Presentation

Jon Wittrock is Doctor of Political and Social Sciences and Associate Professor (Docent) in political science. He completed his PhD at the European University Institute and has been active as a researcher and teacher at several universities, in Sweden and abroad. Wittrock's research has focused on three major (and overlapping) themes: 1) the contemporary relevance of critiques of nihilism, 2) the ambiguous empirical and conceptual borderlands between the religious and the secular, and 3) a multidimensional interpretation of autonomy and its implications for debates concerning justice and human rights.

Selected publications

2025 "A Human right to assisted dying? Autonomy, dignity, and exceptions to the right to life" Nursing Ethics April 8 2025.

2023 "A Human right to pleasure? Sexuality, autonomy and egalitarian strategies" Journal of Medical Ethics June 5 2023, 1-5.

2022 "Liberalism, nationalism and religion: Multidimensional autonomy, trade-offs and analogies" Nations and Nationalism 28:3, 1117-1130.

2022 "A human right to friendship? Dignity, autonomy, and social deprivation" The International Journal of Human Rights 26:9, 1590-1607.

2020 "All that is Holy: The Role of Religion in Postcapitalist Communities" Rethinking Marxism 32:4, 549-569.

2018 Contemporary Democracy and the Sacred: Rights, Religion and Ideology. London: Bloomsbury.

2018 ”Which Way I Fly: Reforming Nihilism in the Anthropocene” in Richard Polt and Jon Wittrock (eds.) The Task of Philosophy in the Anthropocene. London/New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 153-174.

2017 ”The EU as a ‘Large Space’? Carl Schmitt and the Contemporary Dilemmas of Political Rituals and Cultural Borders” in Mats Andrén, Thomas Lindkvist, Ingmar Söhrman and Katharina Vajta (eds.) Cultural Borders of Europe: Narratives, Concepts and Practices in the Present and the Past. New York/Oxford: Berghahn, 170-183.

2016 "Sacred Nature and the Nature of the Sacred: Rethinking the Sacred in the Anthropocene" Telos 177, 107-126.

2015 ”Processes of order and the concreteness of the sacred: on the contemporary relevance of Carl Schmitt's critique of nihilism” in Matilda Arvidsson, Leila Brännström and Panu Minkkinen (eds.) The Contemporary Relevance of Carl Schmitt: Law, Politics, Theology. New York: Routledge, 195-207.

2015 ”Heidegger within the Boundaries of Mere Reason? ‘Nihilism’ as a Contemporary Critical Narrative” in Sven Eliaeson, Lyudmila Harutyunyan and Larissa Titarenko (eds.) After the Soviet Empire: Legacies and Pathways. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 87-107.

2014 "The Social Logic of Late Nihilism: Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt on Global Space and the Sites of Gods" European Review 22:2, 244-257.

2014 ”Nihilism and the Resurrection of Political Space: Hannah Arendt's Utopia?” in Elena Namli, Jayne Svenungsson and Alana Vincent (eds.) Jewish Thought, Utopia, and Revolution. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 161-171.