Sue Ruddick
Associate Professor
ruddick@ geog.utoronto.ca
Doctoral Students
I tend to attract students who work on a range of topics but share an interest in French continental philosophy and its implications for reconceptualizing geographical thought. My students work on everything from the sanctuary movement and its implications for Agambens ‘states of exception’ to the geographies of the circus and new ways of thinking mind/body, affect/reason and many challenging and politically engaging projects in between I am also on several doctoral committees outside the discipline (history, theater arts, communications and health/technology and place).
For the past several years I have been deeply immersed in the works of Spinoza, Deleuze and Foucault and would be interested in taking on more students working in this tradition.
Research Interests
The ‘other’ enlightenment. The differential uptake of various scholars from this period (esp Spinoza) in radical thought from the1970s on (Deleuze, Foucault, Macherey, Althusser) and its implications for thinking about space and power and the subject of politics.
Ideas of the Subjecthood and inter-subjectivity, dividuation. I read generally in this area (from Simondon to Hobbes to Spinoza) and have just finished a series of articles on the challenges ‘the child’ presents to western concepts of the subject.
Neo-liberalism and Liberalism. I particularly interested here in thinking about the critical and persistent role racialization and race based violence plays in these processes.
Background
I have always been fascinated with questions of space and power. In recent years I have turned to philosophical influences of the early Enlightenment and contemporary French continental philosophy to explore implications for geographic thought.
I am something of an interdisciplinary scholar -- initially trained in architecture (University of Waterloo), followed by an MA in geography (McGill) and a PhD in Planning (UCLA). I have practiced as a planner in Montreal and Los Angeles and worked for architectural firms in Toronto and Montreal as a draftsperson. I am fluent in French and speak passable German.
