Olivier Schefer

Olivier Schefer is a philosopher and writer. He is Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. A specialist in German Romanticism, he translated and edited several posthumous manuscripts by Novalis, including À la fin tout devient poésie (Allia, 2020), Le Brouillon général (Allia, 2015), and Semences (Allia, 2004). In his works, Schefer questions the aesthetic theory of Romanticism and its contemporary resonances through the cinema of ghosts and somnambulists, fragmentary writing, and the modern traces of the sacred. He is the author of theoretical fictions (Variations nocturnes, Vrin, 2008; Les Eaux de la mort, Rouge Profond, 2016), but also of novels (Un Saut dans la nuit, Arléa, 2021; Une tache d’encre, Arléa, 2017) and catalogues for contemporary artists (Anish Kapoor, Bernar Venet, Stéphane Thidet, Evi Keller).

He has a forthcoming essay on the work of Robert Smithson, read through the prism of French theory, pop culture, and science fiction, entitled “Sur Robert Smithson. Variations dialectiques” (La Lettre volée, November 2021).