Costica Bradatan is a Professor of Humanities in the Honors College at Texas Tech University, USA, and an Honorary Research Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of Queensland, Australia. He has also held faculty appointments at Cornell University, Miami University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Notre Dame and Arizona State University, as well as at several universities in Europe and Asia.
Bradatan is the author and editor of ten books, most recently Dying for Ideas. The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers (Bloomsbury, 2015). His work has been translated into a number of languages, including Dutch, Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Farsi.
He has also written book reviews, essays, and op-ed pieces for such publications as the New York Times, Washington Post, Times Literary Supplement, Aeon, Dissent, The New Statesman, Boston Review, Christian Science Monitor, The Globe & Mail, and other similar venues. Bradatan serves as the Religion/Comparative Studies Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
“My project (a book eventually) advances the argument that, because of our culture’s obsession with success, we miss something important about what it means to be human, and deny ourselves access to a deeper, more meaningful layer of our humanity. A sense of what we are in the grand scheme of things, an openness towards the unknown and the mysterious, humility and reverence towards that which transcends and overwhelms us – these are some of the rewards that, as I will show, a proper grasp of failure could bring about. I will engage significantly with EM Cioran’s philosophy, but also touch on Michel de Montaigne and Blaise Pascal. A chapter will also be dedicated to Simone Weil’s life & work.”
