Letters / Research Studentship - covering letter or letter of application for PhD studentship [11]

I am not sure about whether it suits for covering letter, since it mostly shows the line of research previous as well as subsequent. Could you give some advice as to improve this letter? Thank you.

Dear Members of Research Committee,

I am writing to apply for Research Studentship in ---. I have completed the master thesis at --- University under the direction of Professor --- entitled "---". This thesis was published last winter in format of e-book and is further now in process for publishing in a paper book. (---)

My research has begun from the long lasting interest on the specific relation between literature and philosophy. In particular, during my stuides in --- I have focused on the alterity embedded in "autobiography" as a part of modern narrative, peculiarly "crisis of narrative" e.g. Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. In process of clarification of this point I have attained much of ideas from French postmodernism or (post)structuralism. Further, through the psychoanalytical reformulation of the status of modern subject I have come to the point where crisis of narrative would be bounded by the discrepancy of modern subject.

Into this correlation of philosophy with literature within the tradition of French poststructuralism I have connected the context of German modern philosophy commenced from transcendental philosophy of Kant, over the period of three year coursework and research in ---. At that time I have transformed the modern literary form such as autobiography, letters or novel into the neologism "Topo-Patho-Graphy" as a main title of master thesis. I have attempted there to show the possible reappropriation of the pathological at once employed in Practical Philosophy of Kant and revived by German Philosophy of Culture (Cassirer) & French Epistemology of Science (Canguilhem, Foucault).

In the near future, especially with regards to the pathology in an era of late capitalism, I have a research plan to develop more points about the possible subject of the common motivated by the idea of communism, entitled ---. It would be distinguished from the normative approach of Critical Theory, although I have obtained this initial idea from Benjamin and Adorno.

In addition to the theoretical journey, as a graduate student I have combined research and teaching simultaneously. Over one year of writing a master thesis I had a chance to lead a tutorial seminar about ---. In order to find an effective teaching skill I have before participated in preparation seminar led by Professor ---. There we have read together two different philosophical texts such as --- and ---, stressing how to effectively convey the content of philosophical one to laity who are strangers to philosophy. The result obtained there, in terms of teaching skills I have then presented and discussed in colloquium where other professors and colleagues of the institute participated. Further, on the part of content, I have attempted to answer the question, to what extent love is a philosophical category, with the help of lacanian psychoanalysis and Badiou. Since the thema Eros, in particular two different perspects about Eros based on two different forms of narrative, namely tragical and comical one played a decisive role in developing my thesis, I have eagered to verify explicitly my implicit hypotheses by addressing and discussing them in the process of seminar. My research interest included, I have organized this course with my colleague in the direction of practicing the specific teaching skill being attained from the previous seminar. So the seminar proceeded in three steps, namely presentation of literature students, discussing the main points of relevant parts of text and feedback or summary. Though I myself am a foreign student, out of the experience of their appreciating my enthusiasm for the stimulus to more reading of relevant texts and my contribution to their critical thinking as well as to expansion of their research interest, I have realized the possibility of actual practicing of philosophy on the level of trans-nationality and interdisciplinary. I would be glad to send the final report to you, if necessary.

In terms of practicing philosophy or theoretical practice, not only do I refer to actual issues such as financial crisis, but rather reformulate it through the paring of Kant and Marx or Philosophy and Economy interdisciplinary, which I think might be urgent in an era of skeptics about the legitimacy of philosophy. As showed in the sketch of theoretical transgression or transposition form French theory over German philosophy to english-speaking Continental philosophy, I believe that my research would make a contribution to expanding width and depth of Post-Kantian Philosophy in your centre.

I have enclosed my curriculum vitae, and you will be receiving my letters of recommendation in the near future. Please let me know if I can provide additional information or writing samples to help you in evaluation of my application. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely yours,

Dissertations / The pathological as the Other of structure (synopsis of master thesis) [2]

I post a synopsis of my previous master thesis. Since I've written it first in German, there might be more formulated in an English form.

The contemporary world might be determined as post-communistic in the sense of historical decline of exploding the collective rage. To it is the reduction of all things into individual responsibility bound. (Neoliberalism) Whoever falls from this privileged milieu either out of free will or by accident, would be judged as abnormal or pathological as such: either juridical or psychiatric finally as "a dangerous individual" (L'individu dangereux). Here lacks the systematic understanding of a pathological individual. An attempt is therefore urgent to speculatively criticize the pathological beyond the level of (liberal-democratic) individual: instead of individual, namely to positively demarcate the pathological on the part of crisis of system or of a structure.

What does the pure pathological mean then? It is neither medical-psychiatric disease nor biopolitical vital energy (Canguilhelm, Foucault). What concerns here, is anything but physics, how problematical or symptomatic the pathological appears within a particular body or organism (of knowledge). Rather it evokes meta-physics of the pathological as transcendental-common ground of all the entities as well as crisis of the transcendental per se. Therefore, this category links itself both to the notion border and to the problematic origin: viz. as that which always returns undetermined at the present and makes the structure fall in crisis as actual origin.

The pathological as transcendental category moves over the focus from individual to structure as subject as such. Instead of the double relation of (normal) individual to (pathological) other as well as of this alienated other to (symbolic) structure does the correlation of structure to crisis as its immanent Other stand to the fore. Here the romantic understanding of "ingenious-manic individual beyond the structure" like Antigone is no longer valid. At this time it focuses rather on the immanent dealing with crisis of such structure. From now on the crucial question is as follows: "how can such structure being fallen in crisis be brought forward in order again, by means of new rules which would be issued only on the base of such alienated others?"

Dissertations / Proposal of Dissertation, Critique and Communism [3]

Before I have uploaded the following proposal here. Though, this time it was corrected and even reformulated in a more powerful way, I think, as you've suggested. I can't have any chance to ask some native speaker to read it. Is it then possible to let it correct one more time? I hope so. Many thanks in advance.

Critique and Communism

Crisis of Synthesis and Communist Subject: Kant and Marx

I. Key Research Questions

(Kant & Marx in Late Capitalism)

The following research was motivated by a global phenomenon "working poor" as a new form of poverty. Firstly it reflects the malfunction of the trinity between labour, commodity and money in capitalistic market. Additionally it leads to the phase of capitalism, namely capitalism without labour/ worker. Then, regarding the frame of subject-form it impulses us to think urgently about the way how to subjectivate the excess, or the possible subject-form of the excess which never could be represented or counted by the Marxian relation between proletariat and bourgeosie as well as by the republican notion such as citizen(ship) at all.

Based on this actual issue, the following research reposes a forgotten question in the tradition of Western Marxism, in particular of Critical Theory: as ever posed by Sohn-Rethel and critically approached by Marcuse, the question is as follows: "Is transcendental philosophy capable of grounding the social recognition and experience as well?" In other words, could the transcendental categories reflect themselves under the influence of social reality? Or, on the part of organ (tool and mediator alike) of knowledge, to what extent does the transcendental subject share reality in common with others, albeit neither as an empirical nor as a pathological one? My answer to this question that is to be developed in this paper is: "The Transcendental Marxism (cf. Max Adler) is possible and even necessary today, only insofar as it presupposes and handles crisis of the transcendental, vis-ŕ-vis the empirical." In other words, my question peculiarly focuses, as far as the transcendental method is concerned, on thought abstraction (Denkabstraktion) of concrete actuality into universal possibility by bracketing the first one. At the same time ....