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: Problemi, Borec

Manuscript Reviewer: The Senses and Society, Cultural Critique, Open Philosophy, Phenomenology 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)