I'm a philosopher with a background in phenomenology and analytic philosophy of mind. Currently, I am working at the intersection of classical and contemporary phenomenology, philosophy of emotions, social cognition and social ontology. Particularly, I am interested in understanding irrational or disruptive phenomena concerning emotions in social, collaborative, collective, and most recently in political contexts (such as emotional alienation, collaborative akrasia and self-deception, group-related distrust and hatred). I continuously engage with the relevant strands in the empirical and social sciences, and especially the sociology of emotions, social psychology, social identification theory and political psychology.
In terms of affiliation, currently, I am Senior Researcher at the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, at University of Jyväskylä, employed within the Finnish Academy of Science research project "Marginalization and Experience: Phenomenological Analyses of Normality and Abnormality" (MEPA) (PI: Prof. Sara Heinämaa). You can read more about the project here: https://www.jyu.fi/hytk/fi/laitokset/yfi/en/research/projects/mepa/staff/thomas-szanto
I am also a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Subjectivity Research (CFS), at the Dept. for Media, Communication, and Cognition, University of Copenhagen.
2016-2018, I was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Subjectivity Research (CFS), working on my two-year research project, "SHARE: Shared Emotions, Group Membership, and Empathy", funded by the European Commission Horizon-2020 Research Innovation Framework Programme (SHARE-655067). My host at the CFS is Prof. Dan Zahavi. You can read more about the project here: http://cfs.ku.dk/research-activities/researchprojects/share/about-the-project/
2013-2014, I have spent two Postdoc years at CFS on a related VELUX Fonden research project, entitled “Empathy and Interpersonal Understanding”.
2012-2013, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Philosophy, University College Dublin (Affiliated Irish Research Council project: "Discovering the 'We': The Phenomenology of Sociality"; PI: Prof. Dermot Moran).
I have also held a number of Adjunct Lecturer positions, among others at the Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna (2008-2014).
See more information about me and my work, here: [https://jyu.academia.edu/ThomasSzanto]
