Miriam Díez Bosch
and Jordi Sánchez Torrents (eds.)
School of Communication and International Relations Blanquerna
Universitat Ramon Llull
Barcelona, 2016
Facultat de Comunicació i Relacions Internacionals Blanquerna
Plaça Joan Coromines s/n. Barcelona 08001
Tel. 93 253 31 08. http://blanquerna.edu/fcc
Primera edició: març 2016
Drets d’edició: Facultat de Comunicació i Relacions Internacionals Blanquerna. Universitat Ramon Llull
ISBN: 978-84-944764-3-3
Dipósit Legal: B-14.079-2016
Table of Contents / Índex
Preface
Notes on the contributors
Pessimism from Schopenhauer in Thomas Mann’s Narrative
The caste system and the Jewish problem as causes of intellectual decadence in Spain
Faith and Reason in the Constitution of Europe: the Testimony of Edith Stein
Two Renaissance texts and the paradoxical foundation of an atheist by default Europe
Antoni Tàpies: Spirituality or Atheism? An insight in his art writings
Ian McEwan, Atheist Narrative, and Ethnographic Criticism: Black Dogs as a Case-Study
Empty poetry. Literature as Atheistic Ground
Atheism and writing in Maurice Blanchot
Míriam Díez and Jordi Sànchez
Literature and atheism create a binomial not extensively studied because the two concepts may, at first glance, seem unrelated. Nevertheless, the expression of God’s absence is a common theme in literature and, specifically, in poetry. Absurdity, nonsense, hate for religion and voidness are collateral concepts which revolve around atheism.
Atheism, especially in times of unbelief or indifference, has been a potent literary force and has found a very strong and long-lasting opening in poetry. Atheist poetry recognizes that divinities are human constructions and, as such, highly irrelevant and even futile.
Literature expresses a human dimension; in this case, a religious dimension. On the other hand, the atheist worldview is also present.
In this volume we want to stress this part which is often not addressed. While mystical literature is very heavily studied, we want to highlight this less analyzed very attractive and powerful aspect.
This book gathers the reflections and dialogues resulting from a workshop devoted to this issue that was organized by the Blanquerna Observatory on Media, Religion and Culture during which scholars, artists, philosophers, anthropologists and media experts discussed the fascinating intersection between two deep realities, atheism on the one hand and literature, on the other, at an interdisciplinary meeting.
What literature expresses with words, atheism expresses with ideology. Literature can be seen in different formats like painting, music, theatre or other expressions: but its main essence is encapsulated in words. Atheism can be expressed with anger, words, silence –and silence expresses the atheist spirit in a very sensitive way - and also with battles, ideological manifestos or angry demonstrations. But sometimes in the nexus of these two worlds, we could surprisingly discover that language is not different and is sometimes even similar in an effort to embody realities that are familiar.
In the chapter “Pessimism from Schopenhauer in Thomas Mann’s Narrative”, Ignasi Boada addresses the following themes: change (nothing is forever), reality and moral values (we can shape reality according to our moral values) and the idea that will is the substance of reality, according to Schopenhauer.
In “The caste system and the Jewish problem as causes of intellectual decadence in Spain”, Marcelo L. Cambronero begins by defining how ideology has always been an instrument of power and argues that the caste system, along with the ideology derived from a corrupted understanding of Christianity —responsible for such a policy in the first place— are the main causes of intellectual decline in Spain during the modern era.
Professor Feliciana Merino wrote “Faith and reason in the constitution of Europe: the testimony of Edith Stein” in which she analyzes the thought and writings of this atheist turned-Christian philosopher and evokes phenomenology as an attempt to return to things themselves, an attempt to recover a sense of being.
Joan Vergés compares two texts and genres born five hundred years ago and at the same time: “The Prince” and “Utopia”. Vergés finds some parallelisms and contrasts between the two texts and defends the thesis that these two texts are foundational of what Europe is today with respect to religion.
Eulàlia Tort writes about Antoni Tàpies, a Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist. The chapter “Spirituality or atheism? An insight in his art writings” discusses art and spirituality in Tapies. Eulàlia Tort found some concepts like mystical, spirituality or religion in Tapies but he’s not a believer. Despite the prevailing secularism and appreciation of modern art with a formal schedule, the artist considers that true avant-garde art is that which maintains spiritual and moral strength. In this sense, there is no direct relationship in Tàpies’ work with institutionalized sacred art because the paintings aren’t an illustration of a religious belief. Tàpies promotes a way of spirituality that is foreign to any kind of theism. If the artist works like the mystics, it is because humanity is psychologically open to individuals loving and contemplation, which are the means of mystical activity and painting.
Ethan Quillen talks about atheist narrative and ethnographic criticism in Black Dogs as a Case-Study. Quillen analyzes the atheist narrative in “Black Dogs” (1992) which takes the form of a dialectical relationship between June and Bernard Tremaine, observed and re-created by an objective intermediary and presented as a differentiation between a broad sense of Christian-based religiosity and devout atheism. While this fiction provides an intriguing look at how McEwan weaves his narratives around the themes listed above, it also provides a historically progressive look into how atheism might be defined by an individual within a particular British context.
This English novelist and screenwriter wrote about atheist identity his early novels. This examination will address this construction by using this novel as a particular type of cultural and discursive source, wherein it will be read as a unique type of auto-ethnography, and thus read ‘anthropologically.’
Miriam Díez Bosch and Jordi Sánchez address poetry and voidness in their chapter “Empty poetry. Literature as Atheistic Ground”. Atheism, especially in eras of unbelief or indifference, has been a potent literary force, they claim. In this chapter, they show how the poet moves between the silence provoked both by the absurd as well as by mystical experience.
Boada Sanmartín, Ignasi. (PhD) Professor at Blanquera School of communication and International Relations. Interest including modern and contemporary Philosophy, intercultural dialogue and history of ideas. He also teaches at the ISCREB (Institute for Religious Sciences in Barcelona) and is member of the Fundació Joan Maragall (Dialogue between Modern culture and Christianity). His last book, written in Catalan, is Limits of our world. The unbearable fragility of Modern Reason. <ignasibs@blanquerna.url.edu>
Cabó Rodríguez, Joan. (PhD candidate), holds a Bachelor of Philosophy (2011) and Master in Research in Philosophy and Humanistic Studies (2013) from the Ramon Llull University, and is currently a doctoral student at the Faculty of Philosophy in the same university where he is preparing a thesis on the thought of Maurice Blanchot. During the 2014-2015 academic year he held a training grant from the Joan Maragall Foundation. In 2015 he performed a research stay at the Institut Catholique de Paris. He has published several works about Maurice Blanchot and in the field of contemporary philosophy. <joancabo89@gmail.com>
Diez Bosch, Miriam. (PhD) Director of the Blanquerna Observatory on Media, Religion and Culture in Barcelona. Professor Díez is also the Expert Director at the portal Aleteia.org, in Rome. She holds a PhD in Social Science (Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where she was a Lecturer in Journalism Studies). She has been the Project Coordination of Riseci.eu (Religion in the Shaping of European Cultural Identity). She is currently a Professor of Communication Theory in the International Relations degree programe at the Blanquerna School of Communication and International Relations (Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona). <miriamdb@blanquerna.url.edu>
López Cambronero, Marcelo. (PhD) Professor, Department of Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy Edith Stein - International Academy of Philosophy. In the past years his research has focus on the development of a proposal for a realistic study of hermeneutics from different authors with very significant coincidences, such as the early Ortega y Gasset, the later Wittgenstein, the perspectivism in ”Don Quixote” or “De vision Dei” by Nicholas of Cusa. He’s the President of the Vladímir Soloviev Spanish Society. His most recent academic work is The Illnes of Reason and Crimes against Humanity: Genocide as an Ideological Act. <marcelcambro@institutoifes.es>
Merino Escalera, Feliciana. (PhD) Professor, Department of Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy Edith Stein - International Academy of Philosophy. PhD in Philosophy of Law. Feliciana’s research interests include work on the philosophy of Edith Stein, phenomenology, anthropology (especially on the field of sexual differentiation) and political thought. She has been a Visiting-Professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Germany). She is also the Director of the Center for Women’s Studies, Maryam, and a regular contributor to the network experts of the Catholic news portal portal Aleteia (www.aleteia.org). Some of her latest contributions are: The illness of reason and crimes against Humanity: Genocide as an ideological act (Journal of East-West thought, 2013) and a recent book, Francisco, el Papa manso (Planeta, 2013), a biography of Pope Francis’ life and thought. <merino@institutoifes.es>
Quillen, Ethan G. (PhD) Quillen’s research focuses on discursive representations of Atheism, from political definitions, to fictional depictions. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies from the University of California, Riverside; a Master of Arts in Religious Studies from California State University, Long Beach; and two Master of Arts degrees in American Studies and Church-State Studies, from Baylor University. His PhD thesis (University of Edinburgh, 2015) offered a critical perception on the authenticity of ethnographic texts, by analyzing two novels (Black Dogs and Enduring Love, by Ian McEwan) as first-person amateur accounts concerning twentieth-century British Atheist identity construction. At present, he is compiling a reader on the academic definition of Atheism, a reader on the United States Supreme Court’s definition of American Atheism, and a monograph on the ‘Atheist Gospel,’ novels written by self-described Atheists, that present critical re-writes of the life (and death) of Jesus Christ. Much of this is further discussed on his academic blog: www.everythingisfiction.org. <ethanquillen@gmail.com>
Sànchez Torrents, Jordi. (PhD) Professor of History and Contemporary Though in School of Communication and International Relations (Ramon Llull University). His research interests include work in religion, communication and culture, religions and dialogue and urban topics. He serves as a deputy-director in Blanquerna Observatory on Media, Religion and Culture and he’s a coordinator of Diploma in Communication and Religion in the Digital Age. Journalism Bachelor’s degree, Anthropology Bachelor’s degree, Religious studies bachelor’s degree and doctor (PhD) of Communication Sciences. <jordist@blanquerna.url.edu>
Tort Bodro, Eulàlia. PhD in Philosophy with a thesis on the aesthetic writings of the painter Antoni Tapies. Tort explores the relationship between Philosophy and Art. Degree in Journalism and in Humanities also, she studied a master’s degree in cultural management. She also has a diploma in Comparative Religions. Currently she is working in an NGO developing educational projects in America and Africa. Athought she has developed his career in the field of Communications, she worked as University teacher in Guatemala, country where she lived. <eulalia.tort@gmail.com>
Vergés Gifra, Joan. (PhD) Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Girona, Catalonia/Spain. Director of the Ferrater Mora Chair of Contemporary Thought. Vergés’s main field of research is contemporary political philosophy, including the issue of public reason and the role of religion in Western liberal democracies. His last book is La nació necessària: llengua, secessió, democràcia (2013). <joan.verges@udg.edu>