Raphael Tandler
Areas of Interest
Literary and film theory, Aesthetics and criticism, Psychoanalysis, Antique Greek philosophy and philosophy of the 20th century, German and North American literature of the long 20th century, North American and European cinema, Secularism and postsecularism
Bio
Raphael is a Ph.D. candidate in the combined program German + Film and Media Studies. Before coming to Yale, he studied literature, philosophy, and film in Zurich, Southampton, and New York.
He wrote his MA thesis on Cavell, Wittgenstein, and Beckett, analyzing how the problem of other minds poses itself anew after a loss of God. In his current research, he is interested in secularism and its portrayals in literature and film. At what moments does a lack of traditional religion become an explicit problem? What solutions do literature and film envision, and where do they come to an end? And how does art reflect on itself as a potential successor to religion?