「思惟」の目的は「真理の究明」にあり. 西田幾多郎
Thorsten Botz-Bornstein is a philosopher working on continental philosophy, aesthetics, intercultural philosophy, and comparative philosophy. He holds a Maîtrise from the Sorbonne, a Ph.D. from Oxford University (1993) and a habilitation from the EHESS in Paris (2000). He is Professor of Philosophy at the Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) in Kuwait, the director of the Global Studies Center (GSC), and the editor of the GSC Newsletter. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Brill book series “Film and Philosophy” and of the Online Dictionary of Intercultural Philosophy (ODIP). BOTZWANA is the official website of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein.
SUNY Press 2023 ("Translating China" Series)
— Robin R. Wang, author of Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture

THE "ALTERLIBERALISM" TRILOGY:
Foreword by Olivier Roy. Bloomsbury July 2019, xiii + 234 pp.
"This bold and laudably readable defense of the humanities links both the market worship of the neoliberal right and the empty relativism of the left to the abandonment of culture in kitsch. Even more, it offers clever and detailed analyses of a full range of contemporary sensibilities.” Gary Cross, author of The Cute and the Cool
“The book is both an ardent and well–argued defense for the leading role of the humanities in contemporary world and academia—the only reliable way to reculturation.” Mikhail Epstein
"Botz-Bornstein shows that everything is kitsch, from art to ethics or knowledge because everything is the hazardous recomposition of signifiers that refer only to themselves and to the gaze of the spectator who looks for what he has already found: a narcissistic evidence. " Olivier Roy
Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, xv + 201 pp.
“Joyfully tearing down the compartment walls that conventionally separate fascist studies from research into jihadism and gleefully crossing the boundaries between aesthetics and politics, Thorsten Botz-Bornstein challenges—or, rather, provokes—the reader to reconfigure the space that fascist and terrorist destructiveness occupy in the contemporary media, party-political, and historical imaginations." Roger Griffin, Oxford Brookes University
Brill 2020 (VIBS 353), 201 pp.
What role can philosophy play in a world dominated by neoliberalism and globalization? Must it join universalist ideologies as it did in past centuries? Or might it turn to ethnophilosophy and postmodern fragmentation? Micro and Macro Philosophy argues that universalist cosmopolitanism and egocentric culturalism are not the only alternatives. Western philosophy has created a false dichotomy. A better solution can be found in an organic philosophy that functions through micro–macro interactions. According to biologists, the twentieth century was the century of the gene, while the twenty-first century is destined to be the century of the organic. Micro and Macro Philosophy attempts to establish such a view in philosophy:
Film, Architecture, and the work of Béla Tarr
Berghahn, 2017, 221 pp.
“A magisterial, transdisciplinary contribution and brilliant comparative analysis of a major contemporary filmmaker” Catherine Portuges, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
"... has the potential to create a new platform." Studies in Eastern European Cinema
"An impressive multidisciplinary examination of the concept of organicism ." Invisible Culture
"Organic Cinema is blowing new life in the philosophical considerations of contemplation and nature that were once thought to be outdated." Aesthetic Investigations
"A non-standard piece on film with a new suggestions and new readings" The Art(s) of Slow Cinema
Transcultural Architecture:
The Limits and Opportunities of Critical Regionalism
Ashgate/Routledge 2015, xviii, 202 pp.
More about the book
Read review in Fusion Journal
Films and Dreams
Tarkovsky, Bergman, Sokurov, Kubrik and Wong Kar-Wai
Lexington 2007, xi + 169 pp.
"Films and Dreams contains a great deal of vital argument which ... should provide a great deal of impetus for much needed discussion" Screening the Past
"Botz-Bornstein's cosmopolitanism is not just a matter of research agenda and academic affiliations, but it is what might be called a 'philosophical cosmopolitanism'... Parallax Read review
"A candidate for being your bedside book" Kultur Mafia Video in Spanish
More about the book Download Chapter 1
Veils, Nudity, and Tattoos:
The New Feminine Aesthetics
Lexington 2015, xxi + 188
More about the book
"A unique and seminal work of extraordinary scholarship. ... Very highly recommended for both community and academic library Feminist Studies and Islamic Culture collections." Midwest Book Review
"...an entertaining, informative, unusual, current and well-written book." The Journal of Gender Studies. Read Review
The Cool-Kawaii
Afro-Japanese Aesthetics and New World Modernity
Lexington 2011, xxii + 184 pp.
"How Afro-Japanese Aesthetics conquers the world..."
"By investigating the rich manifestations of two globalizing aesthetics—cuteness and coolness—Thorsten Botz-Bornstein offers a subtle interpretation that explores the nexus of consumerism, virtual reality, and ethics." — Brian J. McVeigh, University of Arizona.
Vasily Sesemann: Experience, Formalism
and the Question of Being
Author: Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Rodopi 2006, 144 pp.
"A competent and enlightening description of the complicated philosophical milieu which provided the background to Sesemann's philosophical endeavours. ... Botz-Bornstein's study disentangles the strands with both historical competence and sensitivity." Lithuanian Papers
Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Russia and Japan:
A Comparative Philosophical Study
Lexington 2009, 169 pp.
"An intellectual tour-de-force..." — Michael F. Marra, University of California-Los Angeles.
More about the book
"This erudite, expansive book undertakes a study of convergences between the aesthetic manifestations and political implications of Russian and Japanese philosophies of space." Slavic and East European Journal Read review
Place and Dream:
Japan and the Virtual
Rodopi 2004
E-book from Fachinformationsdienst (FID) and Specialised Information Service (SIS)
II. Edited Volumes:
Parasite: A Philosophical Exploration
(On the film Parasite by Bong Joon-Ho)
Brill 2022
Coedited with Giannis Stamatellos
Go to the Brill "Philosophy of Film" Series
봉준호
기생충