Why politicize the cultural game? (Emil) Cioran’s ethos: mysticism, religion and ethnic philosophy

Authors

  • Felix Nicolau Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest, Romania/ Complutense University of Madrid, Spain https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8288-6516

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.26119

Keywords:

Emil Cioran, mysticism, left-wing, right-wing, hermeneutics

Abstract

The present research aims at understanding some of Emil Cioran's spiritual positions in several of his writings. The tools of analysis are the philosophical and cultural approaches, but also elements of positivist determinism, such as climate, disease, etc. The oeuvres studied belong to different periods of creation. The working hypothesis is that the essayist remained a lifelong thinker oscillating between the extreme right and the extreme left, as well as a stubborn and metaphysically rejected progressive thinker, but always obsessed with metaphysics and the transcendent. Among the commonplaces of Cioran's artistic and geopolitical critique of reality and the real are narcissism, humor, victimhood and diatribe. His work is underpinned by intuition and Utopian projection and much less by logic. Cioran becomes dangerous if treated as a programmatic philosopher, but otherwise he is a spectacular source of artistic and literary-philosophical insights; an experimental essayist, dangerous as an influencer. The fate of his thinking has been heavily marked by the ideologies of his interpreters.

Author Biography

Felix Nicolau, Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest, Romania/ Complutense University of Madrid, Spain

Felix Nicolau is a Romanian philologist, Lecturer in Romanian culture at Complutense University of Madrid and professor at the Technical University of Construction of Bucharest, Department of Foreign Languages and Communication. He is a lecturer at the Romanian Language Institute in Bucharest and is affiliated with the Doctoral School of 1 Decembrie 1918 University of Alba Iulia, Romania. He is editor of the Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies at the University of Lund, Sweden, where he taught for 4 years, of Madrid-based journal Littera Nova, and of Dublin-based journal Itaca. He holds a PhD in Literary Studies from the University of Bucharest with a thesis on comparative literature. His books: Antología didáctica de la literatura clásica rumana (with alba Diz Villanueva), Filosofia fricii – Teologia succesului. Tratat post-didactic de embolii culturale, Istoria nucleară a culturii. Cuante hermeneutice, Ingen fara på taket/ Totul e sub control. Lär dig rumänska/ Învaţã limba românã, You Are not Alone. Culture and Civilization, Morpheus: from Text to Images. Intersemiotic Translation, Comunicare şi creativitate. Interpretarea textului contemporan, Take the Floor. Professional Communication Theoretically Contextualized, Cultural Communication: Approaches to Modernity and Postmodernity, Estetica inumană. De la postmodernism la Facebook, Codul lui Eminescu, Anticanonice, Homo imprudens. As a writer, Felix Nicolau is a member of the Romanian Writers' Union and contributes literary criticism and history to numerous literary magazines. He has published several books of poetry and two novels: Kamceatka. Time is Honey, Pe mâna femeilor, Tandru şi rece, Bach, manele şi Kostel, Cucerirea râsului, Salonul de invenţii.

References

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Published

2024-05-15

How to Cite

Nicolau, F. (2024). Why politicize the cultural game? (Emil) Cioran’s ethos: mysticism, religion and ethnic philosophy. Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies, 7(1), 60–74. https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.26119

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2024): Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies

Section

Literature

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Copyright (c) 2024 Felix Nicolau

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