Heller, Agnes

Philosopher

She was born in 1929 in Budapest. Her family members died in concentration camps during the holocaust. She graduated at the Hungarian and Philosophy Departments of Lóránd Eötvös University in 1952. From 1947 she was the student of György Lukács, later teaching at his department. In 1955-56 she was the first post-war editor of the relaunched Hungarian Philosophy Review. She obtained a post-graduate degree in philosophy in 1955 and then became a Doctor of philosophy in 1967. After the revolution in 1956 she and György Lukács lost their jobs at the Academy for political reasons and the publication of her works was prohibited, she then taught at secondary schools. Between 1963 and 73 she was a fellow of the Sociology Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA). In1968 she protested against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, as a result she again faced political harassment by the police. In 1973 as a result of a Party leadership decision, she once more lost her assignments at the Academy. Being "politically unemployed" between 1973 and 1977, she made a living by translating. In 1977 she emigrated to Austria. She returned to Hungary in 1989 and worked as a university professor at the Aesthetics Department of Lóránd Eötvös University and at the Philosophy Department of József Attila University (JATE) until her retirement. From 1990 she has been a corresponding member of MTA and a full member since 1995. In 1995 she received the Széchenyi award and the Hannah Arendt award (Bremen). She is an honorary professor of the La Trobe University in Melbourne and the University of Buenos Aires. She is professor of philosophy at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York.

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