Sebastian Truskolaski

Contact: [email protected]

Sebastian Truskolaski joined the University of Manchester in 2021. His PhD was awarded in 2016 by Goldsmiths, University of London, where he was affiliated with the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought.

Before coming to Manchester, Sebastian taught German and Comparative Literature at Trinity College Dublin and King's College London, and was awarded a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for his research at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin.

Sebastian's research interests include:

• Points of contact between modern and contemporary art, literature, and philosophy;
• Modern European thought from Kant to Derrida;
• Aesthetic theory from Romanticism to the Frankfurt School;
• Theories (and practices) of translation from Luther to Benjamin.

Sebastian's first monograph, Adorno and the Ban on Images, appeared with Bloomsbury in 2021. Subsequently, with Paula Schwebel, he translated the correspondence between Theodor W. Adorno and Gershom Scholem (Polity, 2021), which was nominated for th Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Prize. Moreover, with Sam Dolbear and Esther Leslie, he edited and  translated The Storyteller, a collection of Walter Benjamin's experimental prose writings (Verso, 2016; 2nd ed., 2023), which received positive reviews in The Guardian, Financial Times, and Times Literary Supplement among others. In addition to numerous articles in academic journals and edited collections, Sebastian also guest-edited a special issue of the journal Anthropology & Materialism on the philosophy of Water Benjamin with Jan Sieber (2017). Finally, Sebastian is an editorial board  member of the journal New Benjamin Studies (Brill-Fink).

Sebastian is presently working on a monograph about Friedrich Hölderlin and the concept of community, especially via readings of the poet by Franz Rosenzweig, Gustav Landauer, and Walter Benjamin.

Sebastian teaches on a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate units across German and related disciplines the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures.

Sebastian welcomes proposals from prospective PhD students working on topics relating to any of the research areas noted above.

• Audio / Video:
  • Book launch (audio): Sebastian Truskolaski, Adorno and the Ban on Images, King's College London, 3 March 2021.
  • Book launch (audio): Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller, London Review of Books Bookshop, 23 June 2016.
  • Book launch (audio): Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller,
  • BBC 3 'Free Thinking' (audio): Discussion of Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller, 23 June 2016.
  • Resonance FM 'Clear Spot' (audio): Discussion of Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller, 15 November 2016.
    
• Interviews:
  • Lukas Hoffman, 'New Books in Critical Theory: Adorno and the Ban on Images (Podcast), 30 Jan 2023. 
  • Jonathon Catlin, 'Adorno and the Ban on Images: An Interview with Sebastian Truskolaski', Journal of the History of Ideas (Blog), 26 May 2021.