Beginning in October 2014, I was a member of the GRAPH (The Great War and Modern Philosophy) Project, funded by the European Research Council (see here for the project blog).
My project investigated philosophical and political perspectives on the First World War and the technological changes it brought about. In particular, I investigated how the First World War as a catastrophic event contributed to twentieth-century understandings of the meaning of Europe’s history and future. My doctoral thesis, for which I received a grade of summa cum laude, was an investigation of the Czech philosopher and human rights activist, Jan Patočka, and particularly of his philosophy of technology and political dissidence.
As a member of the core team that designed and implemented a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on the edX platform entitled ‘The Great War and Modern Philosophy,’ I was responsible for assembly of learner materials, copyright clearance for course texts, design of an innovative peer-based method to assess philosophical competencies, and assembly and management of a team of moderators to facilitate the learning experience of around 3,800 students in 2015 and 3,500 students in 2016-17.
My role also involved liaising with the technical team to identify implementation possibilities for a philosophy course on a digital platform, and I appeared in 4 of the 16 instructional videos as co-instructor in the ‘philosophical dialogues’ for each module (see below for the videos).
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of the Czech philosopher, Jan Patočka, myself and a group of colleagues from KU Leuven and the Centre d’Études Tchèques at ULB organised a 5-day, multi-disciplinary conference ‘Heresy and Heritage: Jan Patočka on Philosophy, Politics, and the Arts.’
In addition to three days of academic papers at KU Leuven and ULB, we liaised with the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Brussels to organise a debate at the European Parliament and a reception event at Prague House, Brussels
Daniel Leufer 