Harris Bechtol
Dr. Bechtol earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Texas A&M University. He is a Lecturer in the Department of History, Philosophy, and Geography at Texas A&M University - San Antonio. His research focuses specifically on the nature, as well as the ethical and theological implications, of events as these have been examined within current debate in continental European philosophy. His first book-length project, entitled A Death of the World: Surviving the Death of the Other is being published by SUNY Press in 2025. He is currently working on revisions of the manuscript. In this book, he expands the philosophical conversation around the idea of an event by providing a phenomenological description of the experience of surviving the death of someone. This description is grounded in the post-Husserlian phenomenologies of the later Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida. He argues in his book that death is more than just the loss of a person because the death of the other entails the loss of the meaningfulness of the world constituted with and by the other who has died. He argues for this by looking at how the death of the other transforms the spatiality and temporality of the world for those who survive such death. This project advances current debates in continental philosophy, especially phenomenology and hermeneutics.
Additionally, Dr. Bechtol’s next major research project is in the field of continental philosophy of religion where he explores the nature of religious faith in the aftermath of the death of God as found in the philosophies of Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Levinas, Simone Weil, Slavoj Žižek, and Julia Kristeva. This project examines the various spiritualities (i.e. ways of life) that are developed amidst the event-like character of existence. He has tentatively titled this project Spiritualities Formed from the Desert: On Continental Philosophy of Religion.
Supervisors: Theodore George
Additionally, Dr. Bechtol’s next major research project is in the field of continental philosophy of religion where he explores the nature of religious faith in the aftermath of the death of God as found in the philosophies of Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Levinas, Simone Weil, Slavoj Žižek, and Julia Kristeva. This project examines the various spiritualities (i.e. ways of life) that are developed amidst the event-like character of existence. He has tentatively titled this project Spiritualities Formed from the Desert: On Continental Philosophy of Religion.
Supervisors: Theodore George
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of current debate in continental philosophy. While scholars recognize the important contributions that Jacques Derrida has made to this debate, the significance of his considerations of the death of the other for his conception of the event has not yet been fully appreciated. This essay focuses on Derrida’s efforts to develop the notion of the event in reference to the death of the other through his engagement with Paul Celan in “Rams—Between Two Infinities, The Poem.” I argue that Derrida’s approach results in a three-fold contribution to the debate about the character of the event. Derrida turns to one of Celan’s poems in an effort to find the kind of speech that attests to the event in its singularity, and in this turn, he develops not only the structure of the event’s appearance in the death of the world when the other dies but also the ethical impetus that accompanies this event of the death of the other, namely a call for workless mourning. Through Derrida’s contribution, we learn that the concern for the event not only includes novel approaches to ontology but also attempts to weave together ontological, ethical, as well as existential concerns.
Book Reviews by Harris Bechtol
Papers by Harris Bechtol
of current debate in continental philosophy. While scholars recognize the important contributions that Jacques Derrida has made to this debate, the significance of his considerations of the death of the other for his conception of the event has not yet been fully appreciated. This essay focuses on Derrida’s efforts to develop the notion of the event in reference to the death of the other through his engagement with Paul Celan in “Rams—Between Two Infinities, The Poem.” I argue that Derrida’s approach results in a three-fold contribution to the debate about the character of the event. Derrida turns to one of Celan’s poems in an effort to find the kind of speech that attests to the event in its singularity, and in this turn, he develops not only the structure of the event’s appearance in the death of the world when the other dies but also the ethical impetus that accompanies this event of the death of the other, namely a call for workless mourning. Through Derrida’s contribution, we learn that the concern for the event not only includes novel approaches to ontology but also attempts to weave together ontological, ethical, as well as existential concerns.