Centre for Advanced Study Sofia
Bulgaria
fellow
Isabel Jacobs
Discipline(s)
Philosophy
Theme(s)
Cultural Studies
Regional Studies
Stay dates
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Research Project
Forms of Life: Morphology in Twentieth-Century Central and East European Philosophy
This study explores the impact of Goethean morphology and plant thinking on Central and East European thought between 1917 and 1968. Using a comparative and interdisciplinary lens, it investigates how morphology, sidelined by Marxist-Leninist dogma, shaped discourses on expression, embodiment, organicism, and posthumanist ontologies, offering an alternative to both Western structuralism and Soviet dialectical materialism. It challenges established narratives, such as the canonisation of Russian formalism, by highlighting the contributions of Ukrainian and Czechoslovak theorists like Volodymyr Koryak, Jan Mukařovský, Vladimir Skalička, and Vilém Mathesius. Introducing ‘morphological materialism’ as a counterpoint to dialectical materialism, the study offers new readings of Soviet theorists such as Vladimir Vernadsky, Lev Vygotsky, and Evald Ilyenkov. It also reassesses the role of Czechoslovak phenomenology and philosophy of science, focusing on thinkers like Emanuel Rádl, Václav Příhoda, and Jan Patočka. By uncovering the dynamic interplay between morphology, philosophy, and politics, the study reveals a lost intellectual tradition that shaped conceptions of form, agency, and scientific knowledge in the region. Ultimately, it reasserts the relevance of morphology as a philosophical paradigm that can bridge the humanities, arts, and sciences, offering critical insights into contemporary debates on technology, ecology, and more-than-human entanglements.
Research Interests:
Isabel Jacobs is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, working on philosophy, visual culture, and the history of science in Central and Eastern Europe. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Queen Mary University of London and an MA in Russian and East European Literature and Culture from University College London. Her current research project traces the reception of Goethe’s morphology across the humanities and sciences during state socialism.
She is the editor of Kojève’s first book on physics, On the Problem of a Discrete World (Leipzig: Merve, 2023), and co-editor, with Trevor Wilson, of a special issue on Kojève and Russian philosophy (Studies in East European Thought, 2024). She co-edited Authority, History, and Political Theology (Bloomsbury, forthcoming) and a volume of essays on Evald Ilyenkov (Brill, forthcoming). She is also a film critic, regularly reporting from international festivals for e-flux and the East European Film Bulletin. Isabel organised multiple international conferences and was invited to deliver talks at universities in Europe, the United States, and China. Together with Katerina Pavlidi, she runs the Soviet Temporalities Study Group, supported by the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES).