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Welcome

Welcome to my personal website. My name is Inge van Nistelrooij. I am a mother and partner, care ethicist, dialogical self theorist, and book fan. This site offers information about the concept of liminality that is central to my work, my publications and presentations and media appearances, me and my fields of interest, and about how to get in touch. Dutch readers can find my recent, completely revised Basisboek Zorgethiek here. An interview on this book was published by Trouw. English readers can find my co-edited volume ´Care Ethics, Religion, and Spiritual Traditions´ here. This Open Access published volume is the result of wonderful collaboration with Maurice Hamington and Maureen Sander-Staudt, and the great authors who contributed.

Below you can find my inaugural lecture (in Dutch) with which I officially accepted my chair as professor by special appointment ‘Dialogical Self Theory’. In the lecture I elaborate upon my research plans for this chair, that I focus upon ‘the self as mother’. I aim to enrich the Dialogical Self Theory with experiences and self-understandings of mothers and parents. For this I draw upon a phenomenology of pregnancy, a relational ethics of care and interruption, and upon ideas of collective responsibility for future generations, expressed by the old Dutch concept of ‘baarzaam zijn’ (meaning ‘bringing forth’ of ‘being able to bear’, which can pertain to fruit, future life, and a livable planet).

Self-sacrifice: an interpretation

Over the past few years, many have asked me to clarify what I mean with self-sacrifice, as I have published about this, drawing upon my PhD study. Sometimes I feel that it is more urgent to explain what it is not and why I think it is a meaningful and relevant concept. I am afraid that those who ask a brief, clear cut answer, are let down. For my entire view everybody will need to read my book. But for those who want a first entry, I have created this page.