Radboud Philosophical Facutly Journal

Categorie: Interview

  • An Interview with Herman Westerink on Hopes, Freud and Dreams

    Herman Westerink is Associate and Endowed Professor of Metaphysics and Philosophical Anthropology at Radboud University. A significant portion of his research is dedicated to Freudian psychoanalysis, alongside his studies in the philosophy of religion. Following his participation in a public lecture at Radboud Reflects, titled ‘What Are Dreams Made Of’, we decided to interview Herman and discuss a Freudian approach to own our theme, ‘Hopes and Dreams’. While the lecture was very informative, we had some remaining questions, especially since terms like ‘hope’ and ‘dream’ are often used interchangeably. Herman was happy to join us and further discuss these matters.

    Sophie: Thank you for joining us today. We’d like to ask you about your thoughts on dreaming, especially since the theme of this Splijtstof edition is ‘Hopes and Dreams’. Given your recent work, particularly with Radboud Reflects, we thought it would be interesting to explore the topic more.

    Herman: Excellent.

    Sophie: For the uninitiated, could you tell us a bit about the relationship between your work on Freudian psychoanalysis and dreams?

    Herman: Well, the ‘dream work’ of Freud is his most famous text, certainly among a larger audience. The Interpretation of Dreams is not necessarily in the centre of my research, but again and again, I am confronted with his dream analysis. Again and again, various texts refer to The Interpretation of Dreams, and to the dreams of patients, which are always very important in his clinical writings, as well.

    For Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams is not his only work on dreams; it is a topic that comes back again and again. Notably, the topic appears in his clinical writings, and sometimes also in his metapsychological writings, because dreams are supposed to give us an insight. That’s the first important thing to say about Freud’s interest in dreams: they tell us something about an aspect of our psychic life to which we normally have no access. To this, even dreams only grant us access to a certain extent, because there is also a kind of censorship mechanism. So, it’s also always in a filtered and indirect manner that dreams give us insight into unconscious mental processes, but nevertheless they do.

    Having said that, according to Freud, dreams also give us insight into the fundamental principles that organise psychic life. Since dreams give insight into unconscious processes, they also help us detect when certain mental principles are no longer at work, like consciousness or perception. For instance, this is the case in our ability to organise impressions into a spatial or temporal chronology. They function not only as an insight into certain principles that organise mental life, but also show what psychic life looks like when these when these principles are shut down, or partly shut down.

    Sophie: Do you think there’s much overlap between Freud’s perspective and your own? What do you think about dreams?

    Herman: I don’t have much opinion on dreams, but what intrigues me is the cultural, historical perspectives. Freud is part of that history. Generally, we in the Western world, although certainly not exclusively in the Western world, tend to attach a lot of meaning to dreams, whereas it’s not self-evident to do so. In the case of Freud, you could say dreams are a way to know more about ourselves than we would normally be able to detect or see. This is something that you find throughout Western history. I find that intriguing because it’s not self-evident that dreams have a meaning or a significant place in the way that we understand ourselves.

    Although, that’s just an observation. That’s not an opinion. I don’t know if Freud’s theories can be maintained. He argues that dreams are wish fulfilments – or attempts at wish fulfilment. There is current research, especially in neuroscience, from those who claim that Freud made a good point here. Though, I don’t know whether Freud’s arguments about dreams are absolutely plausible. It’s not my field, but as I said, I find it intriguing that he paid so much attention to dreams as being meaningful and providing self-knowledge, whereas one could also spontaneously argue dreams have no meaning – that it’s just chaos.

    Charlie: Since you mentioned wish fulfilment, I was thinking about how sometimes we use the word ‘dream’ as a synonym for a hope or a desire. I was wondering what Freud would make of this, and maybe also what you think about this yourself.

    Herman: Yeah, that’s the popular use of dreams, right? The American Dream, dreams about the future, et cetera. This use of ‘dreams’ could well be seen as a kind of popularised version of a Freudian take on dreams, right? There’s a lot of stuff in Freudian thought that has been popularised. The idea of dreams as wish fulfilment is among them. I’m not really sure whether ‘dreaming of the future’ in terms of what you hope or what you wish to happen can fully be reduced to Freudian thought. Although, I think that Freudian ideas have been very important for shaping this idea of dream as wish or hope for the future. It is indeed phrased like that today, as opposed to the classical idea that dreams can be messages from the gods that reveal what is going to happen in the future – that was a very antique idea. So, I think the idea of dreams, as wish fulfilment, or hope for the future, is a kind of popularised version of Freudian thought. I think Freud is part of that, at least.

    Charlie: That’s very interesting. I’ve never made a connection between the American Dream and Freudian thought.

    Herman: Well, the American dream, of course, also has other sources, right? It’s also the dream of the colonists to have their own country, to have their own land, et cetera, to make to make your life a success – ‘Manifest Destiny’. There are also other sources for that, but I think to phrase it in terms of dreams and dreams as wishes is a very Freudian idea popularised.

    Charlie: Yes, that’s interesting. For those of us who perhaps have less pleasant dreams, could Freud offer any words of comfort for us, or is his work likely to make us feel worse about our weirder, more uncomfortable dreams?

    Herman: Ah, yes, most dreams are uncomfortable. First of all, I would have to start by saying that Freud is very analytical, in honest and realistic depictions of dreams, and taking seriously what is communicated in dreams. If dreams are wish fulfilments, they are closely related to fantasies. That also means what you find in dreams, as I already mentioned, is somewhat – but not fully – censored. Repressed or unconscious thoughts show themselves in the form of very violent dreams. For example, you can kill people in your dreams, or you can get killed in your dreams. There is violence and absurdity in your dreams. There is also power in dreams: being able to do things that you would normally not be able to do, like flying. There are all kinds of bizarre things, but also some aspects of human life that we would normally rather not be confronted with, especially violence and anxiety.

    For Freud, nightmares are also wish fulfilments, but they are wish fulfilments in the sense that we react with fear to the consequences of what we are dreaming about. Waking up in a nightmare is usually at a point where something we do not find acceptable is going to happen. When the censorship breaks in, or when consciousness breaks in, you suddenly start to realise the implications of what you are about to dream, and this is where the dream ends. This is the point where the wish fulfilment shows its implications and then something in psychic life says, “this this is unacceptable, this cannot be!” Dreams are not just wish fulfilments in the sense that they show us pleasurable sides of our own fantasies and imaginations. Quite to the contrary, they can also show the violent or the anxious side of psychic life.

    There is also a special case to which Freud devotes some attention: the traumatic dreams of traumatised people. They may repeatedly dream about the traumatic events that they lived through. This is a really puzzling issue for Freud, because if dreams are wish fulfilments, even anxiety dreams to some extent, it is very difficult to explain why a traumatised people would return to their trauma in their dreams. That is counterintuitive for Freud. Therefore, he believed that there are some dreams that are ‘beyond’ wish fulfilments because they have something he calls ‘demonic character’. Dreams that bring us back to scenes of trauma are special case, but also shows, again, that dreams are not in any way related to pleasure.

    Sophie: Following that line of thinking, how satisfied would you be with the conclusion that our dreams don’t mean anything – none of them?

    Herman: I think that nobody would actually object to that. This is also something I said in Radboud Reflects: from the very start of our own cultural history of thinking about dreams, there has always been the idea that at least a part of our dreams is perhaps meaningless. Of course, in the antique world, that means there are dreams that don’t entail any messages about the future. Sometimes the gods are not speaking in dreams.

    Freud would probably say that some dreams are more significant than others, but there are no dreams that have no meaning. All dreams reveal something of unconscious and repressed material. In this sense, dreams are, per definition, informative about psychic life. Yet, some dreams are more significant than others.

    Sophie: What do you make of the dreams that come true? For instance, something bad might happen or things go wrong in an anxious dream and might really go wrong in practice.

    Herman: Apart from self-fulfilling prophecy? You could give an answer from the idea of a wish fulfilment. If you dream that something is going to go wrong, it’s probably because you wish, to some extent, that it goes wrong, and so why wouldn’t it go wrong? Maybe dreams can also reveal something of an unconscious self-sabotaging mechanism. They may at least show you that there is a conflicting voice to what you may consciously think. Freud would say that our psychic life is always in conflict. There’s always also another voice. There’s a counter-tendency – for instance, not succeeding in things you think you want to succeed in – and it is that kind of mechanism. A Freudian answer to your question is that there is a self-fulfilling prophecy in this case.

    I certainly don’t want to return to the idea that that dreams are really messages from ‘gods’ about what is going to happen unavoidably in the future. We can only prepare for what might happen. In the example that you mentioned, someone dreams of something that goes wrong, and it actually goes wrong. That indeed shows that they are probably self-sabotaging.

    Sophie: Would you say this further illustrates that some dreams may be considered more meaningful, or at least less random or chaotic, than others?

    Herman: Yes. I am now voicing a more or less Freudian take on dreams, but such cases are quite telling of our relation to what is going to happen. Our relation to persons or objects is never straightforward, but always ambiguous.

    Charlie: I was doing some homework for this interview and I found that Freud analysed his own dreams for his work. I was wondering if, in your opinion, we should be able to get away with this kind of practice in our own work. Could I cite something that I’ve dreamed as a source for my own dream analysis book or essay?

    Herman: I think this is a challenge. Strictly speaking, in psychoanalysis, it is not a good idea to analyse your own dreams. You could bring your dreams into analysis, vis-à-vis an analyst, but the idea of a self-interpretation of dreams is probably not the most fruitful form. At the same time, having said that, there’s a long history since Freud in psychoanalysis where analysts, and also patients, keep dream books. This is not only something in psychoanalysis: there are people who do that, who wake up and the first thing they do is make a note about what they have dreamt and keep it in a book. This can be seen as an ongoing diagnosis of their own mental states.

    There is a technical problem with doing self-analysis, which can easily take the form of a kind of self-deception. This is because I’m not sure whether we are the best interpreters of ourselves given the censorship I already mentioned. The other element in your question would be whether it is a good idea to do any form of self-analysis. Why would we be so obsessed with analysing ourselves? Self-analysis is also a way of self-problematisation, and why would we make our lives so much more difficult than necessary? This is a somewhat Foucauldian answer; he criticises psychoanalysis, notably for the obsession with analysing ourselves in Western history.

    But are we a problem? I don’t know. Should we be a problem for ourselves? Who says that we should be a problem for ourselves? This kind of argumentation that you find in Nietzsche and in Foucault can be used against psychoanalysis and against any form of treatment. Why would you make a problem out of yourself? Or consider yourself a problem? That’s actually part of the idea of self-analysis. There is something happening in myself that I want to gain control over, and what is beyond my control is de facto a problem.

    In the Radboud Reflects lecture, I already mentioned this in connection to the early Christian monks. They fought their dreams and thought the thoughts and images that appeared in dreams were fundamentally a problem. They thought their dreams were a problem, and self-analysis was a way to gain control over one’s inner life. That’s another way to answer your question.

    Charlie: Thank you. When I was re-watching the lecture, you were talking about how the contents of the dreams were worrying to the monks. I was wondering if you’ve ever had a dream about Freud when you’re in the midst of all of your writing!

    Herman: Did I ever have a dream about Freud? I must have, but I don’t remember anything. I’m not very good at remembering my dreams, and I don’t keep a dream book.

    Charlie: What do you think Freud would say about that? If you think you’ve dreamt about him, but you can’t remember, does that say anything about things going on with your psychic apparatus?

    Herman: It would be very strange if we would be able to remember our all our dreams. According to the Freudian argument that dreams reveal something of the unconscious, when you are asleep, the consciousness is more or less shut down. You would expect that in waking life, these things are again repressed, unconscious, and not accessible. In this sense, they are also not remembered for the large part. My colleague (and neuroscientist) from the Radboud Reflects lecture shows that you have a lot of dreams during the night – you don’t remember most of them. The participants in dream experiments need to immediately share what they have been dreaming about when they wake up, because otherwise the dreams are forgotten. Most dreams are normally forgotten, that’s not a strange thing.

    It is actually more or less abnormal when you remember very vividly what you have been dreaming. This is likely the case for the dreams that were really impressive somehow – disturbing or perhaps very pleasant. I don’t think that I’ve ever dreamt, for example, being in an analysis with Freud. That would be the ultimate Freudian dream – to be a patient on his sofa. And, as far as I know, I’ve never dreamt that I was the analyst and Freud was on the sofa – I’m sure about that.

    Charlie:     That must be reassuring to some extent.

    Sophie: Returning to the Radboud Reflects lecture, one thing we were curious to discuss is whether any new questions about dreams occurred to you throughout the process of preparing for the lecture and working with Sarah Schoch.

    Herman: No, not really. The lecture that I made was based on research that I had been doing in the past, which I already knew quite well. Instead, what I hadn’t realised before was that most dreams in the antique world were not about big, societal future events. For instance, when gods were believed to give messages in dreams, most dreams concerned medical issues. That was quite a new insight.

    Those dreams in the antique world still had a kind of prognostic quality in the sense that something was predicted to happen in the near future. Nevertheless, there was already something also of a diagnostic quality in these dreams because they were supposed to reveal something about psychic or somatic processes that were, as of yet, hidden and going to be a problem. This nuances the distinction between predictive dreams and more analytic dreams telling us about unconscious or hidden processes.

    Another thing I found interesting, in relation to Sarah’s talk, did not necessarily surprise me, but more or less confirmed something I had already expected. The team at Radboud Reflects discovered that there was not that big of a difference between our work. They tried to create an opposition between the neuroscientific work of Sarah and my talk, which focused mainly on Freud. They initially thought there must be a fundamental disagreement on the issue of dreams, but there isn’t. Neuroscientific research does not falsify Freud or, at least, not completely. Freud is important for thinking about dreams and putting dreams on the on the scientific agenda – I would say historically, that’s certainly true. However, they expected that the neuroscientific research would show a fundamentally different perspective on dreams and that Freud would be basically nonsense. Yet, that’s not true, there is no such fundamental disagreement. As I said, this is what I actually expected from the research, although they are completely different forms of science – if psychoanalysis is a science at all.

    Sophie: That’s certainly an interesting reflection. Given everything we’ve discussed today, I’d like to ask one final question for the readers of Splijtstof. Most of this interview has been about dreaming, but our edition is themed around ‘hopes’, too. Is there anything you’d like to share about ‘hopes’? Perhaps I’m returning to wish fulfilment with this question.

    Herman: Yes, this comes back to wish fulfilment. I don’t have specific hopes or wishes apart from very general ones that everybody would immediately agree with; these are open doors. I hope the next generation, such as you and younger people, will use all their efforts and all their creativity to find solutions to fundamental problems in our society and in our world. I’m thinking of the problems that my generation did not succeed in resolving and only made worse, such as climate change. That’s a very open-door and very general answer. I’m not very pleased with this answer, but maybe this is exactly what you wanted to hear.

    Sophie: I think that answer is a hope in itself.

    Herman: It’s always my hope that the next generation does better than the previous generation.

    Sophie: That’s a good hope to have.

    Herman: It’s a good hope to have, indeed.

    Sophie:     Thank you very much for joining us today. I’m sure Charlie and our readers would agree that this conversation has been very insightful.

    Charlie: Yes, thank you very much for your time.

    Herman: Thank you. It was a pleasure. If you have any afterthoughts or dreams about what is missing, you can always contact me.

    For further information, the Radboud Reflects lecture can be found on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/xQI9vU9PIrU?si=5V3SHc3EvMmhzP0j.

  • Op zoek naar de verhalen van de FFTR

    Een interview met drs. Ignace de Haes over het boek Denkers en Duiders: Een eeuw Nijmeegse filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen in honderd verhalen

    “Heb je al gehoord …”, “Wat er gister toch is gebeurd …”, “Wat ik nu toch weer heb meegemaakt …”: Deze en soortgelijke zinnen hoor je de hele dag door. Mensen vertellen elkaar continu verhalen. Verhalen over de man in de bus die zijn nagels zat te knippen, over de docent die op blote voeten college stond te geven, over de medestudent die een diepe zucht slaakte bij het horen van de naam ‘Plato’. Iedere gebeurtenis, iedere ervaring, alles wat we meemaken, het zijn allemaal verhalen. We vertellen, we luisteren en we vertellen verder. Alles wat we doen, wat we denken, wat we voelen, de keuzes die we maken, het draagt allemaal bij aan het verhaal dat we over onszelf, over onze omgeving vertellen, want wat is het leven als het geen verhaal is? Iedereen werkt dag in dag uit aan diens eigen narratief. Die verhalen komen bij elkaar, tijdens ontmoetingen tussen mensen. Op één dag lopen er al honderden, duizenden mensen op campus rond, die allemaal hun eigen narratief met zich meedragen. Moet je nagaan hoeveel verhalen zich door de jaren heen hebben verzameld, hoeveel er op je liggen te wachten als je de moeite neemt om te zoeken, te luisteren, hoeveel er voor altijd verborgen zullen blijven om nooit meer gevonden te worden. Al 100 jaar bruisen de gebouwen van de Radboud Universiteit van de verhalen. Je zult ze misschien niet iedere dag bewust zien, maar ze zijn er wel degelijk.

    Een faculteit vol verhalen

    Hoe bijzonder is het dan om bewust op zoek te gaan naar deze verhalen, om te vragen, om nieuwsgierig te zijn, om interesse te tonen, om te luisteren. Dit is wat drs. Ignace de Haes, twee jaar geleden, besloot te doen. Ter ere van het 100 jarig bestaan van de Radboud Universiteit, besloot hij om een zoektocht te starten naar de verhalen van de FFTR, want, zoals hij zelf zegt:  ‘‘We zijn een faculteit van grote verhalen, zowel bij de theologie als bij de filosofie. Met dit project wilde ik op zoek gaan naar de kleine verhalen, dat zijn verhalen die in principe subjectief zijn. Bij dat soort verhalen ga je uit van iemands ervaringen en herinneringen.’’ Ignace is twee jaar lang op zoek geweest naar die kleine verhalen. Steeds meer mensen sloten zich bij de zoektocht aan. Een jaar geleden, kwam ook ik het team versterken: ik ben in de archieven gedoken, ik ben met mensen gaan praten, ik ben gaan zoeken, gaan luisteren, om deze verhalen te verzamelen. Nu, een jaar later, hebben we met zijn allen maar liefst 100 verhalen bij elkaar gesprokkeld en gebundeld in het boek Denkers en Duiders: Een eeuw Nijmeegse filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen in honderd verhalen. Na het meewerken aan de zoektocht naar de verhalen van het verleden van de faculteit, ben ik benieuwd naar nog één laatste verhaal, het verhaal dat achter dit boek schuilgaat. Ik heb aan Ignace gevraagd of hij mij dat verhaal wilt vertellen.

    In het begin sch…

    Ignace is twee jaar geleden begonnen met het verzamelen van de kleine verhalen van de FFTR. Hij wilde zowel verhalen over de theologie als de filosofie vertellen, omdat dat de twee grote, oude pilaren zijn, waar de faculteit op steunt. Zijn idee was om 100 verhalen te gaan schrijven: één verhaal over ieder jaar dat zowel de universiteit als de studies filosofie en theologie bestaan. Poëtisch genoeg was het eerste verhaal dat hij schreef, het verhaal over het begin, over de schepping van hemel en aarde, of ten minste het ontstaan daarvan. Het is namelijk nog maar de vraag of hemel en aarde überhaupt geschapen zijn. Dit ontdekte Ellen van Wolde tijdens haar onderzoek naar de Hebreeuwse grondteksten van de Bijbel.  Ze kwam erachter dat het Hebreeuwse woord bara, in de Bijbel vertaald is als scheppen, terwijl het eerder scheiden betekent. Op het eerste gezicht lijkt dit geen indrukwekkende bevinding, het is slechts één woordje, hoe kan de vertaling van één simpel woordje nou een impact hebben op een verhaal, laat staan op een boek zo dik als de Bijbel? Toch wekte deze bevinding een stortvloed aan reacties op, allerlei deskundigen en gelovigen reageerden op en maakten zich druk om deze bevinding. Waarom? Daarvoor moeten we terug naar het begin, naar de eerste zin van de Bijbel, want ‘‘In het begin schiep God hemel en aarde’’ (Genesis 1:1) wordt dan: ‘‘In het begin scheidde God hemel en aarde.’’ Zo kan één woordje, één klein woordje, het hele verhaal van de wereld, het hele wereldbeeld van gelovigen op losse schroeven zetten. Wat betekent het als God niet de wereld uit het niets schiep, maar de wereld al bestond voordat God deze scheidde? Bestond er dan al iets voordat God bestond? En wat betekent dat voor het geloof? Wat betekent dat voor het scheppingsverhaal? Is dit een bedreigende vondst, of juist een verrijkende? Ellen van Wolde zette mensen aan het denken, aan het reflecteren met haar vertaling van één simpel, klein woordje. Bij het opnieuw vertellen van dit verhaal, grinnikt Ignace tevreden: ‘‘Ik vind het zo geweldig. Die eerste zin van de Bijbel bestaat al 2000 jaar en dan komt er een wetenschapper die zegt: ‘Ja, die eerste zin, die klopt niet, die is verkeerd vertaald.’ Eén woord anders, maakt een compleet ander wereldbeeld, wat het wereldbeeld van het Christendom in elkaar laat storten. Nou, dat vind ik prachtig.’’

    Diversiteit

    Ignace heeft niet alle 100 verhalen alleen hoeven schrijven. Dat zou onmogelijk in twee jaar tijd zijn gelukt. Sowieso paste dat ook niet bij de visie die hij voor het project had. Zoals ik al eerder heb gezegd, wilde hij namelijk op zoek naar de kleine verhalen van de faculteit, de subjectieve verhalen, de anekdotes, verhalen die in een hoekje liggen te wachten om ontdekt te worden, verhalen die al heel lang in het geheugen van verschillende mensen opgeslagen liggen, maar gewoon nooit of nauwelijks verteld zijn geweest. Ignace beschrijft zijn visie als volgt: ‘‘We hebben al genoeg wetenschappelijke boeken, dus het mogen verhalen zijn van alumni, van medewerkers, van anderen die iets observeren. Daarnaast mag het over alles gaan.’’ Hij wilde zoveel mogelijk mensen bij het project betrekken. Als je naar de laatste pagina’s van het boek bladert, kun je aan de auteurslijst, die maar liefst twee hele pagina’s beslaat met in totaal 48 namen, zien dat dit zeker gelukt is.

    Op deze auteurslijst staan namen van mensen die Ignace zelf heeft benaderd en gevraagd om een verhaal te schrijven, zoals prof. dr. Peter Nissen en prof. dr. Christoph Lüthy, die samen met Ignace de redactie van het project vormden. Veel mensen hebben zich ook via mond-tot-mond reclame als een soort sneeuwbaleffect bij het project aangesloten, zo heeft dr. Willem van der Kuijlen voor het verhaal van 1988 getiteld: ‘‘Filosofische stratenmakers’’, de vier filosofen: Pieter van Diesen, Theo Theunissen, Zafer Aydogdu en Henk Hoogervorst gevraagd om een verhaal voor het project te schrijven. Dankzij de veelzijdigheid van de redactie zelf en van alle mensen die hebben meegewerkt is er een boek ontstaan met een grote diversiteit aan schrijvers, stijlen en verhalen. Sommige verhalen zijn meer historisch, andere juist anekdotisch. Er zijn interviews, prozateksten, beschrijvende verhalen, en stukjes uit archieven in het boek te vinden. Sommige verhalen zijn grappig, andere zijn emotioneel, sommige zijn kritisch, andere zijn lovend, sommige gaan over gebeurtenissen in de geschiedenis die in de archieven verstopt liggen, andere gaan over wat recentere en meer bekende ervaringen. Al met al is het volgens Ignace ‘‘een kleurrijk, divers pallet van verhalen van vroeger tot nu’’ geworden.

    Favoriete verhaal van Ignace

    Uit dit pallet wilt Ignace eigenlijk geen favoriet kiezen, want het zijn nu eenmaal 100 prachtige verhalen geworden, die allemaal hun eigen charmes hebben en allemaal op hun eigen manier iets toevoegen aan het geheel. Toch is er één verhaal dat voor hem een speciaal plekje heeft. Dit is het verhaal van 2021 over Justine Borkes, een mevrouw die een vaste bezoekster was van de koffiehoek op de 15e verdieping. Iedereen kende haar, maar niemand scheen precies te weten wat ze daar nu eigenlijk deed. Ignace was nieuwsgierig naar haar verhaal en heeft haar gecontacteerd om te vragen of hij haar mocht interviewen. Dat mocht en het verborgen verhaal van de onbekende dame in de koffiehoek werd aan het licht gebracht. Tijdens het gesprek, kwam Ignace erachter dat Justine dichteres was en filosofie had gestudeerd. Ze wilde heel graag promoveren, maar dat is haar uiteindelijk niet gelukt. Toch bleef ze naar de koffiehoek op de 15e verdieping komen, want, zoals ze zelf in het interview zegt: ‘‘Filosofie is voor mij meer dan alleen de teksten van filosofen. Filosofie heeft voor mij alles te maken met ruimte en thuiskomen. Dat is de reden dat ik de ruimte opzoek waar filosofie bedreven wordt. Door die ruimte laat ik me inspireren, ook in mijn gedichten. […]De koffiehoek op de vijftiende verdieping was mijn thuis, mijn huiskamer, omdat juist die ruimte voor mij gelijk staat met filosofie en gastvrijheid’’ (De Haes, Lüthy & Nissen 2023, 13).

    Wat begon als een gesprek uit Ignace zijn interesse in en nieuwsgierigheid naar het verhaal van Justine, werd een afscheidsinterview. Toen Ignace haar interviewde, lag Justine al in het ziekenhuis. Nog geen twee weken later, is Justine overleden. Deze ervaring heeft veel indruk gemaakt op Ignace: ‘‘Dit heeft mij geleerd dat er achter iedereen een verhaal zit, alleen je moet er wel nieuwsgierig naar zijn, dan zul je zien dat iedereen bewonderingswaardige verhalen te vertellen heeft.’’

    De verhalen gaan verder

    Iedereen heeft een verhaal en die verhalen stoppen niet simpelweg met bestaan als je ze hebt opgeschreven en gebundeld in een boek, ze worden doorverteld, ze gaan verder, er komt altijd een vervolg. Wanneer mensen overlijden, overleven hun verhalen. Wie zouden we nog zijn en wat zouden we nog doen op de Faculteit der Filosofie, Theologie en Religiewetenschappen als we niet meer zouden putten uit de verhalen van het verleden? Als we niet meer vol verwondering en nieuwsgierigheid om ons heen zouden kijken? Als we het gedachtegoed en de levensverhalen van mensen, filosofen, theologen en schrijvers met hen zouden begraven om hun verhalen door ruimte en tijd te laten afbreken, vergaan? Zou er dan nog iets als literatuur bestaan? Nog iets als Theologie? Religie? Filosofie? Waarop zouden we bouwen als we geen verhalen meer hadden? Wat zou dan ons fundament nog zijn? Ons uitgangspunt? Ons bestaansrecht? We werken iedere dag met verhalen, of ze nu literair en poëtisch zijn of wetenschappelijk en feitelijk, of de filosofie in het wit tussen de woorden te vinden is, of op een zilveren dienblaadje aan ons wordt geserveerd. We zijn altijd op zoek naar de verhalen van het verleden en naar hoe we daarop kunnen voortborduren in het hier en nu, hoe de verhalen verder gaan, nooit af zijn.

    Denkers en Duiders: een eeuw Nijmeegse filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen in honderd verhalen

    Dit boek is dan ook een momentopname, een barometer, een peiling. 100 bewonderingswaardige gebeurtenissen zijn door de medewerkers en medewerksters van dit project verzameld en opschreven. Door dit boek zijn mijn ogen geopend en ben ik ze gaan zien. Tijdens het zoeken en schrijven, heb ik de universiteit en de FTR-Faculteit zelf op een hele andere manier leren kennen. Natuurlijk vraagt iedere student zich wel eens af, als ze weer eens in de overvolle bus 10 hutje mutje op elkaar gepropt zitten, waarom de campus niet gewoon in het centrum is, dat is toch veel makkelijker? Ook heb ik het wel eens vreemd gevonden dat we hier überhaupt de FTR-Faculteit kennen en niet, zoals bij veel andere universiteiten, een Faculteit der Letteren en Wijsbegeerte. Pas als je de geschiedenis induikt ga je hiervoor de antwoorden vinden, vallen dingen op hun plek en ga je op een andere manier om je heen kijken, ga je andere dingen zien. Zoals Ignace het omschrijft: ‘‘Je leert iets over de geschiedenis aan de hand van subjectieve verhalen en als je al die verhalen doorleest krijg je een rode draad van de geschiedenis te pakken. Dit boek geeft een mooi beeld van een eeuw Nijmeegse filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen in honderd verhalen. Nu ben ik natuurlijk heel benieuwd hoe de aankomende 100 jaar gaan verlopen.’’ De Radboud blijft bruisen. En wie weet, misschien komt er over 100 jaar weer een boek vol met de verhalen, die vandaag beginnen en die we samen mogen gaan beleven, samen mogen gaan schrijven, iedere dag weer.

    Weggeefactie

    Dit prachtige boek vol verhalen, die inzicht geven in 100 jaar geschiedenis filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen aan de Radboud universiteit, is niet alleen verkrijgbaar in de boekhandel, er worden binnenkort ook 3 exemplaren verloot! Op de Splijtstof Instagram zal een post geplaatst worden, waarop je kunt reageren, om kans te maken op een exemplaar. Uit de reacties zullen drie gelukkige winnaars worden geloot. Houd je ogen en oren dus goed open. Wie weet, staat Denkers en Duiders binnenkort bij jou op de boekenplank te schitteren en kun jij je verdiepen in de verhalen van het verleden.

    Bibliografie

    Haes, Ignace, de, Christoph Lüthy, Peter Nissen. 2023. Denkers en Duiders: Een eeuw Nijmeegse filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen in honderd verhalen. Nijmegen: Vantilt.

  • Off the Record with Marilyn Kallasse

    Marilyn Kallasse is a woman on a mission. She’s a 21-year-old international student from Estonia. Not content with simply studying PPS, she is the Chair of F.C. Sophia, and can often be found working at the Coffee Corner at the UB.

    Rather than starting by asking you for a fun fact about yourself, can you tell me a fun lie about yourself?

    ‘‘I can’t lie. I physically can’t lie. I have never successfully lied in my life. I don’t know. There are no lies… there is only truth. That is not a good answer, but YOLO. I can tell you a fun fact about myself, though!’’

    Oh! Go for it.

    ‘‘I am very intrigued by countries ending with -stan. Two days ago, I watched an hour-long video about Turkmenistan. They have all the Guinness world records for having the most marble buildings in their capital. Did you know that?’’

    I did not know that!

    ‘‘Now you know!’’

    What’s your favourite -stan country?

    ‘‘I am intrigued by Kazakhstan… the capital looks like a mixture of Dubai and Las Vegas together, and I am very intrigued by this. I watched a documentary about it, and the nature is very beautiful, so I am going to go there one day.’’

    What is it like to do a full-time study, a part-time job and a board year all at the same time?

    ‘‘…It’s sometimes a very silent, loud scream… Sometimes it’s hard, but I’m a big fan of time management. To be honest, right now there are only two things in my mind, board and work. I rest is kind of like, in the background. It’s stowed in my filing cabinet. It is tiring, but I’m trying my best and right now I’m doing fine with it. I feel like an actual businesswoman, ‘cos I need to have my phone ringer on all the time. It’s a thing.’’

    Speaking of being a successful businesswoman, what gives you a feeling of achievement?

    ‘‘If we talk about doing a board year, I think the most fulfilling feeling is when someone notices that I did this thing, or that thing, and says: ‘this was very nice’. I’m a big fan of words of affirmation. I’ve been getting a lot of ‘good job’s’ and pats on the back, and I’ve been going ‘whooo!’. It’s so goofy.’’

    Do you have some wisdom for us?

    ‘‘I don’t wanna sound too cheesy, but I think people should be more kind to themselves. If there are days where you feel like you can’t do anything, like if you went to the library for 9 hours and all you did was Buzzfeed quizzes, that’s fine. I try to practise with myself saying that it’s okay, life goes on, and I shouldn’t hold it against myself. I think some of my friends struggle with this as well. It’s okay to realise at 12pm on a Monday that you’re done and you can go home. We ball. And some of us are bald…’’

    [to me, as an aside] ‘‘You know how in courtrooms they have those keyboards to write everything down in shorthand? You would be so slay at that, typing all this down. It would be so slay.’’

    If 2016 was the year of realising things, what was 2023 the year of?

    ‘‘I mean, I feel like people started realising things in 2016 and STILL haven’t fully realised everything. 2023 is – okay, another very cheesy answer – but it’s about being kind to yourself and others, and it’s just… I don’t know, life is hard and there is inflation, like, beer is getting more expensive, it’s all a lot. But I feel like at the end of the day, what we have is other people and ourselves and we should just be kind.’’  

    What is your favourite word in every language you speak, and what does each word mean?

    ‘‘So in Estonian, my native language, my mother tongue, the word is ‘tohuvabohu’. It means chaos. It’s a goofy word because, like, you can literally use it for anything. It’s the Estonian equivalent of ‘goofy chaos’. It rolls very nicely off the tongue. It’s not a common word in the Estonian language anymore, like, you would hear a grandmother say it. I think that’s very beautiful.

    In Dutch it’s definitely the word ‘smoorverliefd’, because it means being ‘head over heels in love’ with someone, and I think it’s so nice in Dutch that it’s only one word. In other languages you have to use a lot of words to get the point across. But the Dutch came up with just one word for it, and I think that’s really beautiful. Also, shoutout to Doe Maar for writing a great song.

    I think my favourite word in English… is an adjective, though. Does an adjective count as a word?’’

    If I answer the question, am I allowed to keep this part in the interview?

    ‘‘Yeah… I guess… An adjective is a word, right?’’

    Yes.

    ‘‘Okay… It’s probably goofy! Because with goofy, you can give away so many things. ‘That’s goofy’, as in, ‘I think that’s weird’, ‘that’s goofy’, as in, ‘I think that’s funny’… if I don’t know what to say, I can say ‘goofy’. It’s a good word.’’

    Is it kind of like when Paris Hilton says, when you don’t know what to say, you can say ‘That’s Hot?’

    ‘‘Yeah, literally.

    …Oh, and I don’t have a favourite word in German.[1]’’

    Which musical album changed your life?

    ‘‘I think the album that has had a genuine physical effect on me was the first time I listened to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on the trolley to work – we have trolleys[2] in Estonia, goofy – and that’s when… I’ve always, you know, been surrounded by music, but that was the moment when I really realised what music can do to people. And it’s a great album!’’

    What are you reading right now?

    ‘‘I haven’t started a new book, but I love Dolly Alderton, and I just finished a book by her where people write prompts to her and she responds to them. Sometimes women in their 20s can feel like they need to have a boyfriend, bla bla bla, and what she writes is that the biggest loves in her life have been her friends. I think that’s really important.

    Next, I’m going to read Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma. It’s about a woman who moves to a different planet to start a new life. But I haven’t started, I’ve only read one page.’’

    Speaking of starting a new life, what are your hopes for the future? Where will you be, and what will you be doing?

    ‘‘I see myself staying in Nijmegen and doing my Master’s here as well, maybe another board year. Then, I would like to work, for example, as an ambassador one day. I would like to be the Estonian ambassador in the Netherlands… but maybe that’s too ambitious.’’

    Do you have any final messages for the Universe, before I end the interview?

    ‘‘Please come to F.C. Sophia’s Lustrum activities, it’s going to be really fun!’’

    Anything else?

    ‘‘That’s it!’’

    [1] I have received word that ‘tohuvabohu’ is also used in German. It is originally a Biblical Hebrew word meaning ‘primordial chaos’, i.e. the formless chaos/void before creation.

    [2] A trolleybus is an electric bus that gets power from overhead wires.

  • In Conversation with Professor Marjolein Oele

    Marjolein Oele is Professor of Philosophy of the Humanities. The new Chair position she occupies is aimed at bridge building between the Faculty of PTR (Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies) and the Faculty of Arts. Oele’s research intertwines: Ancient Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, and Environmental Philosophy. She is the author of “E-Co-Affectivity: Exploring Pathos at Life’s Material Interfaces” (SUNY, 2020) and co-editor of “Ontologies of Nature: Continental Perspectives and Environmental Reorientations” (Springer, 2017). Her most recent book project thematizes a sense of loss in the relationship to our world, and is entitled “Elemental Loss: Shifting Constellations of Water, Fire, Air and Earth.” Her articles have been published in a wide range of journals, including Ancient Philosophy, Configurations, Environmental Philosophy, Epochê, Radical Philosophy Review, and Research in Phenomenology. She is also teaching the course “Critique of Green Ideology” in the PPS “Ecology and Sustainability” module. I, Laura Schranz, had the pleasure to interview her for Splijtstof .

    Laura: Thank you, Prof. Oele! You have a very interesting and niche field of research, at least I for my part have not heard of this way of doing philosophy before meeting you. Could you maybe give me an introduction to it?

    Prof. Oele: I have a few research fields that I’m interested in, the broader one being this question of affect and affectivity, how we’re being moved by other people, by the world as such, by other living beings, by our own bodies, our own thoughts, our own emotions. This question of how we come to become ourselves, or how the world comes to be itself in relationship to all those things. I’ve tried to unravel this bigger question with regard to a number of other big themes. One of them is climate change and the ecological crisis, because I think it is the predominant ethical question of our time. So, I have found it very important as a philosopher to use some of the philosophical concepts that I’ve been trained in, for instance through Aristotle or through Heidegger, and make them applicable towards this question. I also philosophize about pregnancy and embodiment as a part of that constellation, insofar as how we come to be.

    Laura: In the course you teach to me and other fellow PPS students, you indeed mentioned that you are very interested in incorporating pregnancy into your philosophy. In terms of how we come to be, that seems a very literal form of becoming then, no?

    Prof. Oele: Indeed, I have written about the question of embodiment in pregnancy. I’ve explored that by using, for instance, Plato’s Republic; thinking through how we become to be who we are. A big part of my research on pregnancy has been devoted to the placenta, an organ of the in-between which I think of as installing a pregnant city. What happens if we think about pregnancy in terms of the messy material of being, the emergence of community out of a space of the in-between rather than just being informed by individual beings? Beyond the obvious exchange of nutrients and other factors taking place in and through the placenta, when I looked at the placenta, there’s current research investigating the exchange of cells that are from siblings or even (miscarried) previous children. Maternal cells are also being transferred across the placenta. This “microchimerism” as it is called offers access to a community that is much bigger than that contemporaneous community of cells that’s there in the placenta.

    The mutual exchange happening is also cross intersected with lots of environmental factors that are seeping through, for instance toxins. Further, the traces of what happens in that community are being transported into the future. For instance, foetal cells will remain even if the pregnancy is interrupted. Microchimerism carries forward into the future in many unpredictable ways, insofar as bodies will retain those communities within them.

    Laura: You mentioned that you are interested in this messy material of being. The image of the pregnant city in the placenta very well fits that, do you like to think about the environment in such a way?

    Prof. Oele: I do! I also work with soil, which is also very messy. Oftentimes, we romanticise it and talk about Earth and its power, but I like to dig into the dirty, messy stuff of life. There is this new group of philosophers called the “new materialists” that draw attention to this notion of matter. I have found real inspiration in that, especially in combination with my background in medical school.  There is this tendency in modern culture to sterilise life, to use sterile concepts, and I think it’s a uniquely challenging thought to dig into the messiness of life, for instance into soil and into organs such as the placenta. So yes, I like to think about these messy interfaces, as I call them, or “e-co-affective interfaces”, as my book has it. And to make them philosophically appealing and interesting and complex.

    Laura: That is such an intriguing way of looking at it! You have also mentioned this term of the “pregnant city”. And you write about loss, too, both in the contexts of pregnancy and environmental loss. How does this go together with the community you are describing?

    Prof. Oele: Oftentimes we think about pregnancy as a one-way street towards birth, which is very much a misconception. 70% of conceptions, so it’s estimated, do not continue. This is a discourse that’s often forgotten, due to the teleology that exists around pregnancy. To philosophically thematize pregnancy and loss has recently been on the upswing, with a few publications coming out on miscarriage and stillbirth from a philosophical perspective. I find it important to write about this, as it is key to undo the silencing around these topics and use philosophy as a way to transform discourses, and, possibly, aid those suffering from such losses.

    Another topic that I feel very dear about is to think about questions of loss that don’t just have to do with the loss of a particular being, but with the loss of a certain kind of constellation. There is an intersection here. Both with environmental loss and with pregnancy loss (which I have named the loss of the pregnant city), you lose a certain kind of constellation, a world, and a certain kind of future. I am intrigued by what it means to be confronted with a world that shrinks or transforms, that is never ever going to be the same as what we had expected or hoped for earlier on. Moreover, what does it mean to mourn when you don’t exactly know what it is that you are mourning, since there is no one particular “thing” that you lose?

    These are losses that speak to a transformed world, and, at least in my experience, pregnancy loss involves such a transformation of world. I see a connection there to a world of climate change. We may mourn the loss of certain species, but we may be more affected by this larger question of a transformed world where we find less and less hope for places of refuge, of trust, of rebirth, where the world can reconstitute itself.

    Laura: That really resonates with me, these different facets of loss that climate change imposes on us. It reminds me of texts I have read on the way environmental grief is experienced differently, depending on your cultural relationship to nature and the world. What you say speaks of a deep relationality between us, each other and the world in all its forms.

    Prof. Oele: Right, I am after all a philosopher of affect. As Butler would say it, we are always originally composed of relationality, yes. And so, when we experience loss, we actually lose  ourselves, since we’re always relational. This notion of grief gets us into this sense of relationality that underlies us very deeply in a fundamental way, and can thereby make us a bit more aware of how we are connected to each other. If we would see ourselves as much more relational, also in terms of climate change, experiences of loss that we currently may have could possibly afford us a way forward. We become much more aware of the fact that the world as we had imagined it to be isn’t just our own mirror, but that we have always been part of this environmental ecological system. Much of the meaning of who we experience ourselves to be is dependent upon that larger network.

    I lived in the United States, California specifically, for a long time. We know how many of the indigenous populations have been uprooted or unsettled, long before climate change, due to the colonial settlers. These indigenous populations have already experienced loss for a long time. If we are now confronted by climate change and mention this loss as sudden, those indigenous populations would say “what event are you talking about now?” When I talked earlier about grief, how it may connect us and make us more sensitive towards the world, in some sense maybe our own climate grief now can also make us more sensitive towards the grief that others around the globe have felt regarding lifestyles and colonialism that we have imposed upon them. Therefore, it may not just make us more empathetic or sympathetic, but make us form alliances.

    And of course, I don’t want to say that suffering is a precondition for having a different kind of relationship to the world. But I do think that given the current crisis within which we are, suffering could instil transformation. Not just one-on-one, but also through creating different kinds of affective-sensitive dispositions and transforming political economic policies. In this regard, affective dispositional changes can transform societies.

    Laura: I think those are some beautiful words to end with. Thank you very much for the conversation!

  • Into the Black Hole with Jonathan Zackor

    The Valkhof Museum’s exhibition ‘Into the Black Hole’ opened in October of 2023, to much fanfare. Students from Radboud University (such as our very own Laura Schranz!) participated as ‘public-in-residence’ to co-design the exhibition alongside the Valkhof museum. I decided to interview Jonathan Zackor, a Master’s student in Tourism and Culture at Radboud, who was part of the core group of students working on the exhibition. I had a strategic advantage in scheduling an interview with him, owing to the fact that we have been boyfriends for almost a year and a half.

    I decide to spring a surprise interview on Jonathan during his shift at the coffee corner in the main University Library. He is wearing his black work polo shirt and a pair of comfortable-looking jeans, but his individuality is still obvious even through his uniform: his split-dyed hair (currently half-brown, half-orange), the tattoos on his arm and his nose piercings make him easy to spot. He is softly spoken, switching between English and Dutch to take people’s coffee orders, and apologetically defaulting back to English with a smile if someone tries to order using unfamiliar Dutch slang. In a quiet moment, I ask my first question:

    For the uninitiated, who are you, and what was your role in the Valkhof Museum exhibition ‘Into the Black Hole’?

    “I’m Jonathan Zackor, I’m an international student from Germany who is doing his Master’s in Tourism and Culture. While I was working at the Valkhof Museum, I was still doing my Bachelor’s degree in Arts and Culture Studies, so my Master’s orientation coincided with the work I was doing at Valkhof. I was hired by the Valkhof Museum, as a Radboud student, particularly as a student who could participate in giving a unique perspective on the collaboration between art and science.”

    He leans over to look at what I have written down so far, then asks, “Could you add that I was selected to be a member of the core group, not the senate?”

    On the topic of unique perspectives, I ask him if he noticed a difference in approach or mindset between him and students from different faculties. He begins to answer, but is interrupted by an influx of customers to the coffee corner. He diligently switches to taking people’s orders, and once the rush dies down, he returns.

    “A difference? Well, yes… I think a difference was already reflected in my motivation when I applied for this position. They were asking what our opinion about the black hole was, what initial thoughts we had about it. I told them that I wanted to become an academic researcher, that I’ve done some independent research on it already, and that I’ve done some independent research on Affect studies – with an A!”

    At this point, something shifts: Jonathan is no longer just chatting during his work shift, cleaning Billie cups and keeping an eye out for customers – he embodies an academic, a professor giving a lecture on cultural studies (one I am struggling to capture the true depth of in my hastily-typed notes).

    “In my opinion, the phenomenon of the black hole is extremely challenging to grasp, so I attached some thoughts to it that were inspired by my previous research, such as imagining the black hole as a void with all emotions absent, with all humanness absent. So I was considering the black hole from a Culture-studies’ perspective. I was not the only person working on the exhibition from the Faculty of Arts, obviously, but I was very willing to stand in for the initial idea that I had.”

    “I think the perspective I have is also important for people who don’t know anything about black holes. Like, I didn’t know anything about the scientific side, I think most people probably don’t. In antiquity, people came up with Greek gods to try to understand the phenomena around themselves that were beyond understanding, and I think the black hole represents something similar.”

    “In my studies, we are taught to be extremely critical. Our study is very theoretical, so I thought it was very different…”

    Jonathan dashes away for a moment to retrieve some returned Billie cups from customers, puts them in the sink, then makes his way back over to me.

    “…I feel like other studies from the Faculty of Arts might have more practical applications, like studying languages, but with Arts and Culture Studies, it may be a stereotype, but you can’t really do anything with it if you don’t have more education, like in a job. You know what I mean?”

    I am a PPS student; naturally, I do.

    So, being an Arts and Culture student, you’re used to having to deal with more abstract ideas that aren’t tangible. You’re used to studying things that can’t necessarily be understood, like a black hole.

    “Oh… you put that much better than I did.” Jonathan half-sighs, half-chuckles.

    What does the exhibition mean to you, firstly as Jonathan the Arts and Culture scholar, and secondly as Jonathan the individual?

    “As a scholar, it means a successful combination of art and science perspectives.”

    He doesn’t elaborate, so I nudge him:

    And what about Jonathan, the individual?

    He smiles, this question is more difficult. After thinking for a moment, he says: “I think one major component of the exhibition was that it was co-designed with students my age, and I think it’s quite an honour to be part of this. I think that the exhibition really thrives off of that as well, because you can hear the contemporary voices. That’s very cool. Like it’s very… in the moment, completely recent. It speaks for our generation.”

    You were talking about Affect earlier; how do you feel when you’re in the exhibition?

    “I feel fascinated by all of the voices that come together. It’s a very overwhelming experience. It leaves me in awe. It makes you wonder why museums don’t work with students more often.”

    What do you think a student from the FFTR could learn from a visit to the exhibition?

    “People can have different conceptions, theories, “scientific theories”…” (Jonathan mimes the quotation marks for “scientific theories” with his hands, half-mockingly, with the air of someone who has several strong opinions on the separation of scientific theory from cultural theory), “…but they can express them in artworks as opposed to in writing. In philosophy, I feel as though writing is the primary way of expressing and learning ideas and theories. In the exhibition, philosophy students could try to retrace the objects, and try to see what theories the objects might incorporate or represent. Obviously the written descriptions of the artworks on the plaques help people to interpret the work…”

    Jonathan hesitates for a moment to gather his thoughts, then confides in me: “If the museum wants to work with students and take them seriously, I think a point of improvement in the future would be for them not to pick and choose from our ideas as it suits them or the status quo.”

    I detect some frustration and, in the spirit of journalism, I resolve to delve deeper, devising a new question while Jonathan finishes his shift.

    Were there things that the senate or the core group had suggested, but weren’t able to implement in the final exhibition?

    “Since I was a member of the core group, we weren’t part of a lot of conversations that the senate had. So I can’t really say anything about that. But we, as a core group, were each given additional specific focuses. One idea we had was contrary to what museums usually do –  we wanted to not print dates on objects we were exhibiting. There are a lot of objects in the vitrines and exhibition space such as the mobile telephone, prints, books from Radboud’s special collection… Using these objects, we wanted to give a comprehensive overview of people from different cultures and different time periods gazing into the stars and making art about it, or wanting to explore what’s waiting for them in the universe, and inventing technologies to do so. This is a cross-cultural thing, and we wanted the visitor to think for themselves about what connects different cultures, in spite of temporal differences. So we were thinking about just completely removing the data and locations of objects from the objects themselves, to not have the dates printed in the object descriptions.”

    “We wanted to do away with museum traditions. The students had visions for how we could change things, and this was brought up in conversation. But I think this, and other ideas, were sometimes too progressive, I guess, in the museum’s eyes. ‘This is not how we do it here’, basically. So those ideas from the students were put to the side, I feel, because they were so out of the way of traditions. But we weren’t really told that this was something we couldn’t give input on.”

    “There was also an issue with language. We were a mix of Dutch and international students, and one of the museum’s missions with the exhibition was to attract more students, which was why they wanted to have our perspective as students. We basically told them: ‘to be inclusive, it would be best to have English as the main language of communication’. But then there is also the tradition of the Valkhof museum to cooperate with German partners and visitors, so in their tradition, the main language of communication is Dutch, followed by German and English (or English and German). We wanted the main language to be English, not only for the big texts, but also for the videos, to make it more attractive to the general student population. But the museum reverted back to what they were used to. It was a very small thing, but I think we could have spent our time better if we had known there were certain things we couldn’t have changed, and we could have dedicated our energy elsewhere, towards things that were possible to change. The boundaries were sometimes a bit blurred.”

    “Basically, how museums usually work, they work with internal and external stakeholders. That makes sense for the museum. We as a core group were basically put in charge of the exhibition concept, or so we were told, which included the upcoming written narrative – the story we wanted to tell to the visitors – and we had a lot of ideas. Each of us in the core group prepared little powerpoints, presented what we thought about black holes, our study backgrounds, and we really connected with each other. From those conversations, we came up with a ‘master narrative’ which included the narrative, but also how to set it up in reality, spatial design, colour coding. One member had a really cool idea for making a vintage space poster, like Star Wars.”

    “And once we were told there were also external stakeholders involved, like a design team, we were excited to work together with them, we spent a lot of time on it, which says a lot, as students. We had multiple meetings. But what we weren’t really told – and I’m just saying that this should have been made clear upfront, to make sure we spent our time properly – was that the design team were the ones in charge because they had a lot of practical experience. We could give them our plans, but they would then tell us what they could do with that. And once they got back to us, I think all of us were shocked because the plan was completely different from what we had in mind with the story we wanted to tell. It was very different. We all really had to get warmed up to the idea. This is not to say that I don’t like the exhibition space as it is now, but we really had to get used to the idea because, at first, we didn’t know how this was going to go. And I think we would have done things differently if there had been transparent communication. I don’t want to sound too critical, but I remember everyone having a moment of silence when the plans were presented in front of us. We were like: ‘Huh? How did they come up with that?’. It was a surprise.”

    Did you learn anything about philosophy, politics or religion while you were working on the exhibition?

    “Well, I did learn a lot, of course, because another member of the core group is literally studying PPS, and she was very inspiring in her talks. I feel like she had a very personal stake in it. I love learning from other people as well. We had a lot of different backgrounds in the core group, and, of course, in the senate, but we didn’t collaborate as much with the senate as with the other core group members. I like to just listen to the very amazing ideas people have around me, obviously there is a reason why the collaboration wanted to have a philosophy student, and I think it was a great mix.”

    “The connection emphasised to me that mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion are all around us. People look up at the same night sky, as part of this imaginary of people thinking about the universe – we are all part of this. But there are still structural things in place that means that this togetherness is obstructed. We set others apart – we obstruct this togetherness. We create Otherness, we perpetuate ideas of cultural supremacy, we try to separate art and science.”

    “In my studies this is very much a point of attention, but to also see these ideas and points of attention emphasised in the work we were doing together, across studies and faculties, was really nice. The exhibition united students of all disciplines in thinking about black holes, and this unitedness is one of the goals of the exhibition itself.”

    “I like that the exhibition shows that people always have been, and always will be, curious about the world around them. I really like that.”

    The location and the exhibition itself describes itself as “accessible to wheelchair users and the disabled” on the website. Do you think this is the case?

    “It is now! For people with physical disabilities. So basically, when the initial design plans were shown to us, and we had a discussion about it, people were like ‘is it accessible for people who use wheelchairs?’, because the initial plan had obstructed the wheelchair ramp with walls. This was rectified, so now it is accessible for people with a wheelchair.”

    “But for some exhibition pieces, specifically ones that use a lot of light and noise, I would have appreciated a warning for people who are sensitive to flashing lights or intense sensory input in general. I don’t think there’s a warning in place right now, and that might limit accessibility for some people. But for the videos, for example, the education videos, there was a lot of conversation about how to deal with the sound. So we finally decided on ‘sound showers’, which I really like. Sound showers come from a source in the ceiling, and you have to stand under it, literally like a shower head but for sound. If you’re not under it, you don’t hear it. So that is good for people who would be overwhelmed by a lot of different sounds in the same room.”

    “And I also remember when we first went into the building on the Keizer Karelplein before the exhibition was set up. A lot of people from our group felt that the physical space of the building was very disorienting, challenging, and we kind of wanted it to not be overwhelming. There are a lot of colours, weirdly-shaped pillars, and we just wanted to create a coherent environment. When we were walking through the building at first, we felt quite uncomfortable. We felt we really had to work with the space and we didn’t want it to be too overwhelming for visitors. I think the exhibition itself is quite a lot, you know, it’s a bit overwhelming in terms of the content and the fact that it makes you feel like a little thing in the universe, it’s quite existential. This is making me think about Camus. May I refer to Camus?”

    You may.

    “I think Camus would have liked this exhibition a lot. You see yourself as this tiny thing, right in front of a black hole, and you think ‘Yes, it exists, you can ask a lot of questions and learn about it, but you can’t escape it, so you just have to face it’… I do like Camus.” Jonathan laughs a little at his own admiration for Camus.

    I recall that the students involved in the exhibition were each asked to devise a question for the visitors to consider as they walked around the exhibition. Your question was along the lines of: “Imagine you are being sucked into a black hole and into a different dimension, and you have to leave something behind. What is it?”. What would you leave behind as you went Into the Black Hole?

    “I asked this question because I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to answer the question. I think that everyone does want to leave something negative behind, maybe they feel that it isn’t a part of their story. So I feel like it’s, again, a very existential question. Usually, I tend to want to think about it, not just give a funny answer. I guess I would want to leave behind the feeling that I don’t deserve good things. Because I do, and everyone else also does. I don’t like it when people question their worth.”

    Speaking of worth, and as a way to round off the interview, what do you think makes the ‘Into the Black Hole’ exhibition worth experiencing?

    “I think the fact that it encourages people to experience curiosity, in the face of their fear. People look at black holes and think: ‘this is scary, but I’m going to study it anyway’. This is very human. I think the exhibition is a testament to human beings doing things both because of, and in spite of, existential fear or dread. Students, artists, scientists, everyone.”

  • Off the Record: FTR Coffee Corner’s Bert

    From the moment I enter the 15th floor’s coffee corner, I am welcomed by the ever-warm and comforting smell of coffee. On the table lies a crossword puzzle, glasses and an empty cup. “Can I get you something?” Bert asks, holding a small stick of liquorice in the left corner of his mouth. “Coffee, please,” I answer. He pours us both a fresh cup of hot black coffee and while we settle down at the table next to the bar, the great view of Nijmegen accompanies us. 

    Bert works on Mondays and Thursdays at the coffee corner on the 15th floor of Radboud University’s Erasmus building, which houses the spirit of Philosophy, Theology and Religious studies. Since the thinking mind needs a lot of coffee to process all that has been read and written, it seemed like a good idea to interview Bert who, together with Yolande, takes care of this precious place we all need in our daily lives.

    “So, Bert, can you tell me something about yourself?”

    “Well, I am Bert, originally a carpenter. Previously, I did maintenance for student housing. And my hobbies are birds and working with wood to make things.”

    When I ask Bert what he likes to make, a whole story unfolds in the morning of a regular but quiet day. He has just created a couple of parrot-trees from wood for his volunteering job at an elderly home where he is creating a birdhouse. Apart from doing all kinds of activities with the elderly, he also likes to cook. Right now, he is experimenting with spices from Greek cuisine, a very relevant region to the 15th floor. He is also very interested in antiquities. He tells me he owns a few massive books containing catholic illustrations which he absolutely loves. And that is not all. In his earlier days, he worked at what is now called Orientalis, the former biblical open-air museum, where he created museum pieces based on Roman archaeological excavations. Moreover, he is very skilled in renovating pieces of furniture, and in the past, he restored playgrounds to construct any furniture that his family had ever dreamed of.

    “Need to check if there is still enough coffee.”

    While greeting the incoming personnel, Bert heads off to the bar. When he returns, I ask him how many cups of coffee he drinks during the day, and what his favorite coffee is. He answers: “I think, well, it is a little bit less right now, but on average, 12-14 cups. I used to drink fresh filter coffee, but now we have Senseo at home, the dark Senseo. Nice, with a layer of foam on top.” And when I continue to ask for his favorite pastries on the side, he adds: “Just cookies. Regular plain waffle cookies. The only pastry I really like is schuimgebak.”Freely translated, it is a foam-pastry (again, the foam!). 

    We talk about all sorts of subjects, but a very important part of Bert’s life has not yet been addressed, so I return to the subject of birds. His eyes begin to sparkle when I ask him about his favorite birds.  “Colored canaries. And a putter. Well, actually, it is a goldfinch, but here, we call it a putter[1]. Beautiful bird to look at.” He shows me some pictures and videos of these beautiful, tiny creatures. His favorites are the red colored ones, mosaic-like, and we both listen to the charming, bright whistles of these birds. An amusing fact: because of his elaborated whistle-hearing abilities, Bert discovered that he was a little hard of hearing. “At one time, I entered the shed and I wondered, why don’t I hear the birds? Those sharp tones were just gone.” We both laugh. “Let’s see if there is enough tea left.” Whistling to himself now, he makes sure that everything is always in place and taken care of. 

    Next year, Bert will retire, and because he doesn’t have a yacht to run off to Dubai with, I ask him what he plans to do. He wants to continue his work as a volunteer at the elderly home, touring around on his moped, and specifically, he would like to spend his days fishing. He adds: “Then… I completely relax (…) I personally prefer the ‘old-school’ solid stick, which is far more beautiful to use, because then you have a sort of feeling with it (…) and when I am tired, I will buy some coffee and a meatball for my friend and I, and all of it is just very relaxing.”

    Bert is a morning person, a listening ear, a calm and friendly man. He has found his way at the 15th floor and he stresses the feeling of involvement he experiences during his working days which is created by the people at the coffee corner. When I stop my recording at approximately fifty-five minutes, we continue chattering for another forty-five minutes about movies, his family, and all sorts of things. Serving ourselves a final round of hot coffee, we discuss the missing cups problem while the sun breaks through the clouded, rainy morning. Just another day at the coffee-corner…

    [1] ‘Het puttertje’ is famously known as a painting by Carel Fabritius and the book cover of Donna Tartt’s ‘The Goldfinch’.

  • “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…)

  • Filosoof op de arbeidsmarkt: René ten Bos

    Wat bezielde je eigenlijk om het Denker des Vaderlandschap op je te nemen? Wat dreef je destijds?
    [Lacht:] Pure ijdelheid, dat is één. Ik kreeg die vraag op een gegeven ogenblik. Er is namelijk een soort comité, ‘de Maand van de Filosofie’, die bepalen wie deze titel kan krijgen. Er waren twee kandidaten, laat ik de andere kandidaat niet noemen, maar de stemmen staakten een beetje en ik ben het toen geworden. Er wordt dan een afspraak gemaakt in Trianon – ook wel bekend bij Splijtstof. Ik zat daar ‘s middags met iemand en wist van niets. Vervolgens komt er een hele groep mensen binnen, journalisten, een uitgever, collega’s, etc. om mij te feliciteren. Ze hadden natuurlijk weleens gepolst of ik er open voor zou staan. Maar vanaf dat moment, november 2016, wist ik dat ik de nieuwe Denker des Vaderlands zou worden. Ik had dat helemaal niet verwacht, maar toen ik ze zag lopen dacht ik: oh God. Dan heb je nog een half jaar om je voor te bereiden. Ik dacht: ik ga er een beetje over nadenken en ik zie wel hoe ik daar in duikel. Dat betekent dus dat je een waanzinnige drukte over je heen krijgt en dan ga je plannetjes maken. Wat ga ik doen in deze periode? En die plannetjes zijn redelijk uitgekomen.

    Read more…

  • Off the record: Paul van der Velde

    In de rubriek Off the Record praat Splijtstof met docenten en onderzoekers over hun bezigheden buiten de universiteit. Voor deze editie spraken we met Paul van der Velde, hoogleraar Aziatische Religies aan onze faculteit. Het gerucht ging dat Van der Velde in een vorig leven dolfijnentrainer was, maar dit bleek helaas een misverstand. Wel werkte hij voor diverse dierentijdschriften, waar hij een rijke dierenkennis en een nog rijkere verzameling anekdotes aan heeft overgehouden. 

    Lees verder…