The Uncanny – Finitude and Renewal

• Applicant: Mihnea Octavian Chiujdea
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 571277332

This project proposes a new philosophical investigation of the uncanny. While there has been a considerable amount of research on the uncanny in other fields, the depth and significance of the concept has received insufficient philosophical attention. The guiding hypothesis is that only normative beings, like ourselves, can experience not just angst, fear, uneasiness or strangeness, but specifically the uncanny. Conversely, the experience of the uncanny is a specific mode of relating to our existence as normative beings. Therefore, an appropriate understanding of the uncanny has the potential of giving us a new perspective on our normative existence, highlighting the precarity, finitude and transformability of our being. Methodologically, I suggest developing this notion of the uncanny and the corresponding understanding of normativity by means of an in-depth study of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy. While there is much literature exploring Heidegger’s contribution to normative theory and interpreting his overall thought in light of this, Heidegger scholars have given the uncanny short shrift. Exploring this gives us a new outlook both on Heidegger and on normative theory. The project has three thematic objectives, the upshot of which is fourfold: 1. deliver a new genuinely philosophical perspective on the uncanny, an important notion, but as of yet restricted to cultural analysis; 2. develop a new reading of Heidegger’s contribution to normative theory; 3. make a systematic contribution to the ontology of the normative, specifically with regard to the leeway allowed by normativity and the productive potential of the uncanny; 4. elucidate the origins and nature of the aesthetic forms of the uncanny. As deliverables, I will submit three articles to reputable peer-reviewed journals, organise two conferences/workshops, and prepare an edited volume for publication.

• DFG Programme: Fellowship
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Host: Professor Dr. Sacha Golob