The appointment of Martin Hägglund to a lifetime professorship at Yale University in 2012 marked a rare institutional milestone, as it occurred immediately following the completion of his doctoral degree. A philosopher and literary scholar, he focuses on the temporal conditions of human existence, specifically investigating how the constraints of finitude shape ethics, desire, and political commitment within a secular framework.
Academic Trajectory
Born in 1976 in Sollentuna, Sweden, Hägglund received his B.A. from Stockholm University in 2001. He pursued further graduate studies abroad, earning M.A. degrees from the University at Buffalo in 2005 and Cornell University in 2007, where he subsequently completed his PhD in 2011. Before his permanent tenure at Yale, he served as a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows from 2009 to 2012, becoming the first Swedish national to receive that distinction.
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Hägglund first gained significant scholarly attention with his 2008 work, Radical Atheism: Derrida and the Time of Life, which examined the deconstructive theories of Jacques Derrida. His 2012 book, Dying for Time: Proust, Woolf, Nabokov, extended his inquiry into temporal finitude by engaging with psychoanalytic concepts from Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan to develop the theory of chronolibido. His earlier writing includes the 2002 collection Kronofobi: Essäer om tid och ändlighet.
Political and Secular Critique
In his 2019 book, This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom, Hägglund critiqued the religious preoccupation with eternity, reinterpreting faith as a commitment to finite life. Drawing on the work of G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, and Martin Luther King Jr., he argued that capitalism alienates individuals from their limited time. He proposed democratic socialism as a necessary evolution to ensure individuals own their time and exercise shared freedom. In 2024, he received Jan Myrdal’s Lenin Award.
Fast facts
- Born: 23 November 1976, Sollentuna, Sweden
- Field: Philosophy and literary scholarship
- Current Position: Birgit Baldwin Professor of Humanities, Yale University
- Guggenheim Fellowship recipient: 2018
- René Wellek Prize winner: 2020
- Doctoral degree: Cornell University, 2011
- Languages: French, German, English, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian
- Spouse: Alisa Zhulina
Questions readers ask
What is the core argument of This Life?
It argues that our finite lifetime is the primary value, and that democratic socialism is required to move beyond capitalist alienation of that time.
What academic roles does he currently hold?
He is the Birgit Baldwin Professor of Humanities at Yale University and has headed the department of comparative literature there since 2015.
Achievements
- Held posts at Yale University
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