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Prof Vasti Roodt

vroodt@sun.ac.za

Vasti Roodt is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and the Head of the Unit for Social and Political Ethics in the Centre for Applied Ethics. She studied at Stellenbosch and at Radboud University in the Netherlands, and holds a DPhil (Philosophy) from Stellenbosch University. Her research focuses on moral and political philosophy.

She has published extensively on the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Hannah Arendt, and has also written on identity politics and public happiness. She is co-editor of Nietzsche, Power and Politics: Rethinking Nietzsche’s Legacy for Political Thought (De Gruyter, 2008) and of the South African Journal of Philosophy special issue on happiness (Vol. 33 Nr. 4, 2014). Her current research focuses on the way in which metaphor and analogy shape – and distort – philosophical reasoning about key political concepts, notably ‘violence’, ‘identity’ and ‘community’. This is part of a broader research project on conceptual ethics.

Selected publications

Books

Roodt, V. & Siemens, H. (eds.), Nietzsche, Power and Politics. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008.

Journal articles

  • Roodt, V. 2014. On public happiness. In South African Journal of Philosophy, 33(4): 459-471.
  • Roodt, V. 2012. Arendt, Stiegler en die lewe van die gees. In Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe, 52(2): 5-18 (in Afrikaans).
  • Roodt, V. 2006. Review article: Tommy Shelby: ‘We Who Are Dark’. In Ethical Perspectives, 13(4): 711-715.
  • Roodt, V. 2006. Identiteit en wêreldlikheid: waarom identiteitspolitiek faal. In Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 69(2): 279-307.
  • Roodt, V. & Cilliers, P. 2002. The Formation of the Self. Nietzsche and Complexity. In South African Journal of Philosophy, 21(2): pp. 319-348.
  • Roodt, V. 2002. The Loss of the Human: Nietzsche and Arendt on the Predicament of Modernity. In Ethical Perspectives, 8(1): 31-47.
  • Roodt, V. 2001. Amor Fati, Amor Mundi. History, Action and Worldliness in Nietzsche and Arendt. In Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 62(3): 319-348.

Book chapters

  • Roodt, V. 2019. Violence as metaphor. In Philosophical Reflections on Violence and Meaning, ed. L. Lauwaert, L. Smith and C. Sternad. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Roodt, V. 2019. Thinking politics between past and future. In Einde van de politiek? Over populisme, democratie en staatsgeweld, ed. J. Duyndan & M. Poorthuis. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
  • Roodt, V. Living with nihilism. In Beyond Nihilism?, ed. A.K. Smith, C. Bremmers, J.-P. Wils. Freiburg, Verlag Traugott, 2018.
  • Roodt, V. 2012. ‘The World as the ‘Beyond’ of Politics. In: Stoker, W & Van der Merwe, WL (eds.): Looking Beyond? Shifting Views of Transcendence in Philosophy, Theology, the Arts and Politics. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012.
  • Roodt, V. 2008. ‘Nietzsche and/or Arendt?’ In Roodt, V. & Siemens, H. (eds.), Nietzsche, Power and Politics. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 411-429.

Teaching

Undergra​duate
  • Philosophy 114: Introduction to systematic philosophy
  • Philosophy 364: Political philosophy
Postgraduate
  • Honours: Nietzsche / Conceptual engineering / Epistemic vices
  • Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Ethics: Moral values and value conflict
  • Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Ethics: Theories of justice
  • MPhil in Applied Ethics (Social and political ethics)
  • MPhil, MA and PhD supervision