Lars Tønder

Lars Tønder is a political theorist and an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on democratic theory and civil society in the context of the Anthropocene and climate change. In broader terms, Tønder has studied the modern and contemporary philosophical tradition from the ‘sensory turn’, highlighting emotion, perception and bodily experience in approaching issues such as tolerance, freedom of expression, and pluralism. Since 2021, he has been principal investigator on the projects “Vital Politics” and “Democratic Innovations in a Green Transition”, where he explores normative thinking in the Anthropocene and the role of civil climate assemblies as agents of mobilization and social change. Along similar lines, in the book Om magt i den antropocæne tidsalder [On Power in the Age of the Anthropocene] (Djøf Forlag, 2020), Tønder questions the human vision of power in relation to nature, climate, and sustainability. He is also the author of Tolerance: A Sensorial Orientation to Politics (Oxford University Press, 2013), in which he delves into the relationship between policies of tolerance and torture, freedom of expression and multiculturalism in dialogue with Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche and Spinoza. He co-edited Radical Democracy: Politics between Abundance and Lack (with Lasse Thomassen, Manchester University Press, 2014), with contributions from thinkers such as Chantal Mouffe, Simon Critchley or Ernesto Laclau. He is also a member of the editorial board for the academic journals focusing on social theory, politics, and religion Theory & Event, Distinktion and Politics and Religion. Throughout his career he has also researched satire, the power of laughter, and comedy in politics.