About me

Meins G.S. Coetsier (1977) was born in the Netherlands and obtained his B.A. and M.A. in philosophy at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy (National University of Ireland) in Dublin. In 2008, he was awarded Doctor of Philosophy at Ghent University for his work on Eric Voegelin, entitled Eric Voegelin's Philosophy of Luminous Participation in the Transcendent Ground of Being. Coetsier is affiliated with the Research Foundation in Flanders (FWO) and is director of  the centre of Eric Voegelin Studies at the Ugent. He is staff member at the Etty Hillesum Research Centre (EHOC), author of Etty Hillesum and the Flow of Presence: A Voegelinian Analysis (2008), and co-editor of Spirituality in the Writings of Etty Hillesum (2010). In 2011, he completed his four-year FWO research project (2007-2011) which provides a framework for understanding Etty Hillesum's spiritual search and her Diaries and Letters 1941-1943 in the light of Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In 2012, Coetsier was awarded the degree Doctor of Comparative Science of Cultures at Ghent University for this study.

Specialties:

Coetsier specializes in 19th and 20th Century religious existentialist thinkers, including Etty Hillesum, Eric Voegelin, Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His interests include: Philosophy of History, Consciousness, Political Science, German intellectual history, contemporary Jewish thought, Philosophy of Dialogue, Ethics, Religious Existentialism, Culture Studies and Philosophy of Religion.