Jan Völker is philosopher and researcher at the Institute for Art History, Art Theory and Aesthetics at the Berlin University of the Arts. He studied comparative literature, philosophy and cultural studies in Leipzig, Berlin and Paris. He earned his PhD with a dissertation on Kant’s Critique of Judgment. He was a Visiting Lecturer at Bard College Berlin and at the Institute of Philosophy at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana. Jan Völkers research interests include aesthetic theory, German Idealism, the relation of art and politics as well as psychoanalysis.

Jan Völker is the author of Ästhetik der Lebendigkeit. Kants dritte Kritik (München, 2011) and Neue politische Philosophie zur Einführung. Badiou, Laclau, Lefort, Nancy, Rancière (with Uwe Hebekus, Hamburg, 2012). He is also the co-editor of the German version of Jacques Ranciere’s Ist Kunst widerständig? (Berlin, 2008) and of the series morale provisoire, published by Merve, which includes works by Alenka Zupančič, Catherine Malabou and Alain Badiou.