Oele’s research stands at the interdisciplinary crossroads of natural science, continental and ancient philosophy, and environmental humanities. Her main research topic—affectivity (Greek: pathos)—has a long standing within her career, both in her study of medicine, and in her career as a philosopher. Her book “E-Co-Affectivity: Exploring Pathos at Life's Material Interfaces (SUNY, 2020)” steered the topic of affectivity toward concrete embodied interfaces such as bird-feathers, skin, and soil. Her most recent book project is entitled “Elemental Loss: Shifting Constellations of Water, Fire, Air and Earth.”
At Radboud University, she aims to deepen and expand her interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching within the Professorship of Philosophy of the Humanities, with a special focus on topics such as affect, embodied loss and climate change. Her goal is to build bridges between the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies.
Oele envisions a research agenda that operates methodologically at the intersection of natural science, philosophy, and environmental humanities, and that further pursues the conceptual pathways laid out by E-Co-Affectivity and Elemental Loss, namely thinking through the micro- and macro-interfaces in which embodiment, affectivity, and loss emerge in times of (social and ecological) crisis.
About Marjolein Oele
Marjolein Oele (Hoorn, 1972) studied Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam and Medicine at the Free University of Amsterdam. She obtained her PhD in 2007 from Loyola University Chicago with the dissertation “Aristotle on Pathos.” After completing her dissertation, Oele was hired in 2007 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Philosophy by the University of San Francisco. She was granted tenure in 2013, served as Chair of the Philosophy Department (2017-20), and became a Full Professor of Philosophy in 2019. She joined the journal Environmental Philosophy in 2017 as its book review editor, and was recently appointed its new Editor-in-Chief. She has been actively involved in organizations such as the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition (PACT), the Ancient Philosophy Society (APS), and the International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP). In 2021 she was granted the Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of San Francisco, and she was awarded the NEH Chair in 2022-3.