Reading Rorty Memorial
Richard Rorty, a pragmatist philosopher, public intellectual, democrat, and educator, died Friday, June 8th, 2007, at the age of 75. He was an inspiring, challenging and yet controversial thinker who urged for change to a better future. In remembrance of his life “Reading Rorty Memorials” will take place in various European cities throughout June 2007.
List of free of charge events in Europe during June 2007:
Café Ib René Cairo, Aalborg (Denmark): Suzie Neslund reads out passages of Rorty's "Love and Money"; Mike Sandbothe comments on Rorty and Sine Bach Ruettel (Copenhagen) plays Banjo in between.
Sunday, June 24th, 2007, 03:00 PM (CET)
REVIEW (in Danish) (English translation)
[Café Ib René Cairo, Reberbansgade 16B, 9000 Aalborg]
Chester's Bogcafe, Copenhagen (Denmark): A well-known Danish pragmatist reads out passages of his favorite Rorty articles (name will be revealed soon).
[Chester's Bogcafe, Strandgade 26, 1401 København K]
Grand Teatret, Copenhagen (Denmark): A well-known Danish pragmatist reads out passages of his favorite Rorty articles (name will be revealed soon). Furthermore the BBC movie "Richard Rorty: The Man Who Killed Truth" will be showcased and discussed.
[Grand Teatret, Mikkel Bryggers Gade 8, 1460 Købehavn K]
Café Wagner, Jena (Germany): Alexander Gröschner, Yvonne Förster and Kenton Barnes read passages of Rorty's autobiographical "Trotsky and the Wild Orchids" as well as some of his more political and philosophical essays; Music by "Indiecat".
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007, 07:00 PM (CET)
[Café Wagner, Wagnergasse 26, 07743 Jena]
Press:
Obituaries for Richard Rorty on Telos Press.
"To write and teach in close proximity to this vulnerable, enormously well read and often ingenious Richard Rorty gave one the encouraging certainty of being in the presence of intellectual greatness." (Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht: The Inspiring Power of the Shy Thinker: Richard Rorty, 13. June 2007)
"Richard Rorty, whose inventive work on philosophy, politics, literary theory and more made him one of the world's most influential contemporary thinkers, died Friday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 75." (New York Times, 11. June 2007)
"Among contemporary philosophers, I know of none who equalled Rorty in confronting his colleagues - and not only them - over the decades with new perspectives, new insights and new formulations. This awe-inspiring creativity owes much to the Romantic spirit of the poet who no longer concealed himself behind the academic philosopher." (Juergen Habermas, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 11. June 2007)
"Asked at the end of his life about the 'holy', the strict atheist answered: 'My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.'" (Juergen Habermas, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 11. June 2007)