Registration Open
Authors in Conversation
EXPLORING CRITICAL LIVES: FERNANDO PESSOA AND PHILOSOPHY
With Keynote Speaker Dr. Bartholomew Ryan
(Moderated by Nilambar Chakrabarti)
Sunday, September 20, 2026
6:00 PM IST
Online (Microsoft Teams)
Free Admission
Academic Discourse Overview & Abstract
What does it mean to be plural? What happens when a poet invents not just characters but entire selves — each with their own name, biography, and philosophy — and disperses identity so thoroughly that the very notion of a unified author dissolves?
In his philosophical biography Critical Lives: Fernando Pessoa (Reaktion, 2024), Bartholomew Ryan navigates the labyrinthine inner world of Portugal's greatest modernist poet — from his early years in Lisbon and South Africa to the birth of his heteronymic universe, his messianic dream of an empire of poets, his forays into esotericism and astrology, and his unfinished prose masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet. Alongside this, as co-editor of Fernando Pessoa and Philosophy: Countless Lives Inhabit Us (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), Ryan has assembled a landmark volume that reads Pessoa in dialogue with philosophy — from nihilism and transcendentalism to Indian philosophy, Daoism, and Islamic thought.
In conversation with the editors of Poorvam, Bartholomew Ryan will reflect on what it means to write the life of a poet who refused singular selfhood, on the intersection of biography and philosophy, and on what Pessoa's radical experiments with identity reveal about the deepest questions of human existence.
This session is part of Authors in Conversation, an online seminar series hosted by Poorvam International Journal of Creative Arts and Cultural Expressions.
In his philosophical biography Critical Lives: Fernando Pessoa (Reaktion, 2024), Bartholomew Ryan navigates the labyrinthine inner world of Portugal's greatest modernist poet — from his early years in Lisbon and South Africa to the birth of his heteronymic universe, his messianic dream of an empire of poets, his forays into esotericism and astrology, and his unfinished prose masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet. Alongside this, as co-editor of Fernando Pessoa and Philosophy: Countless Lives Inhabit Us (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), Ryan has assembled a landmark volume that reads Pessoa in dialogue with philosophy — from nihilism and transcendentalism to Indian philosophy, Daoism, and Islamic thought.
In conversation with the editors of Poorvam, Bartholomew Ryan will reflect on what it means to write the life of a poet who refused singular selfhood, on the intersection of biography and philosophy, and on what Pessoa's radical experiments with identity reveal about the deepest questions of human existence.
This session is part of Authors in Conversation, an online seminar series hosted by Poorvam International Journal of Creative Arts and Cultural Expressions.
Distinguished Keynote Speaker(s)
Dr. Bartholomew Ryan
Keynote Speaker
Profile →
Bartholomew Ryan is a philosopher and musician, and holds a position as Research Professor of Philosophy at NOVA University of Lisbon in Portugal, where he is also lecturer at the Department of Philosophy. Amongst his various publications, he is the author of the philosophical biography Critical Lives: Fernando Pessoa (Reaktion 2024) and Kierkegaard’s Indirect Politics: Interludes with Lukács, Schmitt, Benjamin and Adorno (Brill 2014). He is co-editor of Fernando Pessoa and Philosophy: Countless Lives Inhabit Us (Rowman & Littlefield 2021), and Nietzsche and the Problem of Subjectivity (De Gruyter 2015). His forthcoming book is called James Joyce: The Unfolding Art of Flourishing and Decay (OUP 2027). He has taught at universities in Brazil, Berlin, Oxford, Zagreb, Split, Dublin, Lisbon, Aarhus and Bishkek. In music, he leads the international dream-folk band The Loafing Heroes.
Session Moderator
Phd research scholar at Jadavpur University, Sylff fellowship recipent, Former Research fellow at Smith College, south Asian studies.