(Budapest - New York)
An internationally acclaimed philosopher, winner of the Széchenyi Prize, an aestheticist, retired professor, regular member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Heller was born in 1929 to a bourgeois family of Jewish decent. She was a student of György Lukács, the founder of the Budapest school, at the Philosophy Department at the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest. In 1958 both were deposed due to political reasons. In 1997 she departed on a “scientific” journey, which meant she emigrated. She taught at the University of Berlin, the La Trobe University in Melbourne, the university in Torino, in São Paulo, and finally (in 1986) she received a professorship in New York (New School for Social Research). She persisted at this stage of her journey until the early nineties, but ever since 1990 she has been returning home to Hungary and giving lectures at the Attil József University in Szeged and the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest. Until her retirement in 1999, she taught at the Aesthetics Department at the University of Budapest. She still actively takes part in scientific and political as well as cultural life. Since 2010 she has been a professor emeritus at the Aesthetics Department at the same university. Her fields of research include questions of aesthetics, philosophy of history and culture and philosophical anthropology. She has written several philosophical books, with her books being published in foreign languages in Oxford, New York, Cambridge, Boston, Madrid and Genoa.
Heller was born in 1929 to a bourgeois family of Jewish decent. She was a student of György Lukács, the founder of the Budapest school, at the Philosophy Department at the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest. In 1958 both were deposed due to political reasons. In 1997 she departed on a “scientific” journey, which meant she emigrated. She taught at the University of Berlin, the La Trobe University in Melbourne, the university in Torino, in São Paulo, and finally (in 1986) she received a professorship in New York (New School for Social Research). She persisted at this stage of her journey until the early nineties, but ever since 1990 she has been returning home to Hungary and giving lectures at the Attil József University in Szeged and the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest. Until her retirement in 1999, she taught at the Aesthetics Department at the University of Budapest. She still actively takes part in scientific and political as well as cultural life. Since 2010 she has been a professor emeritus at the Aesthetics Department at the same university. Her fields of research include questions of aesthetics, philosophy of history and culture and philosophical anthropology. She has written several philosophical books, with her books being published in foreign languages in Oxford, New York, Cambridge, Boston, Madrid and Genoa.
