Katarina Majerhold

Katarina Majerhold (born May 20, 1971) is a Slovenian philosopher with a particular interest in philosophy of emotions, especially in philosophy of love and happiness in connection to immune system, philosophy of clowning (red noses), philosophical counseling and ethics.

Majerhold is currently an independent researcher and lecturer of philosophy of emotions (such as happiness, love, joy, compassion, kindness). She previously worked at the Slovenian Educational Research Institute where she held the rank of a young researcher/assistant and worked on higher education for many years. In that time she wrote and edited three important books on Slovenian higher education (University and Its Autonomy (1999), University and Its Power (2001), Does University Need Its Social Environment (2003) Ljubljana, Študentska založba).

In her early career as a philosopher of love she mostly worked on learning of the western concepts of love and which prevailing concept of love each period in history offered (Empedocles' Love (Eros) and Strife (Neikos), Plato's Eros and Aristotle's Philia, St. Paul's Agape and St. Augustine Caritas, Rousseau's notion of a modern romantic pair of Email and Sophie, Freud's love as transference and Nussbaum's compassionate, reciprocal, erotic and individual love). However, this does not mean that each representative concept of the period speaks of a totally new or innovative concept of love, many of them are interdependent and/or modification of the other. However, in the last few years she has started developing her own concept of love as an art work (i.e. installation), imagining love as innovative, individual and common process at the same time.

Her latest development is connecting love and happiness with strong immune system and for this reason she has been developing a philosophy of clowning which has a similar aim and effect as doctors-clowns-red noses only that philosophers achieve the effects through playful, kind, compassionate and witty dialogue using imaginative, critical, emphatic and kind thinking.

Her dedication to love is seen in numerous articles she wrote about the topic, such as love and happiness, love and gift, love and art, love and truth, love and politics, love: top-down or bottom-up and alike in the scholarly magazines at home and abroad.

However, she did not write not only articles but also books on love, sexuality and emotions: Love in Philosophy(from Plato to Freud, Psihopolis, Novi Sad 2012), Living (Koda, Študentska založba, Ljubljana 2012), Concepts of Love Through History (Modrijan, Ljubljana 2012). She wrote article The Gift in What Philosophy Can Tell You About Your Lover (Open Court, Chicago and LaSalle, Illinois, 2012).

She also does art, especially writing screenplays for documentaries and films through which she tries to convey her knowledge and experiences in the area of love, sexuality, happiness and play (she is the author of documentaries, such as Love and Emotions, fabrics of our lives', The Future of Clothing, 2008–2010, Radio-television Slovenia, forthcoming Attraction of the Sexes).

She is all about philosophy with heart (love), humour and joy. Majerhold is also a humanitarian, and dedicates her time, knowledge and energy to people in need.