Prof. Petra Gehring
Petra Gehring is teaching philosophy at Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. Her research fields are poststructuralist philosophy, the history of philosophical concepts/metaphors, and theories of power. Furthermore she is interested in techno-scientific topologies. She is working on the biotechnological alteration of the concepts of «life» and «death», on problems of biopolitics, on the idea of reality, and on computer simulation as a technological and as a ‘rhetorical’ phenomenon.
Petra Gehring published a.o. «Was ist Biomacht? Vom zweifelhaften Mehrwert des Lebens» 2006 (Campus); «Traum und Wirklichkeit. Zur Geschichte einer Unterscheidung» 2008 (Campus), «Theorien des Todes» 2013 (Junius), and numerous Essays. A list of publications is to be found here.
RESEARCH PROJECT
IT politics and gouvernementality of simulation
During the time at MECS the Petra Gehring will work on methodological Problems of an ‘accompanying’ research for computer simulation, and she will ask for possible theoretical approaches to the politics – i.e. «governance» ‒ of computer simulation.