“Heidegger, Hut, Thing”: A conversation with Daniel Diermeier (Provost, University of Chicago), Dieter Roelstraete (Curator, Neubauer Collegium), and Katherine Withy (Associate Professor, Georgetown University; author, Heidegger on Being Uncanny). Sponsored by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, held in conjunction with HUTOPIA.

About the exhibition: Dedicated to the curious phenomenon of the philosopher’s retreat, HUTOPIA took as its point of departure two famous philosopher’s huts: Martin Heidegger’s Black Forest cabin in the German village of Todtnauberg and the lesser-known mountain refuge built by Ludwig Wittgenstein in the remote Norwegian village of Skjolden. Both huts were constructed around the same time to serve the same purpose: offering their occupants the kind of isolation conducive to thinking the kind of thoughts that would go on to revolutionize twentieth-century philosophy. Completing the triumvirate of modern German-language philosophy is Theodor Adorno, whose theorizing was likewise decisively shaped by his American exile – another kind of philosopher’s retreat. Bringing together works by Alec Finlay, Patrick Lakey, Goshka Macuga, Guy Moreton, and Ewan Telford alongside John Preus’s interpretations of these hermetic structures, HUTOPIA offered a properly three-dimensional reflection on the relationship between place and thought and the joys and perils of exile and retreat.

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