Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir

Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir (born 1958 in Iceland) is professor of philosophy at the University of Iceland. In 1997 she was the first woman to become a member of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Iceland. Prior to that she lectured in philosophy at Rostock University. She was Jane and Aatos Erkko professor at Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies 2014-2015, University of Helsinki.

Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir graduated from Boston University in 1981. She pursued graduate studies in Boston and at Freie Universität Berlin where she finished her master's degree in 1988. In 1993 she completed her doctoral studies at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin.

Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir specializes in the philosophy of Nietzsche, feminist philosophy and philosophy of nature and embodiment. She has interpreted Nietzsche´s philosophy of the body and sexual difference in terms of its influence on feminist and women thinkers of the 20th century, from Arendt and Beauvoir to Irigaray and Butler. She has published works on feminist philosophy, the philosophy of Arendt and Beuvoir, and recently introductory texts to women in the history of philosophy. In her writings on philosophy of embodiment and nature, the notions of relationality and connectedness are central. This also influences her recent work on economy and morals, such as in studies on the debt-economy.

Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir is one of the founders of the United Nations University GEST—Gender Equality Studies and Training Programme, a joint project of the United Nations University, University of Iceland and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She serves on the Academic Advisory Board of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. She is on the board of FISP, the world organisation of philosophical societies that organizes the World Congress of Philosophy, and chair of its committee for gender issues. The Department of Philosophy at the University of Iceland hosts the Erasmus Summer Schools in Gender and Philosophy that Thorgeirsdottir runs with colleagues from the universities of Jyväskylä in Finland, Oslo in Norway and Aalborg in Denmark.

Books

• Dagbók 2016 - Árið með heimspekingum" (A Calendar of Women Philosophers), University of Iceland Press, 2015 (co-authored with Erla Karlsdóttir, Eyja M. Brynjarsdóttir and Nanna Hlín Halldórsdóttir).
• Dagbók 2014 - Árið með heimspekingum" (A Calendar of Women Philosophers), University of Iceland Press, 2013.
• Hannah Arendt. Af ást til heimsins", (collection of writings by Arendt edited and with an introduction by S. Thorgeirsdottir), Reykjavik: University of Iceland Press, 2011.
• Birth, Death, and Femininity: Philosophies of Embodiment (with R.M. Schott (ed.), V. Songe-Möller, S. Heinämaa), Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.
• Kvenna megin [collection of essays in feminist philosophy], Reykjavík: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag, 2001.
• Vis creativa. Kunst und Wahrheit in der Philosophie Friedrich Nietzsches, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1996.

Co-editor of books

• The Body Unbound: Philosophical Perspectives on Religion, Embodiment, and Politics (with M. T. Mjaaland, O. Sigurdson (eds.)), Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press (forthcoming).
• Simone de Beauvoir. Heimspekingur, rithöfundur, femínisti (with I. Erlingsdóttir (eds.)) [Collection of essays on the work of S. de Beauvoir], Reykjavik: University of Iceland Press, 1999.
• Fjölskyldan og réttlætið (with M. D. Baldursson and J. Á. Kalmansson (eds.)) [Collection of essays on The Family and Justice], Reykjavik: University of Iceland Press, 1997.