Associate Professor Dalia Nassar
People_

Associate Professor Dalia Nassar

PhD Boston College
Associate Professor
Philosophy
Phone
+61 2 9351 4588
Fax
+61 2 9351 3918
Associate Professor Dalia Nassar
Dalia Nassar is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. Her work sits at the intersection of the history of German philosophy and environmental philosophy and ethics. Her most recent monograph, Romantic Empiricism: Nature, Art, and Ecology from Herder to Humboldt (Oxford University Press, 2022) investigates the understudied tradition of romantic empiricism, highlights its significance for the development of ecology, and argues for its contemporary relevance in addressing environmental questions and concerns. By showing how the romantic empiricists deepened their understanding of nature through artistic skills and tools, Nassar also demonstrates the significance of art for knowledge, and highlights the ways in which epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics are fundamentally interdependent.
Nassar has a strong interest in the contributions of women philosophers, and in the ways in which philosophical canon formation has sidelined them. She has co-edited, with Kristin Gjesdal, two volumes on women philosophers, including an anthology of primary works titled Women Philosophers in the Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition. Nassar is a co-investigator on the SSHRC (Canada) grant, Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy.
  • Kant and German idealism
  • The idea of nature and natural philosophy
  • Environmental philosophy and ethics
  • Aesthetics
  • Theories of Interpretation
  • Kant and science (especially life science)
  • Kant’s epistemology and metaphysics
  • German idealism and romanticism
  • Aesthetics
  • Natural Philosophy 1780-1850
  • Environmental Philosophy and Ethics
  • American Philosophical Association
  • Goethe Society of North America
  • International Association of Environmental Philosophy

2011 . Best Essay Published in 2010 Prize, Goethe Society of North America

Project titleResearch student
Schelling’s Intellectual Intuition: A Historical StudyDarcy FORSTER
Unifying self and Earth: Karoline von Günderrode's 'Idea of the Earth'Jacinta SHRIMPTON

Publications

Books

  • Nassar, D. (2022). Romantic Empiricism: Nature, Art, and Ecology from Herder to Humboldt. New York: Oxford University Press. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2014). The Romantic Absolute: Being and Knowing in Early German Romantic Philosophy 1795-1805. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [More Information]

Edited Books

  • Gjesdal, K., Nassar, D. (2024). The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press. [More Information]
  • Gjesdal, K., Nassar, D. (2022). Kvinner i Filosofien: Romantikk, Revolusjon, sosialt Fellesskap (Norwegian translation of Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century). Oslo: Cappelendamm.
  • Nassar, D., Gjesdal, K. (2021). Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition. UK: Oxford University Press. [More Information]

Book Chapters

  • Nassar, D. (2024). Plants, Animals, and the Earth. In Kristin Gjesdal, Dalia Nassar (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition, (pp. 683-704). New York: Oxford University Press. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2024). Romanticism and Empiricism: Or Romantic Empiricism. In Charles Wolfe, Anik Waldow (Eds.), Science and the Shaping of Modernity: Essays in Honor of Stephen Gaukroger, (pp. 179-186). Switzerland: Springer.
  • Nassar, D. (2023). Herder, Kant, und der Streit um die Analogie. In Alina Noveanu, Dietmar Koch and Niels Weidtmann (Eds.), Analogie: Zur Aktualitat eines philosophischen Schlusselbegriffs, (pp. 165-186). Baden Baden: Verlag Karl Alber. [More Information]

Journals

  • Nassar, D., Barbour, M. (2023). Tree Stories: The Embodied History of Trees and Environmental Ethics. Cultural Politics, 19(1), 128-147. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2022). Knowing well: Goethe, Bildung, and the ethics of scientific knowledge. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 30(4), 646-665. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2022). The Human Vocation and the Question of the Earth: Karoline von Gunderrode's Philosophy of Nature. Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie, 104(1), 108-130. [More Information]

Edited Journals

  • Gaukroger, S., Nassar, D. (2016). Special Section on Kant and the Empirical Sciences. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 58.
  • Nassar, D., Fischer, L. (2015). Special Section on Goethe and Environmentalism. Goethe Yearbook, 22.

Magazine / Newspaper Articles

  • Nassar, D., Barbour, M. (2019). What can an embodied history of trees teach us about life? Aeon.
  • Nassar, D. (2014). On the romantic absolute. 3:AM Magazine. [More Information]

Reference Works

  • Nassar, D. (2023). Alexander von Humboldt. In Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (Eds.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford: Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University.

Other

  • Nassar, D. (2019), Existentialism and crisis, The Philosopher's Zone, Radio National. Radio Interview. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2015), "Early German Romanticism, Schelling, The Absolute": Reply to Richard Fincham and Reed Winegar. [More Information]

2024

  • Nassar, D. (2024). Plants, Animals, and the Earth. In Kristin Gjesdal, Dalia Nassar (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition, (pp. 683-704). New York: Oxford University Press. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2024). Romanticism and Empiricism: Or Romantic Empiricism. In Charles Wolfe, Anik Waldow (Eds.), Science and the Shaping of Modernity: Essays in Honor of Stephen Gaukroger, (pp. 179-186). Switzerland: Springer.
  • Gjesdal, K., Nassar, D. (2024). The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press. [More Information]

2023

  • Nassar, D. (2023). Alexander von Humboldt. In Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (Eds.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford: Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University.
  • Nassar, D. (2023). Herder, Kant, und der Streit um die Analogie. In Alina Noveanu, Dietmar Koch and Niels Weidtmann (Eds.), Analogie: Zur Aktualitat eines philosophischen Schlusselbegriffs, (pp. 165-186). Baden Baden: Verlag Karl Alber. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2023). Staging History: Bettina Brentano von Arnim's Gunderode and the Ideal of Symphilosophy. In Susanne Lettow and Tuija Pulkkinen (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Feminist Philosophy, (pp. 373-388). Cham: Springer/Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]

2022

  • Nassar, D. (2022). Knowing well: Goethe, Bildung, and the ethics of scientific knowledge. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 30(4), 646-665. [More Information]
  • Gjesdal, K., Nassar, D. (2022). Kvinner i Filosofien: Romantikk, Revolusjon, sosialt Fellesskap (Norwegian translation of Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century). Oslo: Cappelendamm.
  • Nassar, D. (2022). Romantic Empiricism: Nature, Art, and Ecology from Herder to Humboldt. New York: Oxford University Press. [More Information]

2021

  • Nassar, D. (2021). Kant, Schelling and the Organization of Matter. In Gerad Gentry (Eds.), Kantian Legacies in German Idealism, (pp. 211-235). New York: Routledge. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D., Gjesdal, K. (2021). Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition. UK: Oxford University Press. [More Information]

2020

  • Nassar, D. (2020). An 'Ethics for the Transition': Schelling's Critique of Negative Philosophy and its Significance for Environmental Thought. In G. Anthony Bruno (Eds.), Schelling's Philosophy: Freedom, Nature, and Systematicity, (pp. 231-248). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [More Information]
  • Celermajer, D., Nassar, D. (2020). COVID and the Era of Emergencies: What Type of Freedom is at Stake? Democratic Theory, 7(2), 12-24. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2020). Rational Empiricism? Friedrich Schiller to Johann Wolfgang Goethe. In Ada Bronowski (Eds.), 'Dear Friend, You Must Change Your Life': The Letters of Great Thinkers, (pp. 81-89). London: Bloomsbury Academic.

2019

  • Nassar, D. (2019), Existentialism and crisis, The Philosopher's Zone, Radio National. Radio Interview. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2019). Hermeneutics and Nature. In Michael N. Forster, Kristin Gjesdal (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Hermeneutics, (pp. 37-64). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D., Barbour, M. (2019). What can an embodied history of trees teach us about life? Aeon.

2018

  • Nassar, D. (2018). Metaphoric Plants: Goethe's Metamorphosis of Plants and the Metaphors of Reason. In Prudence Gibson, Baylee Brits (Eds.), Covert Plants: Vegetal Consciousness and Agency in an Anthropocentric World, (pp. 101-122). Santa Barbara: Punctum Books. [More Information]

2017

  • Nassar, D. (2017). The Critical Function of the Epigenesis of Reason and Its Relation to Post-Kantian Intellectual Intuition. Philosophy Today, 61(3), 801-809. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2017). Understanding as Explanation: The Significance of Herder's and Goethe's Science of Describing. In Anik Waldow and Nigel DeSouza (Eds.), Herder: Philosophy and Anthropology, (pp. 106-124). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [More Information]

2016

  • Nassar, D. (2016). Analogical reflection as a source for the science of life: Kant and the possibility of the biological sciences. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 58, 57-66. [More Information]
  • Gaukroger, S., Nassar, D. (2016). Introduction: Kant and the Empirical Sciences. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 58, 55-56. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2016). Nature as Unconditioned? The Critical and Systematic Function of Schelling's Early Works. In Kristin Gjesdal (Eds.), Debates in Nineteenth-Century European Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses, (pp. 121-132). New York: Routledge. [More Information]

2015

  • Nassar, D. (2015), "Early German Romanticism, Schelling, The Absolute": Reply to Richard Fincham and Reed Winegar. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2015). Analogy, Natural History and the Philosophy of Nature: Kant, Herder and the Problem of Empirical Science. Journal of the Philosophy of History, 9(2), 240-257. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2015). Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829). In Michael N. Forster, Kristin Gjesdal (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, (pp. 68-87). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [More Information]

2014

  • Nassar, D. (2014). Introduction. In Dalia Nassar (Eds.), The Relevance of Romanticism: Essays on German Romantic Philosophy, (pp. 1-11). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2014). On the romantic absolute. 3:AM Magazine. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2014). Pure versus Empirical Forms of Thought: Schelling's Critique of Kant's Categories and the Beginnings of Naturphilosophie. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 52(1), 113-134. [More Information]

2013

  • Nassar, D. (2013). Intellectual Intuition and the Philosophy of Nature: An Examination of the Problem. In Johannes Haag, Markus Wild (Eds.), Ubergange - diskursiv oder intuitiv? Essays zur Eckart Forsters Die 25 Jahre der Philosophie, (pp. 235-258). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann.

2012

  • Nassar, D. (2012). Review of: "Inventions of the Imagination: Romanticism and Beyond", Richard T. Gray, Nicholas Halmi, Gary J. Handwerk, Michael A. Rosenthal, Klaus A. Vieweg (eds.), University of Washington Press, 2011. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2012). Spinoza in Schelling's early conception of intellectual intuition. In Eckart Forster, Yitzhak Y. Melamed (Eds.), Spinoza and German Idealism, (pp. 136-155). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

2011

  • Nassar, D. (2011). 'Idealism is Nothing but Genuine Empiricism': Novalis, Goethe and the Ideal of Romantic Science. Goethe Yearbook, 18(1), 67-95. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2011). Review of: "The Genealogy of the Romantic Symbol", Nicholas Halmi. Modern Philology, 109(2), E122-E126.
  • Nassar, D. (2011). Schelling und die Fruhromantik: Das Unendliche und das Endliche im Kunstwerk. In Mildred Galland- Szymkowiak (Eds.), Das Problem der Endlichkeit in der Philosophie Schellings: Le probleme de la finitude dans la philosophie de Schelling, (pp. 77-90). Germany: LIT Verlag.

2010

  • Nassar, D. (2010). From a Philosophy of Self to a Philosophy of Nature: Goethe and the Development of Schelling's Naturphilosophie. Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie, 92(3), 304-321. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2010). Interpreting Novalis' Fichte-Studien. Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fur Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 84(38), 315-341. [More Information]
  • Nassar, D. (2010). Review of: "German Romanticism and Science. The Procreative Poetics of Goethe, Novalis and Ritter", Jocelyn Holland, NY, Routledge, 2009. Goethe Yearbook, 17, 389-392. [More Information]

2006

  • Nassar, D. (2006). Immediacy and Mediacy in Schleiermacher’s Reden Uber Die Religion. Review of Metaphysics, 59(4), 807-841.
  • Nassar, D. (2006). Reality through Illusion: Presenting the Absolute in Novalis. Idealistic Studies, 36(1), 27-45. [More Information]

2004

  • Nassar, D. (2004). A Seat at the Table: How to elect women to Iraq's new government. Idealistic Studies, 34(2), 199-224. [More Information]

Selected Grants

2024

  • Women Philosophers on Nature & the Human: Toward a New Environmental Ethics, Nassar D, Australian Research Council (ARC)/Future Fellowships (FT)

2020

  • Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy, Nassar D, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada/Research Support

Faculty Grants

  • SSSHARC Program Activities, Ultimate Peer Review (2019)
  • Developing the field of Multispecies JusticeFaculty of Arts and Social Sciences/FASS Strategic Research Programme Project (2018)