Radboud Philosophical Facutly Journal

Categorie: Authors

  • “When they start singing – I’m out.” An interview with Markus Gabriel

    Markus Gabriel during a Radboud Reflects lecture in 2019 © Ted van Aanholt

    Last February, the Dutch Society for Phenomenology (recently renamed as the Dutch Society for Phenomenology and Existentialism) organized a two-day conference on phenomenology, existentialism and realism at our very own Radboud University. Keynote speaker was none other than Markus Gabriel, philosophy professor in Bonn and academic superstar among the ranks of Dennett and Žižek. By now, with his forty years, he might have lost the honorary title of being ‘the young god of German philosophy’, but his credentials are as impressive as ever: full time professor at the age of 29, visiting professor at a dozen of universities around the world (among others, UC Berkeley, the Sorbonne, and the universities of Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Aarhus and Venice), an extremely prolific output of more than 20 books and a never-ending list of publications, and a fluent speaker of English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish besides his native German (and yes, he can read ancient Greek, Latin, and basic Hebrew and Chinese as well). On top of that, when he is not busy flying around the world to give lectures, attending talk shows, or writing books in taxi’s and hotel rooms, he is a husband and happy father of two.

    Somehow, he also managed to have some time for this interview. After a failed attempt on the night of his talk, we finally managed to steal some of his time during the lunch break of the conference. Even the gods must eat after all. What followed was a roller coaster ride of a conversation – the man talks as fast as he thinks – about the questions that keep him awake at night, his thoughts on (the end of) phenomenology and the future of New Realism, his work ethic and his future ambitions. Full of anecdotes, lots of laughter, and quotes in ancient Greek, it was certainly a memorable interview.

    (meer…)

  • A Poem I Can’t Remember Writing

    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Of a thousand dreams before, I thought, they were
    only remnants of desires—latent in tree stumps, street corners,
    pigeon roos over my roof, white sheen of canvas openings into
    the blue sky—
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀All of my maniacal memories burst like shotgun
    pomegranate bleeding synapses flesh—broken matter between
    my brain halves—amyloid proteins popping—stowed from vision
    consciousness—impressionist gaps between Brooklyn Heights
    and Today—

    Read more…

  • Recensie – Nomizo (bordspel)

    Wanneer mensen mij vragen wat ik studeer en ik antwoord met “filosofie”, zie ik vaak hun gezichten vertrekken. Vaker wel dan niet volgt de (inmiddels tot cliché verheven) vraag: “Maar, wat kun je daar dan mee?” Als deze vraag uit blijft, dan is het wel een tante die een wrange vorm van interesse veinst en reageert met: “Oh, wat leuk! Ik vind psychologie ook errrgg interessant.”

    Lees meer…

  • ‘Freud’ (serie) – Recensie

    Van alle elementen die een narratief kunnen dienen in een film, is filosofie het minst succesvol. Een film waarin filosofie het thema is, schiet uiteindelijk altijd te kort. In het lijstje van pogingen staat onder andere When Nietzsche Wept (2007), waarin Friedrich Nietzsche een misplaatst, archetypisch kostuum als de held uit een monomythe wordt aangemeten.

    Lees meer…

  • Poem

    It melts losing its form,
    Turning into a sculpture.
    I can hear it no more,
    For it sways within a furry forest,
    Buried in wax,
    A muffled sound escapes.

    Stretch marks on a prowl,
    A low growl peeks through veins,
    Eyes lined with red see her.

    The lines break outside roots,
    Slithering down foamy wax,
    Down my scales and stripes.

    I listen,
    A lick, a flicker, a slither, a growl.
    Against negative spaces,
    Between hair, forest, scars,
    Is a sound, a cry,
    So silent.

    In between my scales,
    She sings, she speaks, growling and screaming,
    Buried.
    Under-wax, between scales-
    Threatening to tip them over,
    And drown the red line in her waters.

    – A woman’s meditation

  • Tarallini, a philosophical reflection

    In this quarantined world, where yeast and flour seem to have disappeared from every supermarket and, when you finally find them, you and a bunch of other customers have to fight over them as Dwight and Andy fought over Michael’s love, recipes without (or with limited amount of) these sacred goods are more than welcome. Since I want to do my part in this process of culinary pacifism, there you go with one of my favorite snacks and its history.

    Read More…

  • Der Zauberberg, self-quarantine and time

    Over the last couple of months, I’ve been reading Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain), the (in)famous novel by German writer Thomas Mann, published in 1924. In Der Zauberberg protagonist Hans Castorp travels by train to a sanatorium in Davos in the Swiss Alps to visit his nephew Joachim Ziemßen, who is suffering from tuberculosis. During his stay of three weeks, Hans Castorp develops bronchial issues and decides to stay until he recovers. He starts a treatment which consists mostly of long sessions of resting on a comfy lounger, breathing in the pure Alpine air. In this idyllic situation, time quickly becomes a very different experience. In the end, it takes seven years and the outbreak of a major war to pull him back to the ‘real’ world.

    (meer…)

  • De ‘S’ van vlinderSmoothie

    Vanaf de Splijtstofkamer op de 17e verdieping van het Erasmusgebouw kijk ik neer op het S-vormige gebouw. De ‘S’ van Sociale wetenschappen, vermoedelijk. Ik kwam hier om de planten in leven te houden, maar mijn gedachten dwalen af. Ik moet denken aan een poos geleden, toen je een aandenken kon krijgen aan het bouwwerk uit wiens puin de ‘S’ verrijst: een TvA-baksteen.

    LEES MEER…

  • Images

    I looked around and saw all the
    Windows and trees and hairdos
    Brick, recemented, old, different
    Heights and browns and entrances,
    Rusty bikes; the Mediterranean grocery
    The organic butcher, Turkish Barbers,
    reaching corners, drinking tea in hourglasses
    In front—and knew
    That all of it would not reach the other end
    of this poem.
    The cold stairs were mine, the days,
    the years, the cats on the window sills.
    It didn’t matter.
    Tom Waits was no Radio DJ in this world either.
    So what the hell.

    August 2019

  • Conversation with Marcel Duchamp

    1. Introductie: Guy Diehl

    Guy Diehl (1949 – ) is een hedendaagse kunstenaar, geboren te Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hij staat bekend om zijn realistische stillevens en is sterk beïnvloed door zijn mentoren aan de San Franscisco State University. Dit waren de schilders Robert Bechtle en Richard McLean, beiden eerste generatie fotorealisten. Vanaf 1992 begint Diehl verwijzingen naar de kunstgeschiedenis te verwerken in zijn schilderijen. Vaak zijn dit boeken over een bepaalde kunstenaar, of ansichtkaarten met daarop een bekend kunstwerk afgebeeld. Zijn doel is om de aandacht van de kijkers eerst te vangen door deze objecten, om hen vervolgens te laten nadenken over het werk en het bijbehorende verhaal zelf. Diehl maakt aldus art-about-art, een concept dat al langer bestaat.[1. “Statement,” Guy Diehl Studio, bezocht op 13 mei, 2019, http://www.guydiehl.com/artist-statement-fine-art/.]

    (meer…)