Mr. Robert Leib

Professional Background

Mr. Robert Leib is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania. In addition to receiving an MA in philosophy from Villanova in 2013, he received a MA in philosophy from Kent State University in 2009 and a MA in liberal arts from St John’s College in Annapolis in 2007. A native English speaker, Mr. Leib also has language skills in German, French, and Ancient Greek. While in residence at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Mr. Leib conducted research on his project, “The War on Language: Nazi-Deutsch and its Legacy”.

Mr. Leib is the author of “Spaces of the Self: Foucault and Goffman on the Micro-Physics of Discipline,” forthcoming in Philosophy Today (2016). He has presented his research at a variety of conferences, including: “Myth, Primitive Sign, Poetry: From Cassirer to Heidegger” at the Heidegger Circle Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy satellite session, October 8, 2015;  “Magical Language, Political Myth, and the Practice of Interruption” at the Eötvös József Collegium, Budapest, Hungary, February 13-15, 2015; “Human and Animal Language in Hegel and Herder” at the Annual Meeting of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy in Eugene, Oregon, October 26-28, 2013. He has been awarded a Teaching Assistantship and several Travel Research Grants with Villanova University, as well as The Nona S. and Jerome V. Redmond Prize for distinguished study of Philosophy from Mount Saint Mary's University.

Fellowship Research

For his J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Fellowship at the Mandel Center, Mr. Leib examined the nature and legacy of the Nazi ‘war on language’ during the 1930s and 40s, focusing on the efficacy of political symbolism and language in 20th century German philosophy in terms of the relationship between myth, history, and memory during and after World War II.

Mr. Robert Leib was in residence at the Mandel Center from February 1 to April 30, 2016.