Simon Kenny Alexander Pistor

02/2019 – 01/2025 PhD in International Affairs and Political Economy (DIA) University of St. Gallen
Dissertation: “Elements of Cosmopolitan Social Life. Cosmopolitanism, Social Practice, and Hegel"
Supervisors: Prof. Klaus Dingwerth (SEPS-HSG), Prof. Robin Celikates (Philosophy, FU Berlin)

02/2023 – 10/2023 Visiting PhD Research Fellow, Department of Political Science, McGill University, Montréal, Canada
Research Group on Constitutional Studies (RGCS) and Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire en Philosophie Politique (GRIPP). Academic Host: Prof. Arash Abizadeh PhD (Political Science, McGill)
Mobility Grant, Research Commission HSG

2016 – 2018 M.A. in Political Theory, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main und TU Darmstadt

08/2017 – 12/2017 Semester Abroad, Virginia Tech

2012 – 2016 B.A. in Political Science, Minor in Philosophy, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main

10/2018 – 10/2024 Graduate Teaching Assistant and Researcher (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter), Lehrstuhl für Politische Theorie (Klaus Dingwerth), Department for Political Science Universität St. Gallen (SEPS-HSG)

08/2017 – 12/2017 Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department for Political Science, Virginia Tech

“Experiencing the World. Georg Forster’s Natural, Political, and Revolutionary Thought” (Great Minds Postdoctoral Fellowship)

This research project recovers Georg Forster’s natural, political, and revolutionary thought. The unifying theme of Georg Forster (1754-1794) can be conceptualized as “experiencing the world”. Contrary to many of his rationalistic contemporaries, Forster sees science and politics as activities based on experience. His own experience during the second circumnavigation of the by Captain Cook lastingly influences Forster’ thought. The ways in which nature and human sociality are experienced, influences normative and political views. This research project reconstructs Forster’s experiences of travel and investigates his “surplus” of experience which eventually leads him to support the ideal of the French Revolution in the Republic of Mainz (1792-1793). Thus, this project combines approaches from political theory, intellectual history, and the history of international political thought.