Anna Cornelia Ploug

Research

I work on what it means to do "concrete philosophy".

My main areas of interest are i) G.W.F. Hegel’s dialectical-speculative logic, ii) methodology and philosophy of science in the humanities and social sciences, and iii) feminist philosophy and political critique more broadly.

In my PhD project, I am concerned with the epistemological and political issue of problem articulation and the role played by ‘problems’ and ‘problematics’ in transdisciplinary knowledge production. More specifically, I draw on Hegel’s conception of the science of logic to explore how a dialectical notion of problem articulation may offer an apt model of critical methodology. By recourse to the early 20th century French Hegel-renaissance, I discuss the function and scope of concepts such as ‘concreteness’, ‘translation’ and ‘exemplarity’. As an example of the critical potential of this approach, I analyse Simone de Beauvoir’s development of the ‘woman problem’ in The Second Sex.

I did a MPhilStud in Modern European Philosophy at the CRMEP (Kingston University, London) and a BA in Philosophy from Université Paris-Sorbonne IV and the University of Copenhagen, as well as elementary training in classical languages (Greek and Latin).

Teaching

2023: Theory of Science in the Humanities (BA)

2022 teaching: participating in Theory of Science modules (BA and MA).

Spring 2021 teaching: 'History of Philosophy 1600-1900'

Autumn 2020 teaching: 'Dialectics', postgraduate course on conceptions of dialectics in Plato, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Adorno. Supervision of project groups in the Philosophy and Theory of Science programme.

Spring 2020: Supervision of project groups in the transdisciplinary humanities programme.

I have previously taught critical sociology, introductory courses in metaphysics and epistemology, theory of science and ethics for physicists, and held public lectures on feminist philosophy and critical theory.

I am a co-editor of the Danish journal Eftertryk Magasin.