Jeff Malpas

Jeff Malpas is an Australian philosopher and is currently Emeritus Distinguished Professor at the University of Tasmania in Hobart and Distinguished Visiting Professor at LaTrobe University in Melbourne. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Association of von Humboldt Fellows. Originally trained in philosophy and history at the Australian National University and the University of Auckland, his work has expanded over the last forty years to engage with a wide range of topics and disciplines, not only architecture, but also visual art, geography, literature, medicine, music, politics, sociology, and urban planning. He has worked with architects and designers at several universities in Australia and around the world, and was previously adjunct professor in architecture and design at RMIT University in Melbourne and was also attached to the School of Architecture and Design at the University of Tasmania.

At the centre of much of his work is a concern with questions of place and space (an obvious point of contact with architecture), as well as set of related issues concerning self, language, and the ethical. His approach is one that he describes as ‘topological’ or ‘topographic’ in character and is also heavily influenced by twentieth-century hermeneutical thinking. He is the author or editor of some 30 books, and has published over 150 articles in scholarly books and journals. Among his best-known works is Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography (Routledge, 2018), described by Alberto Pérez-Gómez of McGill University as “a crucial contribution to our understanding of the deep connections between place and all things human. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, Place and Experience offers valuable lessons for architects, urban and environmental designers, and all those willing to challenge the seeming inevitability of homogeneous space and placelessness brought about by our technological civilization’. His most recent publication is Rethinking Dwelling: Heidegger, Place, Architecture (Bloomsbury, 2021).