Boris Groys

(b.19 March 1947 in (East) Berlin) studied at the University of Leningrad. Emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany from the USSR in December 1981. He is now Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (“School for Design”), Karlsruhe, Germany. Since 1991 Member of the Association International des Critiques d’Art (AICA). Numerous publications. He has written and edited numerous books, including Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin (Munich, 1988) and Unter Verdacht. Eine Phänomenologie der Medien (Munich, 2000).

Articles

On freedom *

A discussion between Svetlana Boym and Boris Groys

Boym and Groys discuss philosophical concepts on freedom to assess how the term is used in its various dimensions – on the state level, in people’s private lives and relating to economic aspects.
Is there such a thing as societal freedom where the state governs and rules most aspects of people’s lives? Are humans, as Sartre proclaimed “doomed to be free”? Does freedom entail an escape from the economic determinism that rules Western civilisations or is it economic activity that sets us free in the first place? Svetlana Boym and Boris Groys discuss.

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