Assoc Prof. Matt Sharpe

Associate Professor Matthew Sharpe is a teaching and research member of the Faculty or Arts and Theology.  He completed his PhD, in philosophy-social theory, on Slavoj Zizek at the University of Melbourne in 2002, and taught philosophy and psychoanalytic studies at Deakin University from 2004-2023.  He has also completed an MA in public policy, specialising in Higher Education (U. Tasmania 2020), as well as a Diploma of Counselling (AIPC, 2022). Matthew is the father of two children, as well as a husband, a runner, and a soccer coach.

Books:

1. The Other Enlightenment: Self-Estrangement, Race, and Gender, Rowman & Littlefield, 2023 [in press].
2. Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions (with M. Ure), Bloomsbury, 2021.
3. Editor and co-translator (with F. Testa), Pierre Hadot: Selected Essays, Bloomsbury, 2020.
4. Camus, Philosophe, Brill, 2015 paperback 2016.
5. Žižek and Politics: A Critical Introduction (with Geoff Boucher), Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
6. The Times Will Suit Them: Australia&rsquos Postmodern Conservatism (with Geoff Boucher), Allen & Unwin, 2008.
7. Understanding Psychoanalysis (with Joanne Faulkner), Acumen, 2007.
8. Slavoj Žižek: A Little Piece of the Real, Ashgate, 2004 (republished with Routledge, 2017).

Articles in leading-ranked journals[1]

1. With R. Nolan, &ldquoA Process-Based Approach to Health-Related Quality of Life as a &ldquoWay of Living&rdquo, Quality of Life Research [accepted for publication, 2023].
2. &ldquoCritique, Metacritique, and Making the (World of) Difference: Losurdo on the Paradoxes of Nietzsche Reception&rdquo, Historical Materialism [accepted for publication, 2023].
3. &ldquoGiving the Angel the Benefit of Law: Natural Law and Human Dignity in Franz Neumann and Ernst Bloch&rdquo. Critical Research on Religion 10, no. 3 (2022): 351-356
4. With Matthew King, &ldquoPolitics, Religion, Hope: Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives&rdquo. Critical Research on Religion (2022): 1-2.
5. With K. Turner, &ldquoWittgenstein&rsquos Unglauben: Jacques Lacan and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus&rdquo, Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society (2022): 201-217.
6. &ldquoUnifying, Comparative, Critical and Metacritical: Domenico Losurdo&rsquos Nietzsche as Aristocratic Rebel&rdquo. Critical Horizons 23, no. 3 (2022): 284-304.
7. With M. Stettler, &ldquoPushing against an open door: Agamben on Hadot and Foucault&rdquo. Classical Receptions 14, no. 1 (2022): 120-139.
8. &ldquoBetween too Intellectualist and not Intellectualist Enough: Hadot&rsquos Spiritual Exercises and Annas&rsquo Virtues as Skills&rdquo, Journal of Value Inquiry 55, no. 2 (2021): 269-287.
9. &ldquoSpeaking of Heidegger&rsquos Silence. Critical Responses to Knowles&rsquos Heidegger&rdquo. Heidegger-Jahrbuch 13 (2021): 76-92.
10. &ldquoGolden Calf: Deleuze's Nietzsche in the Time of Trump&rdquo, Thesis Eleven 163, no. 1 (2021): 71-88.
11. &ldquoA Disturbance of Vision on the Capitol: Philosophy and the Far-Right&ndashTowards an Interdisciplinary Inquiry Thesis Eleven 163, no. 1 (2021): 5-28.
12. &ldquoOn Politics, Irony, and Plato&rsquos Socrates as Derrida&rsquos Pharmakon&rdquo, Review of Politics 83, no. 2 (2021): 1-21.
13. &ldquoPierre Hadot, Albert Camus and the Orphic View of Nature&rdquo, Continental Philosophy Review 54, no. 1 (2021): 17-39.
14. &ldquoSolitaire/Solidaire: Camus, Contemplation, and the Vita Mixta&rdquo, Telos 196 (2021): 31-43.
15. &ldquoIn the Crosshairs of the Fourfold: Critical Thoughts on Aleksandr Dugin&rsquos Heidegger&rdquo, Critical Horizons 21, no. 2 (2020): 167-187.
16. &ldquoFrom Amy Allen to Abbé Raynal: Critical Theory, Enlightenment, and Colonialism&rdquo, Critical Horizons 20, no. 2 (2019): 1-22.
17. &ldquoKilling the Father, Parmenides: On Lacan&rsquos Anti-philosophy&rdquo, Continental Philosophy Review 52, no. 1 (2019): 51-74.
18. &ldquoHome to Men&rsquos Business and Bosoms: Philosophy and Rhetoric in Francis Bacon&rsquos Essayes&rdquo, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 27, no. 3 (2019): 492-512.
19. With Kirk Turner, &ldquoBibliopolitics: the History of Notation and the Birth of the Citational Academic Subject&rdquo, Foucault studies 25 (2019): 146-173.
20. &ldquoTowards a Phenomenology of Sagesse: The Unique Philosophical Problematic of Pierre Hadot&rdquo, Angelaki (2018): 125-138.
21. &ldquoThe Topics Transformed: Rethinking Francis Bacon&rsquos Prerogative Instances&rdquo, Journal of History of Philosophy 56, no, 3 (2018): 429-454.
22. &ldquoHeidegger in 2018: Editor-Translator's Introduction&rdquo, Critical Horizons 19, no. 4 (2018): 271-273.
23. &ldquoReading Heidegger&mdashAfter the &lsquoHeidegger Case&rsquo?&rdquo, Critical Horizons 19, no. 4 (2018):334-360
24. &ldquoRhetorical Action in the Rektoratsrede&rdquo, Philosophy & Rhetoric 51, no. 2 (2018): 176-201.
25. &ldquoFearless?  Peter Weir on the Fragility of Goodness&rdquo, Philosophy & Literature 41, no. 1 (2017): 136-157.
26. &ldquoCamus and the Virtues&rdquo, Philosophy Today 61, no. 3 (2017): 679-708.
27. &ldquoThere is not Just a War: Retrieving the Therapeutic Metaphor in Classical Philosophy&rdquo, Sophia 55 (2016): 409-435.
28. &lsquoSocratic Ironies: Reading Hadot, Reading Kierkegaard&rdquo, Sophia, 55:3 (March 2016): 1-27.
29. &ldquoThe Plague and the Panopticon&rdquo, Thesis Eleven 13, no. 3 (2016): 59-79.
30. &ldquoNot for Personal Gratification, or for Contention, or to Look Down on Others, or for Convenience, Reputation, or Power: Cultura Animi in Bacon&rsquos 1605 Apology for the Proficiency and Advancement of Learning&rdquo, Journal of Early Modern Studies 4, no. 2 (2015): 37-68. 
31. &ldquo&lsquoIn Joy We Prepare our Lessons&rsquo: Reading Camus&rsquo Noces via their Reception of the Eleusinian Mysteries,&rdquo Classical Receptions Journal (2015): 1-29.
32.  &ldquoOn a Forgotten Argument in French Philosophy: Sceptical Humanism in Montaigne, Voltaire, Camus,&rdquo Critical Horizons 16, no. 1 (2015): 1-26.
33. &ldquoA Just Judgment? Critical Remarks on Srigley&rsquos Camus&rdquo, Thesis Eleven 120 (2014): 43-58.
34.  &ldquoIt&rsquos Not the Chrysippus You Read: Epictetus and Hadot Contra Cooper on Philosophy as a Way of Life,&rdquo Philosophy Today 58, no. 3 (2014): 367-392.
35. &ldquoGeorgics of the Mind and the Architecture of Fortune: Francis Bacon&rsquos Philosophical Therapeutics,&rdquo Philosophical Papers 43, no. 1 (2014): 89-121.
36.  &ldquoReading Leo Strauss&rsquo On Plato&rsquos Symposium: The Poetic Presentation of Philosophy&rdquo, Poetics Today 34, no. 4 (2013-2014): 563-603.
37. &ldquoRestoring Camus as Philosophe: On Ronald Srigley&rsquos Camus&rsquo Critique of Modernity&rdquo, Critical Horizons 13, no. 3 (2012): 400-424.
38.  &ldquoPhilosophy and the View from Above in Alejandro&rsquos Amenabar&rsquos Agora&rdquo, in Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Religion, History, Philosophy and the Classics 6, no. 2 (2012): 31-45.
39.  &ldquoAn Invincible Sun: On Camus&rsquo Philosophical Neoclassicism&rdquo, Sophia 50, no. 4 (2011): 577-592.
40. With G. Boucher, &ldquoFinancial crisis, Social pathologies and 'Generalised Perversion': Questioning Žižek's Diagnosis of the Times,&rdquo New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics 72, no. 2 (2011): 64-79.
41. &ldquoReading Camus With or After Levinas: Rebellion and the Primacy of Ethics&rdquo, Philosophy Today 55, no. 1 (2011): 82-95.
42. &ldquo&lsquoIn the Court of a Great King&rsquo: Some Remarks on Leo Strauss&rsquo Introduction to The Guide for the Perplexed I&rdquo, Sophia 50, no. 1 (2011): 141&ndash158.
43. &ldquo&lsquoIn the Court of a Great King&rsquo: Some Remarks on Leo Strauss&rsquo Introduction to The Guide for the Perplexed II&rdquo Sophia 50, no. 3 (2011): 413-427.
44. &ldquoIs Neoliberalism a Liberalism, or a Stranger Kind of Bird? On Hayek and Our Discontents&rdquo, Critical Horizons 10: 1 (2009): 76-98.
45. &ldquo&lsquoCritchley is Žižek&rsquo: In Defence of Critical Political Philosophy&rdquo, Critical Horizons 10, no. 2 (2009): 180-196.
46. &ldquoHunting Plato's Agalmata&rdquo, The European Legacy, Toward New Paradigms 14, no. 5 (2009): 535-547.
47. &ldquo'Thinking of the Extreme Situation...' or: Against a Recent (Theoretical and Legal) Return to Carl Schmitt&rdquo, Australian feminist law journal 24 (2006): 95-123.
48. &ldquoThe Philosopher's Courtly Love? Leo Strauss, Eros, and the Law,&rdquo Law and Critique 17 (2006): 357-388.
49. &ldquoThe Aesthetics of Ideology, or 'the Critique of Ideological Judgment' in Eagleton and Zizek&rdquo, Political Theory 34 (2006): 95-120.
50. &ldquoCritique as Technology of the Self&rdquo, Foucault Studies (2005): 97-116.
51. &ldquoDo Universals Have a Reference? On the Critical Theory of Herbert Marcuse&rdquo, Philosophy Today 46 (2002): 193-208.
52. &ldquoThe Descent of the Doves: Camus's Fall, Derrida's ethics&rdquo, Philosophy & Social Criticism 28 (2002).

Matthew Sharpe's research focuses on the interconnections between theoretical thinking and forms of transformative practices, whether psychoanalytic, political or philosophical.  He has published widely in psychoanalytic theory, political theory, and the history of ideas.  Increasingly since 2010, his work has centered upon the idea of philosophy as a way of life, focusing on the Stoic tradition in particular, and its continuing receptions.  He also writes on the troubling history of far right thinking, including the role of different forms of philosophical thought in this history, and today.  

Areas of specialisation are:

- Stoicism

- scepticism

- spiritual direction and forms of transformational and therapeutic practices

- the history of philosophy as a way of life

- philosophy of education

- early modern philosophy, in particular Francis Bacon's thought

- the philosophy of the French enlightenment

- metaphilosophy

- psychoanalytic and critical theory (in the narrower sense)

- political philosophy.

- Stoicism

- scepticism

- spiritual direction and forms of transformational and therapeutic practices

- the history of philosophy as a way of life

- early modern philosophy, in particular Francis Bacon's thought

- the philosophy of the French enlightenment

- metaphilosophy

- psychoanalytic and critical theory (in the narrower sense)

- political philosophy

- philosophy of education

- higher education, its history and prospects.

Matthew Sharpe has taught philosophy since 2002, at the Universities of Auckland and Melbourne, then at Deakin University (2004-2023), and now at ACU.  He was a longstanding member of the Australian Society for Continental Philosophy, is presently an organiser of the Melbourne Stoicon-X events, and of the global Philosophy as a Way of Life research network. 

Matthew has been a CI on ARC grants on religion and political thought, and then again on the modern reinventions of the ancient Western ideas of philosophy as a way of life.  He is a cotranslator of Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot, as well as the translator of several critical French-language articles on the work of Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Nietzsche, and a cotranslator of the upcoming text by Polish scholar, Juliusz Domanski, Philosophy, Theory or Way of Life with an international team.

Matthew has been involved in organising numerous events on the history of philosophy, philosophy and the far right, and philosophy as a way of life.  He has given keynotes and invited speeches at conferences in Melbourne, Athens, Lisbon, and China, as well as in several global online conferences.  He is also a coeditor of the Philosophy as a Way of LifeTexts and Translations book series with Brill and the Thinkers and Politics series with Edinburgh University Press.

Philosophy as a Way of Life Global Research Network