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Staff Profile

Dr David Ventura

Leverhulme Early Career Fellow

Background

I am a philosopher with expertise in twentieth-century Francophone thought. Having studied for a BA in Politics with History at Exeter University and an MSc in Political Theory at the London School of Economics, in 2020 I completed a PhD in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. My doctoral thesis articulated a critical notion of 'temporal ethics' with reference to the thought of Henri Bergson, Emmanuel Levinas, and Gilles Deleuze, and the philosophy of time remains a central aspect of my research.

In 2023, I joined Newcastle Philosophy as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow to carry out research on the relation between time and race through an engagement with the work of the Martinican writer Édouard Glissant.

Research

Central to my research are considerations of how human beings live and experience time. I have been especially interested in conceptualising how we might live temporality in ways that challenge traditional assumptions of time as a measurable, linear, and progressive structure. My doctoral thesis explored this topic with reference to the philosophies of Henri Bergson, Emmanuel Levinas, and Gilles Deleuze, arguing that whilst these thinkers all provide valuable practical suggestions for how we might live time more creatively, they each also underplay the crucial role that a relation to history must play in that process.


Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship Project (2023-26)

My Leverhulme project, titled 'Thinking the Racialisation of Time with Édouard Glisant,' considers how lived experiences of time are specifically affected by histories of racialised othering, and particularly the historical legacy of transatlantic slavery. Focusing primarily on the literary and theoretical works of Édouard Glissant, but also drawing on other thinkers who explicitly think time in relation to such histories — including Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, and other critical philosophers of race — my research seeks to diagnose and challenge the main temporal configurations that effectuate and sustain systems of racism in today’s world.

Teaching

At Newcastle, I have contributed to teaching on the following modules:

  • PHI9001- MLitt Research Assignments: Sessions on Édouard Glissant and Sylvia Wynter (2023/24)
  • PHI1002 - Philosophy and Religion: Sessions on Decolonial Philosophy of Religion, Frantz Fanon, and Sylvia Wynter (2022/23)

Prior to joining Newcastle, I taught several undergraduate courses at King's College London and Royal Holloway, University of London, including modules on the philosophy of race, phenomenology, nineteenth and twentieth-century continental philosophy, and political philosophy.

Publications