Ângela Fernandes
Situando-se explicitamente no campo vasto e incerto das revistas literárias, Suroeste chega ao seu sexto número com a oferta consistente de «textos inéditos de autores que escrevem nas diversas línguas peninsulares», e ainda um «escaparate de livros em que os críticos da publicação recomendam algumas das suas leituras favoritas do ano anterior». Estas palavras de Antonio Sáez Delgado (director da revista desde o seu primeiro número, publicado em 2011) descrevem, na última página do volume, a estrutura recorrente desta publicação anual, editada em Badajoz graças ao patrocínio conjunto da Junta de Extremadura e da Fundación Ortega Muñoz. Também nesse breve parágrafo posfacial, Sáez Delgado explica que os textos surgem «na sua língua original e sem tradução», o que pressupõe o pedido ao leitor para que faça «o pequeno esforço de ler nas línguas que partilham o espaço ibérico como sinal inequívoco de aproximação ao outro e à sua cultura».
Tomás N. Castro
A Art Basel é uma das principais feiras de arte da actualidade; todos os anos o evento tem lugar na sua cidade natal — Basileia, na Suíça — e, adicionalmente, em três outras cidades; uma das localizações da feira onde o volume de negócios é assaz significativo e onde estão presentes galerias e coleccionadores poderosos é Miami Beach, na Florida. Na edição de 2013, quem esteve pelas praias da costa do Atlântico pôde ver, durante os dias que durou o importante evento, uma pequena avioneta alugada que fazia voar fitas com mensagens; mas, ao invés da habitual publicidade a festas em discotecas, estas fitas continham um tipo de preces muito invulgares: numa delas, por exemplo, lia-se «HANS ULRICH OBRIST HEAR US»
Ana Ferraria
Da vontade de trazer para o papel os textos encenados pela companhia de teatro Artistas Unidos nasceu, em parceria com a editora Cotovia, a colecção Livrinhos do Teatro que, com a publicação em Novembro de 2016 de Dias Inteiros nas Árvores & Savannah Bay, de Marguerite Duras, ultrapassou a primeira centena de títulos. A tradução portuguesa de Dias Inteiros nas Árvores, a cargo de Vieira de Lima, estreou em 1992, e a de Savannah Bay, de António Barahona, em 1985.
Inês Morais
The problem of beauty is vital to all those concerned with art. Even in an era in which a lot of the art that is produced seems divorced from the notion of beauty, the public and, with the public, common sense, is still sensitive to the beautiful creations of artists.
Marana Borges
«Ele me fascina, me fascina como um monstro.»* É assim que Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) fala sobre Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) a Stravinsky, lembrando a amizade que tiveram em Paris durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Também é exatamente este o tom da exposição Picasso-Giacometti, no Museu Picasso de Paris: uma tentativa de evidenciar a amizade entre ambos que termina por tecer uma relação essencialmente assimétrica. Da obra de Giacometti ficamos com uma visão pouco elogiosa, enquanto o espanhol de Málaga instaura-se como um gênio assombroso e incomparável.
Pedro Tiago Ferreira
Questioning Sovereignty is the first volume of a quartet titled Law, State and Practical Reason. The other volumes are Rhetoric and the Rule of Law (2005), Institutions of Law (2007) and Practical Reason in Law and Morality (2008). The author of these works, Neil MacCormick, a Scottish and British national, died in 2009. He was a Professor of Law at Edinburgh University whose specialty was Jurisprudence, Legal Theory and Philosophy of Law. His academic functions were suspended between 1999 and 2004, as he was elected Member of the European Parliament for the Scottish National Party. During his tenure as Member of the European Parliament he also served as member of the Convention on the Future of Europe between 2002 and 2003, the body responsible for the Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, which did not come into force as it was rejected after referenda held in France and Holland. As international treaties must be ratified by the party in question before they are applicable to it, a Constitution for Europe designed to substitute a full-fledged federal state for what is now known as “European Union” would only be feasible if all its member states were to ratify it. Notwithstanding the positive results obtained in referenda held in Spain and Luxembourg, the rejections in France and Holland halted the process in the remaining member states and induced a “period of reflection” which culminated with the removal, from the text of the Treaty, of all federal references. The result is the Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force in 2009 and instituted the European Union.
Telmo Rodrigues
It is only fitting that Johnny Cash’s Forever Words: The Unknown Poems was published in late 2016, only a few weeks after Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. It is not fitting for the dignity Dylan’s prize bestowed upon singers and songwriters (although some was indeed bestowed), and it is not fitting because it entitles the editor of the volume, Paul Muldoon (himself a poet), to select lyrics of songs Cash never recorded and call them “poems”; what makes the publishing timing for this book perfect is the public discussion, aroused by Dylan’s award, about the validity of counting songwriting as literature, for this volume represents the unflawed way to end the discussion: to present a book of good poetry.
Inês Morais
In 2010 I published in the journal Disputatio a review of Peter Kivy’s book The Performance of Reading (1). The book promised a revisionary account of the activity of reading literature, one that clashes with current common-sense views. It is prudent to listen to common-sense and learn from tradition, but, at times, widespread, even ingrained beliefs are just falsehoods. Entire communities can be, and sometimes are, mistaken, deluded, for instance when they misinterpret the evidence or when they miss or ignore some detail that matters. And often, mistaken views breed more mistaken views, so it is important that philosophy uncovers and corrects mistakes. Kivy’s book aimed at countering what he considered to be an error in common-sense views of literature reading. At the time, I claimed that Kivy’s arguments against common-sense were not compelling enough for us to abandon common-sense. I was wrong.
Pedro Tiago Ferreira
In Under the Dome, a long and thrilling book, Stephen King caricaturises several problems which are transversal to all human societies. The environmental question posed by the greenhouse effect, the economic problem of scarcity of resources, the crumbling of law and justice before rhetorical demagogy, which is connected to the perversion of political power for personal rather than public use, are some of the issues King cleverly engages in this well-written and well-structured novel.
