About

Eric L. Santner is the Philip and Ida Romberg Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago, where he has been teaching since 1996. His research interests encompass Literary and Cultural Theory; German-Jewish Literature and Thought; Modernism; Psychoanalytic Theory; and Religion and Literature. Santner's work is situated at the intersection of literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, political theory, and religious thought, reflecting a cross-disciplinary approach that is also evident in his teaching, which includes co-taught seminars with philosophers, historians of religion, anthropologists, political theorists, and psychoanalysts. He came to the University of Chicago after twelve years at Princeton University and originally engaged with German Studies through philosophy, having studied at Oberlin College and furthering his philosophical education in Bonn and Freiburg, focusing on Kant, Heidegger, and Hegel. His intellectual trajectory was shaped by a desire to incorporate poetic thinking, inspired by Friedrich Hölderlin, and to explore the legacies of Nazism and the Holocaust, influenced by his background as the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His engagement with Freud's writings, alongside figures like Kafka, Rilke, Schreber, Rosenzweig, Benjamin, and Sebald, has informed his inquiries into memory, mourning, and memorialization. Santner has mentored students working on German philosophy, German-Jewish thought, literary modernism, postwar literature and film, philosophy of religion, political theory, German poetry, gender, and sexuality. His notable publications include books such as 'Untying Things Together: Philosophy, Literature, and a Life in Theory,' 'Sovereignty, Inc.: Three Inquiries in Politics and Enjoyment,' and 'The Royal Remains: The People’s Two Bodies and the Endgames of Sovereignty,' among others. His work continues to contribute significantly to contemporary discussions at the intersection of literature, philosophy, and political thought.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• Toward a caninical theory of the neighbor

  Konferenser / · 2025-06-27

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Negative Anthropology in Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Freud

  Angelaki · 2024-05-03

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Epilogue

  University of Chicago Press eBooks · 2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  PublisherDOI

• Untying Things Together

  2022 · 10 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  PublisherDOI

• 7

  2022-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• 2

  2022-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  2022-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• 1

  University of Chicago Press eBooks · 2022 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Philosophy
  PublisherDOI

• 6: Will Wonders Never Cease

  2022-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• 4

  2022-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• James Lastra

  Sesame Workshop

  16 shared

• David C. Levin

  Tel Aviv University

  16 shared

• James T. Chandler

  Whitney Museum of American Art

  16 shared

• Bradin Cormack

  Wayne State University

  16 shared

• Lauren Berlant

  16 shared

• Elizabeth Helsinger

  16 shared

• Yuri My

  Whitney Museum of American Art

  16 shared

• Robert B. Pippin

  16 shared

Awards & honors

• The Tanner Lectures in Human Values (2016)
• Friedrich Hölderlin: Narrative Vigilance and the Poetic Imag…
• The Royal Remains: The People’s Two Bodies and the Endgames…
• On Creaturely Life: Rilke, Benjamin, Sebald (2006)
• The Neighbor. Three Inquiries in Political Theology (2005)