Anastasia is an MA graduate in Southeastern European Studies in the department of Political Science and Public Administration at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and has completed an undergraduate degree in Political Science and Public Administration in the same university, with a specialization in political analysis. The past four years she has been collaborating as an international affairs editor/journalist with the Greek daily newspaper I Kathimerini. Currently, she is mainly interested in international relations with a special focus on the Balkan region and its position in the global context as well as nationalism and political transition. In the past few years, Anastasia has also worked with 19th-century archives due to her interest in the era of the rise of the nation-state. In this context, she participated and coordinated a research team of undergraduates that explores the topic of the Greek press during the Greek War of Independence (1821-1828). She has previously collaborated with the Institute of International Relations of Athens as an assistant of the research team coordinator for the group that was training on Balkans and Turkey contemporary issues, and was responsible for giving lectures on the political, social and economic developments in the Western Balkans from the 19th century to nowadays, assisting the trainees with bibliography and advice for their research papers.

Johanna Herschel was born in 1992. She is a student at the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen. She was a researcher at the ISSH Skopje in 2016/2017. She studies the science of the labour power.

Felix Falczyk was born in 1993. He is a student at the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen. He was a researcher at the ISSH Skopje in 2016/2017. He studies the science of the labour power.

I am a PhD candidate at the Department of Gender Studies, with a specialization in Medieval Studies. My main interests and contributions are in continental and feminist philosophy, gender studies, queer theory, critical theory, and autonomist Marxism in particular. My ongoing work includes more specifically Neoplatonism, non-philosophy, speculative/new realism and new materialism.
My PhD project’s working title is “Disembodiment in Neoplatonism and New Realism.” Since 2009 I have worked mostly on Plato’s Timaeus, Platonist cosmology and the notion of chora and its feminist/poststructuralist reception. I now have moved on to explore how the question of the body arose out of the Middle Platonist and Neoplatonist receptions of the Timaeus, and how chora served as a mediating term that disquieted philosophical materialism and positive notions of matter, corporeality and embodiment. In my project I compare attitudes towards the body in pre-Christian Neoplatonism and Gnosticism with ongoing debates on embodiment in speculative/new realism and new materialism. To this end my interest in new realism and materialism is mediated by Laruelle’s non-philosophy (mostly Philosophy II-III) and his inversion of the Neoplatonic One, allowing for non-hierarchical metaphysics which in turn opens up a new interpretation of chora for feminist poststructuralism. I am also particularly interested in the intersection between Laruelle’s non-philosophy and Iamblichus’ theurgy.
I have co-edited several volumes in the fields of Marxist philosophy and queer and gender theory, and have published in journals and edited volumes internationally.
Currently I am part of ISCH COST Action IS1307 New Materialism:
Networking European Scholarship on “How Matter Comes to Matter,” and I am board member of IPAK.Center – Research Center for Cultures, Politics and Identities in Belgrade, where I co-organize the Summer School for Sexualities, Cultures and Politics (2012-present). I am also co-director of Sofia Queer Forum (2012-present). I have translated several books into Bulgarian and numerous articles by the likes of Butler, Sedgwick, Halperin, W. Brown, M. Wark, etc.