Sven-Olov Wallenstein

Biography

Sven-Olov Wallenstein is Professor of Philosophy at Södertörn University in Stockholm, Sweden. His interests are aesthetic theory, architecture and visual arts, critical theory, German Idealism, and modern philosophies of desire, power, and subjectivity.

Professor Wallenstein has published numerous books, including: “Aisthesis: Estetikens historia del 2,” 2 vol. (ed. with Cecilia Sjöholm, 2023), “Den sista bilden: Det moderna måleriets kriser och förvandlingar” (2022),“Benjamin Höijer: Metafysik, estetik, historia” (ed. with Anders Burman, 2021),“Critical Theory: Past, Present, Future” (ed. with Anders Bartonek, 2021),“Adorno: Negativ dialektik och estetisk teori“ (2019), “Spacing Philosophy: Lyotard and the Idea of the Exhibition” (2019, with Daniel Birnbaum), “Upplysningens estetik: Nedslag i 1700-talet” (2019), “Deleuze och litteraturen” (ed. with John Sahlberg, 2018), “Foucault och antiken” (ed. with Johan Sehlberg, 2017), “Glasarkitektur: Scheerbart, Taut, Benjamin” (2017), “Architecture, Critique, Ideology: Writing on Architecture and Theory” (2016), “Madness, Rligion, and the Limits of Reason” (ed. with Jonna Bornemark, 2015), “Heidegger, språket och poesin” (2013, ed. with Ola Nilsson), “Foucault, Biopolitics, and Governmentality” (2013, ed. with Jakob Nilsson), “Translating Hegel: The Phenomenology of Spirit and Modern Philosophy” (2012, ed. with Brian Manning Delaney), “Aisthesis: Estetikens historia del 1” (ed. with Sara Danius and Cecilia Sjöholm, 2012), “Edmund Husserl” (ed. 2011), “Nihilism, Art, Technology” (2011), “Swedish Modernism: Architecture, Consumption and the Welfare State” (2010, ed. with Helena Mattsson), “Svar på frågan: Vad var det postmoderna?” (ed. 2009), “Biopolitics and the Emergence of Modern Architecture (2009), “The Silences of Mies” (2009).

In his book “Architecture, Critique, Ideology: Writing on Architecture and Theory”, Professor Wallenstein explores “the possibility of reframing critical theory in a contemporary theoretical landscape that today seems more difficult to chart than ever. Thinking philosophy through architecture, and architecture through philosophy, it argues for a critique as an intervention that must continually redraw the line between concepts and things, words and objects” [3].

Professor Wallenstein has also translated works by Winckelmann, Lessing, Kant, Hegel, Frege, Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Adorno, Derrida., Agamben, Foucault, and Deleuze. His most recent publication is “Adornos musik” (2024). Forthcoming in 2024-2025: a translation of Hegel’s ”Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts” and a monograph on Robert Smithson.

Sven-Olov Wallenstein is the Editor-in-Chief of Site Zone magazine (https://www.sitezones.net/).