Bartholomew Ryan
Bartholomew Ryan is researcher and coordinator of the CultureLab at the Nova Institute of Philosophy (IFILNOVA), Universidade Nova de Lisboa. His academic and creative works orbit around the central motif of ‘transformation’, which takes into account the masks, journeys and (multiple) identities that define the modern human condition. Amongst his various publications, his books include Faces of the Self: Autobiography, Confession, Therapy (co-editor, Vendaval, 2019), Nietzsche and Pessoa: Essays (co-editor, tinta da china 2016), Nietzsche and the Problem of Subjectivity (co-editor, de Gruyter, 2015), and Kierkegaard’s Indirect Politics: Interludes with Lukács, Schmitt, Benjamin and Adorno (author, Brill, 2014). He holds degrees from Aarhus University (PhD); University College, Dublin (MA) in European Philosophy; and Trinity College, Dublin (BA) in Philosophy and Political Science. He was a lecturer at Bard College Berlin for four years, and has also taught at universities in Brazil, Oxford, Aarhus, Dublin and Lisbon. He is currently working on a book on the various journeys of the humanitarian and revolutionary figure Roger Casement in Brazil and the Congo; and he also leads the international music project The Loafing Heroes. barthlomewryan@fcsh.unl.pt
Address: IFL-FCSH
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Av. de Berna, 26 C
1069-061 Lisboa
Portugal
Address: IFL-FCSH
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Av. de Berna, 26 C
1069-061 Lisboa
Portugal
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The volume also includes the most complete English translation of Pessoa's text (written by his heteronym Álvaro de Campos) called "Notes for the Memory of my Master Caeiro."
Published by tinta-da-china, Lisboa: 2016
This new volume of essays brings together the multifaceted, philosophical poet Fernando Pessoa and the dramatic-poetic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. On the one hand, this book reveals the direct and indirect influence and impact Nietzsche has had on Pessoa, and, on the other hand, via linking the two writers, it unveils and explores themes and aspects of consciousness, cosmopolitanism, deception and the artist, the multiplicity of styles and perspectives, neo-paganism, the relationship between creativity and madness, creative mythology, the plurality of the subject, the concept of nothing and nihilism, the metaphysics of sensations, non-Aristotelian aesthetics, and the overall crisis of modernity. This books also shows that there is a creative conversation at play, and that there is much to gain in reading Nietzsche anew after Pessoa, and in reading Pessoa in light of Nietzsche. Finally, looking at Nietzsche and Pessoa together can foster the contemporary debate on the self and subject both from the perspective of French, post-structuralist thought and from the perspective of Anglo-American philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language.
[Esta colectânea de ensaios procura fazer uma aproximação entre o poeta filosófico multifacetado Fernando Pessoa e o filósofo dramático‑poético Friedrich Nietzsche. Por um lado, revela a influência e o impacto de Nietzsche em Pessoa; por outro, ao relacionar os dois autores, permite também explorar temas tão diversos como a consciência, o cosmopolitismo, o fingimento e o artista, a multiplicidade de estilos e perspectivas, o neopaganismo, a relação entre criatividade e loucura, a mitologia criativa, a pluralidade do sujeito, o conceito do nada e o niilismo, a metafísica das sensações, a estética não‑aristotélica e a crise geral da modernidade. O que aqui está em jogo é uma troca criativa de ideias, a partir da qual se tornará clara a vantagem de ler Nietzsche à luz de Pessoa e Pessoa à luz de Nietzsche.]
Edited by João Constâncio, Maria João Mayer Branco and Bartholomew Ryan
Published by de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston: 2015
Nietzsche's critique of the modern subject is often presented as a radical break with modern philosophy and associated with the so-called ‘death of the subject’ in 20th century philosophy. But Nietzsche claimed to be a ‘psychologist’ who was trying to open up the path for ‘new versions and sophistications of the soul hypothesis.’ Although there is no doubt that Nietzsche gave expression to a fundamental crisis of the modern conception of subjectivity (both from a theoretical and from a practical-existential perspective), it is open to debate whether he wanted to abandon the very idea of subjectivity or only to pose the problem of subjectivity in new terms.
The volume includes 26 articles by top Nietzsche scholars. The chapters in Part I, “Tradition and Context”, deal with the relationship between Nietzsche's views on subjectivity and modern philosophy, as well as with the late 19th century context in which his thought emerged; Part II, “The Crisis of the Subject”, examines the impact of Nietzsche's critique of the subject on 20th century philosophy, from Freud to Heidegger to Dennett, but also in such authors as Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, or Luhmann; Part III, “Current Debates - From Embodiment and Consciousness to Agency”, shows that the way in which Nietzsche engaged with such themes as the self, agency, consciousness, embodiment and self-knowledge makes his thought highly relevant for philosophy today, especially for philosophy of mind and ethics.
Review from Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter Dec 2014 (p.21-24): http://wp.stolaf.edu/kierkegaard/files/2014/03/Kierkegaard-No-63.pdf
Website: http://www.brill.com/products/book/kierkegaards-indirect-politics
Papers
Logos and Masks of the Self: Mirroring Kierkegaard and Pessoa’. Ryan
argues that, in the journey of forging the human self or subject into writing,
one would be hard pressed to surpass the achievements of the poet Pessoa
and the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard. Although there is no evidence that
Pessoa ever read anything by Kierkegaard, Ryan is prepared to take a journey
towards a linking of the two, who he sees as mirrors of each other – as
philosophical poet and poetic philosopher, and as dramatic poet and dramatic philosopher. Eduardo Lourenço once called Pessoa ‘the spy of nothing’ and Søren Kierkegaard ‘the spy of God’. Pessoa and Kierkegaard are the great writers of doubt and despair, and Ryan evokes the Danish word for despair – Fortvivlelse (literally meaning ‘too much doubt’) to better understand these two authorships, as well as ourselves, situated and let loose in modernity and postmodernity. Ryan analyses three expansive aspects which make and unmake the elusive self – vacillation, logos and masks. Analogous to Pessoa in literature, Kierkegaard is unique in philosophy in creating such a wide array of vivid characters (including the authors of Either/Or, Johannes Climacus, Johannes de silentio, Constantin Constantius, Vigilius Haufniensis, Frater Taciturnus and Anti-Climacus), who have often had more impact on philosophy than he has writing under his own name. The same can be said of Pessoa, in whose total othering of himself his greatest poetic expression is achieved (in Caeiro, Reis and Campos). Through an analysis of the mask, Ryan shows both the aesthetic and spiritual intent in these two polyphonic authors. On the one hand, Pessoa is more whimsical, as the agnostic non-Christian relishing and faltering in aesthetic perfection; while Kierkegaard is the last great Christian thinker yearning for the religious realm and spiritual courage. On the other hand, the great aesthetic gesture in Kierkegaard is never completely discarded, the poetic and theatrical element being central to his philosophical and theological strategy; while the mystical and spiritual quest (synonymous with the aesthetic realm for Pessoa) is always present in Pessoa’s oeuvre.
writings with new contemporary ecological perspectives which—in the act of interpenetration—are fusing philosophy, science, literature, anthropology,
political thought, new economic perspectives, and visual and sound media, in order to open up new ways to live and flourish on a damaged planet—in our “age of disintegration.” I present Kierkegaard’s diagnosis of his time as “the age of disintegration” (from 1848) as something that can be connected to the contemporary socio-political conditions in late modernity, and to the new epoch on the horizon which we are now experiencing. I interpret Kierkegaard’s expression “out into the middle of life” as the kernel of Kierkegaard’s authorship of interruption and unsettling. I argue it can be implicitly included in aspects of ecological perspectives offered by innovative writers today.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/kier/24/1/article-p437.xml?language=en
The volume also includes the most complete English translation of Pessoa's text (written by his heteronym Álvaro de Campos) called "Notes for the Memory of my Master Caeiro."
Published by tinta-da-china, Lisboa: 2016
This new volume of essays brings together the multifaceted, philosophical poet Fernando Pessoa and the dramatic-poetic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. On the one hand, this book reveals the direct and indirect influence and impact Nietzsche has had on Pessoa, and, on the other hand, via linking the two writers, it unveils and explores themes and aspects of consciousness, cosmopolitanism, deception and the artist, the multiplicity of styles and perspectives, neo-paganism, the relationship between creativity and madness, creative mythology, the plurality of the subject, the concept of nothing and nihilism, the metaphysics of sensations, non-Aristotelian aesthetics, and the overall crisis of modernity. This books also shows that there is a creative conversation at play, and that there is much to gain in reading Nietzsche anew after Pessoa, and in reading Pessoa in light of Nietzsche. Finally, looking at Nietzsche and Pessoa together can foster the contemporary debate on the self and subject both from the perspective of French, post-structuralist thought and from the perspective of Anglo-American philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language.
[Esta colectânea de ensaios procura fazer uma aproximação entre o poeta filosófico multifacetado Fernando Pessoa e o filósofo dramático‑poético Friedrich Nietzsche. Por um lado, revela a influência e o impacto de Nietzsche em Pessoa; por outro, ao relacionar os dois autores, permite também explorar temas tão diversos como a consciência, o cosmopolitismo, o fingimento e o artista, a multiplicidade de estilos e perspectivas, o neopaganismo, a relação entre criatividade e loucura, a mitologia criativa, a pluralidade do sujeito, o conceito do nada e o niilismo, a metafísica das sensações, a estética não‑aristotélica e a crise geral da modernidade. O que aqui está em jogo é uma troca criativa de ideias, a partir da qual se tornará clara a vantagem de ler Nietzsche à luz de Pessoa e Pessoa à luz de Nietzsche.]
Edited by João Constâncio, Maria João Mayer Branco and Bartholomew Ryan
Published by de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston: 2015
Nietzsche's critique of the modern subject is often presented as a radical break with modern philosophy and associated with the so-called ‘death of the subject’ in 20th century philosophy. But Nietzsche claimed to be a ‘psychologist’ who was trying to open up the path for ‘new versions and sophistications of the soul hypothesis.’ Although there is no doubt that Nietzsche gave expression to a fundamental crisis of the modern conception of subjectivity (both from a theoretical and from a practical-existential perspective), it is open to debate whether he wanted to abandon the very idea of subjectivity or only to pose the problem of subjectivity in new terms.
The volume includes 26 articles by top Nietzsche scholars. The chapters in Part I, “Tradition and Context”, deal with the relationship between Nietzsche's views on subjectivity and modern philosophy, as well as with the late 19th century context in which his thought emerged; Part II, “The Crisis of the Subject”, examines the impact of Nietzsche's critique of the subject on 20th century philosophy, from Freud to Heidegger to Dennett, but also in such authors as Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, or Luhmann; Part III, “Current Debates - From Embodiment and Consciousness to Agency”, shows that the way in which Nietzsche engaged with such themes as the self, agency, consciousness, embodiment and self-knowledge makes his thought highly relevant for philosophy today, especially for philosophy of mind and ethics.
Review from Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter Dec 2014 (p.21-24): http://wp.stolaf.edu/kierkegaard/files/2014/03/Kierkegaard-No-63.pdf
Website: http://www.brill.com/products/book/kierkegaards-indirect-politics
Logos and Masks of the Self: Mirroring Kierkegaard and Pessoa’. Ryan
argues that, in the journey of forging the human self or subject into writing,
one would be hard pressed to surpass the achievements of the poet Pessoa
and the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard. Although there is no evidence that
Pessoa ever read anything by Kierkegaard, Ryan is prepared to take a journey
towards a linking of the two, who he sees as mirrors of each other – as
philosophical poet and poetic philosopher, and as dramatic poet and dramatic philosopher. Eduardo Lourenço once called Pessoa ‘the spy of nothing’ and Søren Kierkegaard ‘the spy of God’. Pessoa and Kierkegaard are the great writers of doubt and despair, and Ryan evokes the Danish word for despair – Fortvivlelse (literally meaning ‘too much doubt’) to better understand these two authorships, as well as ourselves, situated and let loose in modernity and postmodernity. Ryan analyses three expansive aspects which make and unmake the elusive self – vacillation, logos and masks. Analogous to Pessoa in literature, Kierkegaard is unique in philosophy in creating such a wide array of vivid characters (including the authors of Either/Or, Johannes Climacus, Johannes de silentio, Constantin Constantius, Vigilius Haufniensis, Frater Taciturnus and Anti-Climacus), who have often had more impact on philosophy than he has writing under his own name. The same can be said of Pessoa, in whose total othering of himself his greatest poetic expression is achieved (in Caeiro, Reis and Campos). Through an analysis of the mask, Ryan shows both the aesthetic and spiritual intent in these two polyphonic authors. On the one hand, Pessoa is more whimsical, as the agnostic non-Christian relishing and faltering in aesthetic perfection; while Kierkegaard is the last great Christian thinker yearning for the religious realm and spiritual courage. On the other hand, the great aesthetic gesture in Kierkegaard is never completely discarded, the poetic and theatrical element being central to his philosophical and theological strategy; while the mystical and spiritual quest (synonymous with the aesthetic realm for Pessoa) is always present in Pessoa’s oeuvre.
writings with new contemporary ecological perspectives which—in the act of interpenetration—are fusing philosophy, science, literature, anthropology,
political thought, new economic perspectives, and visual and sound media, in order to open up new ways to live and flourish on a damaged planet—in our “age of disintegration.” I present Kierkegaard’s diagnosis of his time as “the age of disintegration” (from 1848) as something that can be connected to the contemporary socio-political conditions in late modernity, and to the new epoch on the horizon which we are now experiencing. I interpret Kierkegaard’s expression “out into the middle of life” as the kernel of Kierkegaard’s authorship of interruption and unsettling. I argue it can be implicitly included in aspects of ecological perspectives offered by innovative writers today.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/kier/24/1/article-p437.xml?language=en
The task of this essay is to analyse and compare the impossible journeys of Søren Kierkegaard and Fernando Pessoa as pioneers of a new form of exploration – the voyage in the interiority of the self. They appropriate many of the motifs of the traditional explorer, engaging in espionage, disguise, daring, shipwrecks and bordering on madness, to forge an authorship exploding into multiplicity in their voyage of the human self. The title - “Navegar é preciso; viver não é preciso” (“to sail is necessary; to live is not’) - is a term borrowed by Pessoa from the Portuguese navigators of the fifteenth century and the fourteenth century poet Plutarch, now transformed into an interior journey. Kierkegaard and Pessoa are joined together as paradoxical, polyphonic writers for paradoxical times in coming to distrust the onslaught and disintegration of modernity as well as being its most profound and enduring exponents, opening up new forms of narrative in the journey of the elusive self as subject.
[This essay is included as a chapter in the volume Kierkegaard and Political Theology, edited by Roberto Sirvent and Silas Morgan, Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications /Wipf and Staock Publishers, 2018]
[Published in e-book "From Hamann to Kierkegaard" - Experimentation & Dissidence Workshop 1, 2017: http://experimentation-dissidence.umadesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/From-Hamann-to-Kierkegaard_e-book.pdf]
Será possível que a revista literária lusófona de vanguarda Orpheu expresse o caos e o cosmopolitismo que Friedrich Nietzsche previra para a Europa e o artista nos séculos xx e xxi? Os espíritos dominantes de Orpheu, autoproclamados «sensacionalistas portugueses» — Fernando Pessoa, Álvaro de Campos, Mário de Sá‑Carneiro, Ângelo de Lima, Raul Leal, Luís de Montalvor, Ronald de Carvalho, José de Almada Negreiros, Santa Rita Pintor e Amadeo de Souza Cardoso — são, em muitos sentidos, os filhos de Nietzsche.
Dividido em duas partes, este capítulo procura mostrar a filosofia de Nietzsche em jogo na ideia pessoana de Orpheu, concentrando‑se em particular na poesia e personalidade do seu heterónimo mais prolífico e vociferante, Álvaro de Campos. Em primeiro lugar, relaciono alguns aspectos de uma Europa em desintegração, em 1915, com Orpheu e a sua apropriação desse mundo caótico na esteira de determinadas intuições e profecias de Nietzsche; em segundo lugar, partindo do pensamento apocalíptico de Nietzsche, proponho a visão do cosmopolitismo como expoente‑chave paradoxal do projecto artístico Orpheu. Quando uso a palavra «cosmopolita» para justapor Nietzsche e Orpheu, estou a reunir três aspectos para a definir: o «bom Europeu» de Nietzsche, a ideia do cidadão do mar, e o caosmos da pluralidade. A primeira parte deste capítulo pode ser lida como uma viagem desde o «último homem» de Nietzsche até às mudanças e transições para algo de novo; a segunda parte pode ser lida como uma introdução ao novo «ser humano cosmopolita» depois do fim deste «último homem». Ao longo de todo este artigo referir‑me‑ei também a um terceiro escritor nómada, James Joyce, de quem — por fazer parte da mesma geração de Orpheu, leitora de Nietzsche — aplico algumas intuições, perspectivas estéticas e o seu termo caosmos [chaosmos], para ajudar a expressar a inter‑relação entre caos e cosmopolitismo em Orpheu e Nietzsche.
Antes de continuar, é importante notar que, para Nietzsche e os colaboradores de Orpheu, o seu objecto é ainda apenas «Europeu branco de sexo masculino» (com a excepção, talvez, da poetisa ficcional Violante de Cysneiros em Orpheu 2). Se quisermos aceitar o desafio do ser humano cosmopolita, para o qual Nietzsche e Pessoa apontam, então não pode ser apenas uma pluralidade do sujeito que se está a desvelar, mas é preciso que uma pluralidade e multiplicidade de raças e géneros emirjam da sua essência cosmopolita, abrindo perspectivas a partir do Europeu branco de sexo masculino para a inclusão de, pelo menos, horizontes africanos, asiáticos e americanos.
1. Philosophical Essays: A Critical Edition. Edited by Nuno Ribeiro, New York: First Contra Mundum Press, 2012.
2. The Transformation Book. Edited by Nuno Ribeiro and Cláudia Souza, New York: First Contra Mundum Press, 2014.
[Neste paper, focar-me-ei no 'nonregionality' e 'indefiniteness of soul' de Pessoa, aplicando-os à possibilidade e actividade contemporânea do cosmopolitismo radical e da pluralidade da raça. Estes termos de Pessoa encontram-se numa carta, não publicada em vida, de 1916 (durante a Primeira Guerra Mundial), no contexto da promoção da revista modernista Orpheu. Tomando estas palavras e respectivo parágrafo (que declara também que os sensacionistas portugueses são «cosmopolitas e universais») como ponto de partida,
defenderei que as estratégias de espionagem de Pessoa, bem como as suas poesias heteronímica e mitologia criativa, destacam e penetram no papel incessantemente mutável da linguagem, da localização, do exílio, das máscaras e da metafísica desalojada humanas.
Juntos, estes aspectos abrem e expressam a possibilidade de transformação de culturas europeias em culturas globais, do estado de ordem espiritual e geopolítica do nomos num estado nómada, e da pluralidade do sujeito numa pluralidade de raça.]
http://casafernandopessoa.cm-lisboa.pt/fileadmin/CASA_FERNANDO_PESSOA/CFP_ACTAS_2017.pdf