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Dr. Kyla Bruff

Interim Undergraduate Supervisor (July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026) German Idealism; Critical theory; 20th c. French Philosophy; Social and Political Philosophy; Existentialism; Romanticism

Associate Professor

Office Hours

By appointment only

Biography

I am a specialist of 19th and 20th century German and French social and political philosophy. My current research focuses on the different concepts of nature, society, and their intertwining in 19th and 20th century German Philosophy, and their implications for questions of personal responsibility in the context of the climate crisis. I argue that the climate crisis cannot be adequately understood either as a crisis of knowledge or as merely the failure of international corporations to limit profit-seeking activities that contribute to emissions. It is also a crisis of subjectivity. More directly, I am interested in why individuals do not decide to live differently and make more ecologically-oriented choices, even when armed with the knowledge and means to do so. I draw on the work of F.W.J. Schelling and the Frankfurt School critical theory tradition, especially Adorno, to make this argument.

I wrote my doctoral dissertation on F.W.J. Schelling’s political philosophy—the first standalone monograph on the topic in English. It is currently under contract with Edinburgh University Press. I have also published essays on Kant, Schiller, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze, and more.

In addition to my research, I am committed to innovative, practical approaches to carrying out philosophy in public. My work in applied and social philosophy is particularly exemplified through my activities as Co-Director of the ecological NPO For A New Earth (FANE). In this role, I have mobilized philosophy in the public sphere and contributed to policy debates in Newfoundland and Labrador, Sarapiquí, Costa Rica, and Sitke Hungary. I am particularly passionate about local, grass-roots action addressing climate change and related ecological issues. FANE has accordingly hosted numerous public events on the ecological effects of specific industries and both government and private megaprojects. My op-ed articles and radio interviews have also addressed themes in feminism and other current political and ecological matters.

I am an active translator from French and German into English. My published translations include the first appearance of Schelling’s Late Political Philosophy: Lectures 22-24 of the Presentation of the Purely Rational Philosophy in English.

My other roles in bringing Schelling’s work to contemporary audiences include serving as the Editor-in-Chief of Kabiri: The Official Journal of the North American Schelling Society, the Treasurer and Secretary of the North American Schelling Society, and Co-editor of the Palgrave Schelling Handbook(now available).

 

Research Interests

 

Selected Publications

The Palgrave Schelling Handbook, co-edited with Sean J. McGrath and Joseph Carew, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2026

Schelling and the Frankfurt School, co-edited with Tobias Heinze and Martin Saar, Special Issue for Angelaki, later to be published as an edited volume with Routledge, 2028.

“The Law and Its Limits: State, Morality, Religion, and Community in Schelling’s Late Philosophy,” Schellings Berliner Spätphilosophie und die »Empfindlichkeit des philosophischen Bewusstseins«, Thomas Buchheim, Nora Angleys, Fritz Engel, and Carlos Zorrilla-Piña, eds., Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck (forthcoming in 2026).

“Enlightenment and Revolution,” The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Poststructuralism, Daniel Whistler and Tilottama Rajan, eds., London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2026.

“Introduction,” The Palgrave Schelling Handbook, co-edited with Sean J. McGrath and Joseph Carew, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2026.

“Schelling and the Frankfurt School,” The Palgrave Schelling Handbook, Sean J. McGrath, Kyla Bruff, and Joseph Carew, eds., London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2026.

Thomas Buchheim, “Schelling’s Late Philosophy,” (translation) co-translated with Majk Feldmeier, The Palgrave Schelling Handbook, Sean J. McGrath, Kyla Bruff, and Joseph Carew, eds., London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, eds., London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023 (translation from German; forthcoming)

“The State as Second Nature in Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism,” Life,Organism and Human Nature: Perspectives on Classical German Philosophy, Luca Corti andJohannes-Georg Schülein, eds., Berlin: Springer Nature, 2023 (in press)

Translation: F.W.J. Schelling, “Presentation of the Purely Rational Philosophy (c. 1847)”(translated and edited excerpt), The Schelling Reader, Benjamin Berger and Daniel Whistler,eds., London: Bloomsbury, 2020 (translation from German)

“Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling,” Deleuze’s Philosophical Lineage II, Graham Jones and John Roffe, eds., Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019.

“The Implications of Schelling’s Metaphysics of Contingency for Phenomenology,” Kabiri: The Official Journal of the North American Schelling Society 1, 2018.

“The Aesthetic in Moral Education: Schiller, Kant, Plato and Read,” Moral Upbringing Through Arts and Literature, Pawel Kazmierczak and Jolanta Rzegocka, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018.

“Le corps, la perception et l’ontologie: Merleau-Ponty, médiateur entre le dernier Heidegger et le premier Foucault,” La vie dans l’homme ou l’homme dans la vie?, Thomas Ebke and Caterina Zanfi, eds., Postadam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam, 2017.

“Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Deleuze: Thinking the Lived, Utopic Body (without Organs),” Innen – Außen – Anders: Körper bei Gilles Deleuze und Michel Foucault, Ann-Cathrin Drews, Katharina D. Martin, eds., Transcript: Edition Moderne Postmoderne, 2017.

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