Susan Neiman

About Susan Neiman

Susan Neiman is a moral philosopher, a cultural commentator and essayist, with an interest in exploring the persistence and juncture of Enlightenment thought and moral philosophy, metaphysics, politics and reinterpreting past thinkers for contemporary contexts. She received global recognition for her book ‘Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy’ where she tells the history of modern philosophy as an attempt to come to terms with evil. She reintroduces philosophy to anyone who is interested in questions of life and death, good and evil, suffering and sense. She studied philosophy at Harvard University and earned her Ph.D. also at Harvard University under the direction of John Rawls and Stanley Cavell.

Dr. Susan Neiman is currently the Director of the Einstein Forum, an institute that develops work on and between the borders of different fields of ethics and society, the past and the present, understanding nature and art and knowledge. Before becoming active at the Einstein Forum she taught at the Yale University and the Tel Aviv University.

Besides her activities at the Einstein Forum she is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a member of Eurozine an European Network of Cultural Journals, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Albert-Einstein-Institut and a member on the Board of Advisors at the Center for Public Theology at the University of Western Ontario.

Dr. Susan Neimen published many articles, conference papers and books. In 1992 she published ‘Slow Fire: Jewish Notes Berlin’ (Schocken Books), in 1994 ‘The Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant’ (Oxford University Press), in 2002 ‘Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy’ (Princeton University Press), in 2005 ‘Fremde sehen anders. Zur lage der Bundesrepublik’ (Suhrkamp) and in 2008 ‘Moral Clarity: A guide for Grownup Idealists’ (Harcourt).

Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Globe and Mail, and Dissent. In Germany, she has written for Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Freitag, among other publications.