Video & Audio
Lectures, interviews, panel discussions, and recorded appearances.
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Research Hacks #4: One important question to increase the focus of your academic research
Strange as it may sound, it is easy to drift along in academia without focus. You would think that, with the long hours and hard work involved in research and publishing, every academic would know exactly where they are going and the best way to get there. Not so. There are so many pressures on
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Research Hacks #3: Help! I can’t settle on a research project
It might sound stupid: You know you want to embark on a research project, you might even know you want to pursue a career in academia, but you just can’t settle on an Honours/Masters/PhD project. In addition to asking the three key questions in research hack #2, I want to help you by providing a cheat
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Research Hacks #2: Three important questions to ask before you choose a new research project
In this second post on building your effectiveness as a researcher I want to share three key questions that can help you choose and refine a research project: What research do you enjoy? What research do you think is important? What research conversation do you want to join? Let’s take them one by one.
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Research Hacks #1: Research Audit
In this new series of posts I want to help you become better researcher and a better student by sharing with you some of the strategies and research hacks I have picked up over my years of conducting academic research and teaching graduates and undergraduates. In my own time as a student, PhD candidate, Junior
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Can you help me subtitle my book on Derrida? Describe him in five words or fewer
I have a little book on Derrida coming out later this year, aimed at an advanced undergraduate and postgraduate readership and accessible to non-philosophers. Its aim is to explain Derrida’s thought as clearly and faithfully as possible using diagrams and examples, and then to bring him into conversation with the prologue of John’s gospel in the
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A quick note to my subscribers
Hi! I’ll make this as quick as I can; I know you’re busy… First of all, thanks for following my updates! I hope you find the topics interesting and I’m always open to feedback. Over the past week I’ve migrated christopherwatkin.com from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. I’m excited about the possibilities this opens up for
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Marcel Gauchet in discussion in Melbourne: The Crisis of Democratic Politics
Here is news of an exceptional event in Melbourne, with Marcel Gauchet on democracy, crisis, and–no doubt–Trump: 27 th January 2017, Time: 6.30 pm. RMIT University, City Campus School of Business and Law lecture theatre Building 13 Level 3 Room 9 Address: 379-405 Russell St, Melbourne. Map Event blurb: This event is part of the French Festival
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The Return of Religion, Kettle Logic, and the Secular Dilemma
At this year’s Australasian Society of Continental Philosophy conference I had the pleasure of responding to Gregg Lambert’s new book Return Statements: The Return of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy. I chose to focus on the very idea of the “return of religion”, its multiple senses, and their potential conflicts. The paper is downloadable from academia.edu and
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Just received: Malabou’s Before Tomorrow to review for NDPR
Pleasant surprise waiting for me at work this morning: Catherine Malabou’s Before Tomorrow to review for @NDPReviews. I worked with the French for the two chapters on Malabou in French Philosophy Today, and I’m looking forward to the translation.
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Stob lecture 2025 Video. The Human Remains: Fragility and Fulfilment in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Here is a video of my 2025 Stob lecture, exploring the philosophical and theological implications of AI. My title was “The Human Remains: Fragility and Fulfilment in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”. I set out to argue that this is a very exciting time to be a philosopher or theologian, because AI is forcing on…
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Armitage Lecture 2025: “Custodians of the Common Good: Christian Education in a Post-Christian World”
In June I had the honour of delivering the annual Isaac Armitage Lecture at the Shore School, Sydney. My title was “Custodians of the Common Good: Christian Education in a Post-Christian World”. The video is now available: More information about the lecture can be found here.
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The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity: Introduction
An introduction to the book The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity: Tracing the Roots of Colonialism, Secularity, and Ecology, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in 2025. In this video, the first in a new series and rather longer than the others, I read the book’s Introduction, entitled “The State…
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Video: Panel on Biblical Critical Theory at ETS Conference
This panel, held to explore themes raised in Christopher Watkin’s book Biblical Critical Theory, was held at the 2023 conference of the Society for Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion, in San Antonio, Texas. The session was the Kirby Laing Centre’s Scripture and University Seminar. Welcome: Dr. Jonathan Arnold, (Cedarville University) Panelists: Dr.…
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Video: Panel on Biblical Critical Theory at ETS Conference
This panel, held to explore themes raised in my book Biblical Critical Theory, was held at the 2023 conference of the Evangelical Theological Society in San Antonio, Texas. Moderator: Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt (Wheaton College) Panelists: Dr. Kristen Deede Johnson (Western Theological Seminary) Dr. Malcolm Foley (Baylor University) Dr. Greg Forster (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)…
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AUDIO TALK: Michel Serres and the Parasitic Unmaking of Modernity
This is the audio of a talk I gave at the International Philosophical Seminar (IPS) in June 2022. It begins by showing how Michel Serres rethinks the foundational modern moment of the state of nature, and it then sketches a way of understanding modernity in terms of three recurring moments: a flattening, a division and…
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Podcast: “Renewing our Mental Models With Michel Serres”
In June 2022 I had the privilege of giving a keynote address for the NaturArchy: Towards a Natural Contract conference at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, with the title “Renewing our Mental Models with Michel Serres”. The talk is now available as a podcast below. Abstract: As our understanding of the world changes over…
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VIDEO: Towards a General Theory of Figures
This is a video of a paper I gave to the The Research Unit of Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technics, part of the Institute for Architectural Sciences in the Department for Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technics ATTP at Vienna University of Technology, at the invitation of Prof. Vera Bühlmann. In the talk I bring…
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Video: Our fractured state of nature: environment, emancipation, ecnonomy
This is a recording of a paper given at the Australasian Society of Continental Philosophy Conference, December 2021. Paper title “Artificial state of nature: how an aporia of myth shapes our experience of emancipation and the market” Abstract This paper argues that there are two contradictory modern Western understandings of nature, vividly captured in the…
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Video: Where is Rousseau’s state of nature?
This is a recording of a paper I gave at the 2021 Australian Society of French Studies Conference. Paper title: Siting Rousseau’s state of Nature Abstract: Rousseau’s account of the social contract relies, both logically and rhetorically, on his reconstruction of the so-called “state of nature”, a supposed pre-contractual condition of human life. There is…
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SPEP 2020 video and paper: Remembering and Thinking with Michel Serres
This September I had the privilege of taking part in a panel at SPEP 2020 (postponed until 2021) alongside Marjolein Oele and Brian Treanor. “Remembering and Thinking with Michel Serres” ranged over issues related to Serres’s contemporaneity, his natural contract idea, and the distinctiveness of his thought. Here is a recording of Brian’s paper and…
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Video: Advice on securing a large academic grant
I have been asked a few times in recent months what advice I would give to colleagues applying for competitive grants and fellowships, such as the Australian Research Council Discovery Project or Future Fellowship schemes. While my expertise is limited to my own experience and my one-time success in the Future Fellowship scheme, I’m more…
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TALK Rewriting the Social Contract – the Role of Christian Social Institutions
This guest lecture was delivered at Parliament House, Canberra, on 22 February 2021, at the invitation of the Church Community Restoration Project, an alliance of Christian community organisations committed to partnering government, individuals and communities as they face the challenges of a COVID-19 recovery in Australia. The lecture draws on research from the Australian Research…
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YouTube videos of ‘Ends of Autonomy’ colloquium papers: surveillance, neoliberalism, climate
This week my Warwick colleague Prof Oliver Davis and I co-hosted the second ‘Ends of Autonomy’ colloquium, eqploring how freedom is changing today in the light of new technologies, climate change and neoliberalism. Where presenters gave their consent, sessions were recorded and uploaded to the Ends of Autonomy Colloquia YouTube channel. Below are the videos…