Biography
Catherine Malabou (1959) is a French philosopher whose research lies at the intersection of continental philosophy, neuroscience, psychoanalysis and critical theory. She studied at Paris-Sorbonne University and the École normale supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud. She conducted her doctoral research under the supervision of Jacques Derrida and pursued her teaching career at French, British and American institutions.
Her thought centres on plasticity, understood as the capacity to receive and produce form, but also as the possibility of rupture and transformation. Beginning with a reading of Hegel, she extended this concept to the study of neuroplasticity, trauma and changes in identity. In works such as L’Avenir de Hegel (1996), Que faire de notre cerveau ? (2004) and Les Nouveaux Blessés (2007), she reconsidered the relationships between organism, subjectivity and event.
She has held academic positions at Kingston University and the University of California, Irvine. Her subsequent research has incorporated questions of epigenesis, intelligence, feminism and political transformation, exploring the philosophical consequences of advances in biology and cognitive science.
Published books