¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ

Thomas Froy

• Doctoral defence: 20 April 2026 at 1 p.m.
• Stadscampus, Elschotzaal, Hof van Liere
• Supervisors: Vivian Liska & Arthur Cools (¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ)
• ​Register before 17 april

Abstract

How do we think about home today? What does it mean to ‘belong’? To call a place one’s own? Conversely, what is it like to be away from home? To feel as if you don’t belong? To feel unwelcome?

This dissertation attempts to answer such questions by examining contemporary debates in Jewish Thought concerning the notions of home and ‘dwelling’. I begin by unpacking the concepts of ‘Homeland’ and ‘Earth’ as they appear in contemporary philosophical and political discourse. I turn to with the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger and his work on ‘dwelling’, as an ideological forefather of both ideas. I focus, in particular, on his attempt to define dwelling as a way of being at home which is open to the ‘unfamiliar’. I tie this openness to traditional discourses of nationalism and current work in ecological and ecofeminist thought in order to show that, for Heidegger, the Earth is our Homeland, and dwelling within it means being open to the unfamiliarity of the world itself.

Against Heidegger, I turn to a Jewish tradition which centralises everyday life. I read Martin Buber’s dialogical thought, and his later Zionism, as a demand to think about the banal interactions which colour our domestic existence. The meaning of home is not found by abstraction to the scale of the national and the terrestrial, but in daily life. I interpret this as a simultaneous riposte to the notion of Homeland and an opening to ecological thought, inasmuch as this attention to the banal can entail an orientation to the materiality of existence itself.

In a similar way, I interpret Emmanuel Levinas’ early work as a call to thinking about the everyday life of the home itself: what do we do, most of the time, at home? Eating and sleeping. Being at home, for Levinas, is an essentially mundane, domestic activity. The final part of the dissertation engages with Jacques Derrida’s thinking on hospitality, where home is a place for hosting others.

I conclude my research with a reflection Jewish Thought today, and the challenges and opportunities for thinking about home which remain as present and important as ever.

Evelien Van Beeck

• Doctoral defence: 24 April 2026 at 2 p.m.
• Stadscampus, Grauwzusters, Promotiezaal
• Supervisors: Herbert De Vriese (¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ) and Paul Cortois (KU Leuven)
• ​Register by email before 1 April​

Abstract

Weber’s analysis of disenchantment in modern society, as an apparently unavoidable consequence of the increasing dominance of rationality in modern times, forms the theoretical framework of this thesis. The specific research theme is the loss of meaning that accompanies and characterises disenchantment. Unlike the sociological and cultural-historical analyses of Weber and many of those who followed in his footsteps, the main ambition of this thesis is to adopt the individual perspective and to explore more deeply the consequences of disenchantment and loss of meaning for the modern individual. Attention is also given to fruitful strategies for restoring this loss.

Against the backdrop of the dual premise that personal life in modern times is threatened by a loss of meaning, and that the search for meaning is nothing less than an existential need, this thesis examines the importance of enchantment for the creation of new meaning. The research hypothesis is that disenchantment not only threatens the experience of meaning, but that it also allows for new experiences of enchantment for the modern individual in a more balanced and well-considered form.

For the theoretical development, two crucial sub-analyses are conducted and aligned with one another. The first one examines the relationship between enchantment and the dynamic of ‘dispossession’, as a dynamic constitutive of the human condition. The second one investigates the place of enchantment within the life story and narrative identity of the modern individual, with particular attention to the anchoring in reality that arises with experiences of enchantment.

The principal outcome of this research is that enchantment remains a necessary element of the human quest for meaning in modern times, and assumes a new, significant role in the integration of enchanting experiences into narrative identity.