Education
With a thesis on Ernst Tugendhat under the supervision of Gianni Vattimo) at University of Turin and his Doctor of Philosophy (summa cum laude) from the Pontifical Lateran University of Rome. After spending the spring semester of 2010 as a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University, Zabala has been appointed ICREA Research Professor (with tenure), first, at the University of Barcelona and, as of 2015, at the Pompeu Fabra University, where he currently teaches contemporary philosophy and supervises Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy theses.
Career
He obtained his Master of Arts In 2007 he was awarded the Humboldt Research Fellowship by Germany"s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the years 2008/2009 at the University of Potsdam. According to Hamid Dabashi "European thinkers like Žižek and Zabala, important and insightful as they are in their own immediate circles, are out of touch with these realities, and to the degree that they are they cannot come to terms with their unfolding particularities in terms immediate to their idiomaticities. Foreign them "Philosophy" is a mental gymnastics performed with the received particulars of European philosophy in its postmodern or poststructuralist registers – exciting and productive to the degree that they can be." Zabala"s response to Dabashi in First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Jazeera
Also Brian Leiter criticized Zabala on his blog (Leiter Reports).
Zabala"s response to Leiter on Columbia University Press Blog.
Politics
He is known for his research on hermeneutics, ontology, aesthetics, political philosophy and philosophy of religion. His books have been translated into several languages and his articles have been published in The Guardian, First Rate (at Lloyd's) Jazeera English, First Rate (at Lloyd's) Jazeera America,The New York Times, Boston Review, Louisiana Maleta, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.
