project is to examine the relationship between naming and the nameless realm of smells.

Structure and Genealogy of Indifference: Logic - Epistemology - Ideology

TYPE: basic research project. FUNDING SOURCE: Slovenian Research Agency. DURATION: 5/1/2017 – 4/30/2021. ROLE: PI with research team. STATUS: completed.

This project is devoted to the philosophical analysis of the structure of indifference with special emphasis on its conceptual genesis. The project addresses the 1) logical, 2) epistemological, 3) philosophical-genealogical, and 4) ideological-theological status of indifference in modernity. The scientific background consists of two basic hypotheses: first, indifference, far from being reducible to the inertia of the undistinguished, is the bearer of a paradoxical difference that escapes the opposition between the distinguished and the undistinguished; second, as the bearer of negativity, indifference implies not the spontaneity or arbitrariness of choice but the irreducible impossibility of choice, which emerges in the modality of the contingent encounter.

Varieties of Negation: Philosophy - Psychoanalysis - Literature

TYPE: bilateral research project. FUNDING SOURCE: Slovenian Research Agency. DURATION: 1/1/2018 – 12/31/2019. ROLE: co-PI (with Eric L. Santner) with research team. STATUS: completed.

This bilateral research project between Slovenia and USA addresses the notions of negation and negativity in German idealism and psychoanalysis. Its aim is to analyze the forms of negativity with the goal of critically reassessing the conceptions of subjectivity in the two above-mentioned traditions. The project follows four key objectives: 1) to explicate the forms of negation in German idealism and psychoanalysis and to analyze their conceptual relationships; 2) to demonstrate the structural role of negativity as the agent of the constitution of subjectivity; 3) to conduct a comparative philosophical analysis of the negativity of the subjects of self-consciousness and the unconscious; and 4) to illustrate the modes of negativity and subjectivity with examples from German literature from the 19th through the early 20th centuries.

Antinomies of Rest: A Philosophical Investigation into the Political-Theological and Ontological Status of Rest in Modernity

TYPE: postdoc. FUNDING SOURCE: Fulbright Program. DURATION: 11/1/2016 – 5/31/2017. ROLE: PI. STATUS: completed.

This project aims to deliver a philosophical analysis of the notion of rest in modernity by way of focusing on its double meaning in the English language. On the one hand, it focuses on the actual (Germanic) meaning of rest in the sense of repose, while on the other hand, theorizing on the reflected (Romanic) meaning of rest as remainder, that is, on the concepts of residuality in philosophy, political theology, and psychoanalysis.

The (Mis)uses of Laziness: The Figure of the Idler in Philosophy, Theology, and Political Economy

TYPE: postdoc. FUNDINING SOURCE: Slovenian Research Agency. DURATION: 7/1/2014 – 6/30/2016. ROLE: PI. STATUS: completed.

This project pursues a philosophical analysis of the notion of laziness, focusing primarily on its historical and contemporary figures. The project intervenes in the conceptions of laziness in 1) early­-Christian ascetic tradition, high scholasticism, and Protestantism, 2) German idealism (Kant, Fichte, Hegel), 3) the discourse of classical political economy, and 4) contemporary political and economic discourse.


MEMBERSHIPS & SERVICE

Editorial Board: ProblemiBorec

Manuscript Reviewer: The Senses and SocietyCultural CritiqueOpen PhilosophyPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

Head of the Chair for Social Philosophy, Philosophy of History and Theoretical Psychoanalysis, Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana (2024–)

Affiliate Member, Centre for Sensory Studies, Concordia University, Montreal (2024–)

PhD Coordinator, Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana (2023–)

Consultant, Data and Evidence for Justice Reform (DE JURE), World Bank (2020–2022)

External Expert, European Research Executive Agency (2019–)

Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis, Ljubljana

Central European Research Institute of Søren Kierkegaard


THESIS SUPERVISION

PhD: Haron Zeriali (Philosophy 2024–), Nejc Kralj (Philosophy, 2023–), Sara Svati Sharan (Philosophy, 2023–)

MA: Marko Miočić (Philosophy & Sociology, 2023–2024), Katja Gornik (Philosophy, 2022–2023), Sara Svati Sharan (Philosophy, 2022–2023)

BA: Oskar Ban Brejc (Philosophy, 2023-2024), Tjaša Breznik (Philosophy & Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, 2022–2023), Ajda Kleindienst (Philosophy & Comparative Literature, 2022–2023), Marko Miočić (Philosophy & Sociology, 2021–2022), Klara Francesca Junkar (Philosophy, 2021–2022)

Full list of publications ORCID Google Scholar Sicris


BOOKS

What's That Smell? A Philosophy of the Olfactory (Cambridge & London: MIT Press, 2024). — Recipient of the 2024 Excellence in Science Award (Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency)

Kaj je ta duh? K filozofiji voha (Ljubljana: Analecta, 2016)

Na kratko o dolgčasu, lenobi in počitku (Ljubljana: Analecta, 2012)


SELECTED ARTICLES

"Topologie und logische Zeit: Žižeks Ästhetik des Signifikanten" (with Andrew Cutrofello), Žižek-Handbuch, ed. Dominik Finkelde (Metzler Verlag, forthcoming in 2025). English edition: "Topology and Logical Time: Žižek's Aesthetic of the Signifier," The Bloomsbury Handbook to Slavoj Žižek, ed. Dominik Finkelde (Bloomsbury, forthcoming in 2025).

"The Tripwire of Modernism: Hunger as Function and Ornament," in Understanding Lacan, Understanding Modernism, ed. Thomas Waller (Bloomsbury, forthcoming in 2024).

"Gaps of Rest: Toward a Political Economy of Laziness," in Political Theology and Its Discontents: Psychoanalysis, Politics, Religion, eds. Boštjan Nedoh and K. Daniel Cho (Bloomsbury, forthcoming in 2025).

"'Pnevmatska blaženost': kako so novejše empirične študije voha in dojenja dale Freudu prav," Problemi 62, 7-8 (2024): 33-54.

"El olor del capitalismo: sobre la tendencia universal al envilecimiento en la esfera de la economía capitalista," trans. Matheus Calderon, Hueso Húmero 79 (2024): 211-216.

"Parazit," trans. Marko Miočić, Problemi 62, 3-4 (2024): 151-164.

"Dialectic's Laughing Matter," Problemi International 6 (2023): 189-213.

"Živel antispecizem? Primer mrtvega psa (in mačk)," Problemi 60, 9-10 (2022): 199-239.

"Okultizem voha: od Fliessa in Freuda do Rilkeja in Süskinda," Problemi 60, 7-8 (2022): 141-170.

"Ste slišali tistega o Benjaminu?", Problemi 59, 9-10 (2021): 135-158.

"Imena na konici nosu," Amfiteater 9, 2 (2021): 56-69.

"Marx and Spinoza? On Kordela's Epistemontology as the Latest Systematic Program of Spinozist Marxism," Cultural Critique 112 (2021).

"Names at the Tip of the Nose," Filozofski vestnik 41, 3 (2020): 159-176.

"Govorica blag," Problemi 58, 1-2 (2020): 95-128.

"Ne splača se," in Robert Pfaller, Zakaj se splača živeti? (Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis, 2020).

"Prepozno za prihodnost," in Frank Ruda, Ukinjanje svobode (Ljubljana: Maska, 2020).

"Varieties of Negation: From Drizzle and Decaf to the Anti-Semitic Figure of the Jew," Lacanian Ink 51 (Spring 2018): 108-125.

"Comedy From a to Z: On the Subject-Matter of Ideological Interpellation," Problemi International 1 (2017): 129-158.

"Dialectic at Its Impurest," in Slavoj Žižek and Dialectical Materialism, eds. Agon Hamza and Frank Ruda (Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave, 2016), 85-99.

"What’s the Difference? Kant and Lacan," Filozofski vestnik 36, 2 (2015): 87-108.

"The Comedy of the Great Depression: On Chaplin’s Modern Times," Crisis and Critique 2, 1 (2015): 194-215. Slovenian translation: "Komediografija in velika depresija: o Chaplinovih Modernih časih," Problemi 52, 5-6 (2014): 183-205.

"I, Ideology, Speak," in (Mis)readings of Marx in Continental Philosophy, eds. Jernej Habjan and Jessica Whyte (Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave, 2014), 162-177.

"Capitalism and Repetition: Marx and Lacan," Crisis and Critique 1, 3 (2014): 223-244. Slovenian translation: "Kapitalizem in ponavljanje: Marx in Lacan," Problemi 52, 7-8 (2014): 177-200. Portuguese translation: "Capitalismo e repetição: Marx e Lacan," trans. Daniel Fabre, LavraPalavra (May 23, 2016).

"Prozopopeja ideologije v luči Žižkove fetišistične sekvence," Problemi 52, 3-4 (2014): 143-168.

"Znova nič novega: Adorno, Deleuze, Beckett," Filozofski vestnik 34, 3 (2013): 179-195.

"Zakaj nezavedno ne pozna časa? Pogled s (Kantove) strani," Problemi 50, 5-6 (2012): 171-215.

"Kafkov gladovalec," Problemi 50, 3-4 (2012): 105-142.


SELECTED COMMENTARY & INTERVIEWS

"The Smell of Capitalism," e-flux (October 30, 2024).

"I Smell, Therefore I Am. On the Philosophy of the Olfactory," Psyche Magazine (March 11, 2024). Turkish edition: "Kokuyorum, öyleyse varim: koku almanin felsefesi üzerine," Coverage (April, 2024).

"MAD 2.0," Delo 62, 85 (April 11, 2020): 19.

"The Radical Left Must Practice Negative Criticism Rather Than Affirmative Obscurantism," ILNA (April 15, 2019). In Farsi: Shargh Daily (printed ed., March 30, 2019).

"The Radical Left Needs a New Utopia," ILNA (December 9, 2018).

"O čem so odločali Grki?," Delo 57, 165 (July 18, 2015): 6-7.

"Jebeš reveže?," Mladina 17 (April 25, 2014): 30-31.

"O kapitalizmu in lenosti," Mladina 17-18 (2013): 66-68.

"Nič ni težjega kot nič ne početi," Dnevnikov objektiv 63, 249 (October 26, 2013): 22-23.

"Filozofija na barikadah," Mladina 28 (July 12, 2013): 34-35.


EDITED BOOKS

Eric L. Santner, Politična ekonomija mesa, trans. and ed. L. Šumah and S. Hajdini (Ljubljana: Analecta, 2021)

Frank Ruda, Heglova drhal, trans. A. Leskovec (Ljubljana: Sophia, 2015)

Prvotna akumulacija med zgodovino in konceptom (Ljubljana: Institute for Worker’s Studies, 2013)

Michael Heinrich, Kritika politične ekonomije: uvod, trans. M. Dobnikar (Ljubljana: Sophia, 2013)

Robert Burton, Anatomija melanholije, trans. L. Šumah (Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis, 2012)

Sigmund Freud, Metapsihološki spisi, 2nd edition, trans. E. Bahovec et al. (Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis, 2012)

Sigmund Freud, Spisi o družbi in religiji, trans. S. Hajdini et al. (Ljubljana: Analecta, 2007)

Sigmund Freud, Pet analiz (translation editor), trans. E. Bahovec et al. (Ljubljana: Analecta & Studia humanitatis, 2005)

Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, Študije o histeriji (translation editor), trans. S. Hajdini et al. (Ljubljana: Delta, 2002)


EDITED JOURNAL ISSUES

Problemi InternationalNo. 1 (2017), No. 2 (2018), No. 3 (2019), No. 5 (2022), Ljubljana: Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis.

Compulsory Courses

Elective Courses

Staff

Events

09. 11. - 11. 11. 2023
Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts

26th Neolithic Seminar 'Eurasian Neolithics: How Cultures and Societies Evolve and Why It Matters'

27. 02. 2023
Faculty of Arts

Online presentation of University of Ljubljana for prospective international students

13. 10. 2022
Administrative Office for Doctoral Study, Faculty of Arts

EUTOPIA Citizen Science Clinics

15. 09. 2022
Administrative Office for Undergraduate Study Programme, Faculty of Arts

Reception for International Students at the Faculty of Arts and at the University of Ljubljana (two separate events)

22. 02. 2022
Faculty of Arts

Online sessions for prospective international students, 22 February 2022 at 1.15 pm (CET)