The Coffee Break section of IPM Monthly is an open space to delve into cultural and artistic creativity. Like any coffee breaks, it is a space of fruition and re-creation from which you can get inspirational insights about something unexpected.
Por Francisco Iversen
Mayo 2023 – En su análisis de la cultura griega y, especialmente, de la obra de Alcidamente de Elea, Luis Ángel Castello –gran profesor de griego en la Universidad de Buenos Aires y Universidad de San Martín, entre otros, muy bien recordado por todos sus exalumnos– problematizaba la tensión entre oralidad y escritura en la Grecia Antigua. Dicha tensión no puede pasar desapercibida a la mayoría de nuestros lectores que, aunque en el ejercicio de sus tareas de investigación y docencia ponen en juego ambas habilidades, ven muchas veces priorizada a la escritura sobre la oralidad. Así, la presente entrevista intenta saldar esa deuda gracias a Azul Birenbaum, Locutora Nacional que ejerce en Argentina como conductora en radio y televisión, quien nos va a hablar del uso profesional de la palabra hablada.
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Por Francisco Iversen
Abril 2023 – Nuestros lectores de IPM Monthly estarán ya familiarizados con proposiciones que sostienen que el conocimiento comienza con los sentidos y que nada hay en el intelecto que no haya pasado antes por la facultad imaginativa. Aquellas parecen invitarnos a utilizar la captación estética (en el sentido griego de sensación, aísthesis) como un peldaño o un trampolín que nos acerca más y más a las verdades más profundas y a acercarnos a lo más cognoscible en sí. Esos últimos serían los objetos de estudio más alejados de nuestra sensibilidad y su acceso se daría paso a paso sin descartar ni saltar lo más cognoscible inmediatamente para nosotros, i.e. aquello que nos es inmediato a los sentidos. De algún modo, hay una sugerencia a explorar la sensibilidad y a adentrarnos en el arte, las ciencias y la naturaleza primero por los sentidos. No obstante, como siempre en filosofía, hay adversarios de la sensibilidad que sugieren tener cuidado al tratar con esta facultad que nos fomenta el ocio, el crimen y el pecado, nos aleja de lo más alto y abstracto.
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By Sarah Virgi
Marzo 2023 – Filosofia e teatro sono legati nella tradizione occidentale fin dall’antica Grecia. La commedia e la tragedia, in particolare, hanno sempre occupato un posto centrale nell’indagine e nell’analisi filosofica. Non solo, ma il teatro stesso è stato utilizzato come veicolo per trasmettere un’argomentazione filosofica sulla moralità. Questo mese esploriamo le intersezioni tra queste due discipline cruciali con Bianca Iannaccone. Filosofa e attrice, mette alla prova i limiti di questo rapporto dall’interno. In questa intervista, ci parla in particolare del suo punto di vista sull’opera del grande drammaturgo francese Molière e del modo unico in cui mostra una divertente e, al tempo stesso, amara critica filosofica dei valori morali del suo tempo, costruita attraverso un elaborato gioco teatrale argomentativo. Inoltre, spiega anche l’impatto che questa analisi filosofica ha avuto sulla sua pratica performativa come attrice.
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By Pawel Trzciakowski
February 2023 – Medieval philosophy is immensely indebted to the last philosopher of Antiquity, Boethius. Witnessing the ultimate eclipse of the ancient world, that intellectual giant devoted himself to the task of preserving the achievements of greco-roman culture. It is hard to overemphasise his influence on the teaching of logic and metaphysics in the following centuries, and these areas are naturally most interesting for philosophers today. However, Boethius’ interest was far from being limited to translating and commenting on Aristotle. He also wrote manuals of the arts quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, which were widely used in medieval universities. Indeed, Boethius’ impact on the curriculum was so rich that the historian R. W. Southern nicknamed him “the schoolmaster of medieval Europe”.
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By Nicola Polloni
January 2023 – How are Averroes and al-Ghazali connected to Sponge cakes, Rice Krispies, and Snickerdoodles? In the cold lands of Wisconsin, when the freezing wind blows from the lake and reminds to everyone that autumn will soon become winter, a professor of philosophy has started a long-lasting tradition that has made life far sweeter for hundreds of students and professors of philosophy. IPM Monthly had to find out more about this. We contacted Richard Taylor, from Marquette University. In our interview, Richard expands on the list of students’ recipes that he has started to collect in 1986 and the reasons behind this fascinating tradition. He also gives some culinary advice and reflections on how to build rapport with the students when dealing with philosophy and its history.
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By Nicola Polloni
December 2022 – The Coffee Break of our December issue invites you to dive into a “different” representation of Tolkien’s universe. You have enjoyed Peter Jackson’s trilogy of The Lord of the Rings and you might have been puzzled by the later trilogy The Hobbit (as many of us did). Now that 2022 is coming to an end, you have probably survived countless discussions, controversies, debates, and fights about Amazon’s The Rings of Power. Perhaps, you think you want some rest from Tolkien and the manifold ways in which the universe he created can be represented on the screen, waiting to listen to some Kzoo panels on the topic in the spring of 2023.
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By Eduarda Machado and Mário Correia
October 2022 – Vicente Lusitano was a renowned composer and music theorist of the 16th century. He was born in Olivença, at the time a small Portuguese town. He benefited from musical training from an early age by private teachers who had a close connection with the bishopric and with the bishop himself. This fact led him to be recommended to D. Afonso de Lencastre, Portuguese ambassador to the Holy See, in Italy. In Rome he found recognition as a teacher, theorist, and musician, and was ordained a priest. He later converts to Protestantism and marries, emigrating to Germany, where he ends up in financial decline and without a residence permit, and where his trace disappears, probably at the hands of the Inquisition.
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Por Francisco Iversen
Septiembre 2022 – Casi no fue una serie sino una película, a lo que G. R. R. Martin se negó. Fue la primera serie transmitida en un IMAX, lo que sucedió en enero de 2015 cuando se proyectaron los dos últimos capítulos de la cuarta temporada durante una semana y se recaudaron millones. Superó al máximo de audiencia que HBO había logrado con Los soprano en 2002, cuando llegó en 2014 a un promedio de 18.6 millones de espectadores. Fue la serie más galardonada con premios Emmy, acumulando 38 en total de los cuales 12 los consiguió en la misma noche de 2015. Decayó a un nivel exponencial – desde mediados de 2016 con la salida de la temporada 6 hasta fines del 2019 con la finalización de la inmunda temporada 8 – al punto de que no se puede comprender como actores que trabajaron en ella defienden semejante insulto a la serie que vio la boda roja. Hablamos, obviamente, de GOT.
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By Eduarda Machado and Mário Correia
July 2022 – The month of June is marked by several popular festivals that celebrate the patrons of various places in Portugal. St. Anthony, St. John, St. Peter, are the saints who give name to the most prominent festivals of this time of the year. Every year, St. John the Baptist Day is celebrated on June 24th in various places on the planet. In Portugal, the tradition continues. However, St. John is not the patron saint of the city of Porto, its celebration is due to different reasons, which we will present later. Although June 24th is the official holiday of the celebration, it is on the night of the 23rd that this festival has its greatest expression, bringing together hundreds of thousands of people in Porto’s downtown. From the end of the afternoon, after work, those who walk through the streets and alleys of Porto feel the excitement of the party, either in the smell of brazier and the first grilled sardines in the street, or in the colourful decorations that fill the facades of the historical Porto.
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By Nicola Polloni
June 2022 – Every ten years, in the Flemish town of Dendermonde, Belgium, something unique takes place. The quiet town is suddenly invaded by thousands of people coming from all over Belgium and abroad (more than eighty thousand in 2022). Starting from the banks of the river Scheldt, a historical costume parade of hundreds of Dendermondenaars (the town residents) and actors slowly marches through the streets of Dendermonde, representing with costumes and chariots the long history of this town and the legend of the Ros Beiaard. The majestic parade is crowned and closed by the Ros Beiaard, from which the festival takes its name. A gigantic wooden horse is brought around by the pijnders, three groups of twelve people that in turns carry the huge beast around and simulate the moves of a real horse. On top of it, four kids ride the horse. They are four brothers (also in real life) that represent the heemskinderen – Renaud de Montauban and his three brothers from the legend of the Beiaard. A huge crowd cheers the passage of the Ros Beiaard singing an old Flemish song (’t Ros Beyaert doet zyn ronde, in de Stadt van Dendermonde, ….) while an ecstatic feeling permeates tourists and locals alike.
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By Nicola Polloni
May 2022 – Andrea Fagioli’s artistic production is marked by the artist’s constant dialogue with the flow of time. Playing with its oxymoronic presence and absence, attachment and detachment, time is the veiled protagonist of Fagioli’s pieces. As with an ancient deity, time manifests itself in its creative functions: it shapes destinies and thoughts, lives and deaths, feelings and convictions. While the notion of time has fascinated many artists, Fagioli’s unique artistic perspective depicts a different aspect of time’s agency in the universe. His glance is focused on time’s merciless reshaping of forms, its jovially brutal flowing that alters patterns, changes forms, and unveils what was supposed to stay hidden. It is like if time were amusing itself in this process of constant alteration of forms, shapes, and structures.
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