The Plurality of the Subject: Fernando Pessoa and the Crisis of Modernity

The plurality of the subject and the crisis of modernity / a pluralidade do sujeito e a crise da modernidade
International Conference, 4th to 6th February 2015

“The Plurality of the Subject is one of the most fundamental and pertinent issues in modern European philosophy and literature. Thinkers and poets such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Pessoa’s unrelenting excavation and critique of the subject, or man’s subjectivity, and in what sense man’s identity can or cannot be understood in terms of the concept of an “I” or “subject” has had a massive impact in the second half of the twentieth century that ended in the debate of “the death of the subject”. However, what is only now being acknowledged in the first two decades of the twenty-first century in Nietzsche, Pessoa and Kierkegaard research is that the critique of the subject or subjective thinking, rather than being dead, is itself a plurality, and opens up new vistas for creative thinking and praxis in the face of the continual crisis of modernity. Throughout the three days of this conference at the famous Casa Fernando Pessoa in the centre of Lisbon, there will be an international array of scholars, writers and philosophers exploring this plurality of the subject – via such themes as the use of mask, metaphor, heteronyms and pseudonyms in confronting ideas of truth, the interval between the poet and the philosopher, re-creating new mythologies, the challenges of self-knowledge, transforming Shakespeare’s multiplicity, re-imagining a new-paganism and aesthetics, Pessoa and Nietzsche´s encounter with Islam, and many more.”

Keynote speakers: Eduardo Lourenço, João Constâncio, George Pattinson, Oswaldo Giacoia, Onésimo Teotónio Almeida and Richard Zenith.

Participants: Ana Falcato, Antonio Cardiello, António Feijó, Bartholomew Ryan, Benedetta Zavata, Brendan O’Donoghue, Ernani Chaves, Fabrizio Boscaglia, Fernando Ribeiro, Filipa Freitas, Gianfranco Ferraro, JD Mininger, Maria João Mayer Branco, Mariana de Gray Castro, Marta Faustino, Pablo Javier Pérez López, Paulo Stellino, Pedro Sepúlveda, Pietro Gori, Rita Patrício and Steffen Dix.

Conference Organizer: Bartholomew Ryan, Marta Faustino and Antonio Cardiello.

Complete Programme

Poster