Marcia Sá Cavalcante-Schuback

Biography

B. 1957. Docent in Philosophy at Södertörn University. PhD from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1992), with a thesis O começo de deus, on Schelling’s concept of beginning. Has published numerous articles and three monographs in philosophical hermeneutics, latest Lovtal till intet – essäer om filosofisk hermeneutik (2008). Directed the Research project “Det egna och det främmande, om Bildningstankens aktualitet”, supported by VR (2003-2006). Co-editor of Södertörn Philosophical Studies. On editorial board of Journal for Comparative and Continental Philosophy.

Ongoing research

Sá Cavalcante Schuback's contribution is a critical reappraisal of classical hermeneutics by developing the role of imagination. Through the work of Dilthey, Gadamer and Ricoeur, human sciences show an irreducible element of identification between the subject and object of knowledge. The question of history is thus connected to questions of intersubjectivity and interculturality. In contemporary criticism (post-colonial and feminist) philosophical hermeneutics is often portrayed as a reduction of differences to a common ground. The project raises the question if this criticism does not often reproduce the same logic. Both in the contemporary critique and in classical hermeneutics, the problem remains if understanding is a projection into the other, preserving a logic of identity. The solution, it will be argued, lies in the idea of a “third room” (cf. Bhabha 1994/2004), developed through a new understanding of imagination, as establishing an “in-between” space. Building on her previous work (2006) Schuback will show how the figures of past, present, and future can be understood as imaginative dimensions. The aim is ultimately to critically question temporal and spatial distinctions such as between pre-modernity and modernity, past and actuality, absence and presence and to contribute to a comparative hermeneutics that considers the uniqueness of the other and that contributes to cross-cultural understanding. Schuback is a member of the program committee.

Selected bibliography

O começo de deus (The Beginning of God: An Inquiry on the concept of beginning in Schelling’s Late Philosophy). (Petrópolis:Vozes, 1998)

– Para ler os medievais. Ensaio de hermenêutica imaginativa (Reading Medieval Authors: An Essay in Imginative Hermeneutics). (Petrópolis:Vozes, 2000)

– Lovtal till intet – essäer om filosofisk hermeneutik (Göteborg:Glänta produktion Förlag, 2006) [Polish translation: Pochwała nicości eseje o hermeneutyce filozoficzne – övers. Leonard Neuger, serie Hermeneia, ed. Wydawnichwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego, 2008.

– (ed. with H. Ruin) Thinking in History. Södertörns Philosophical Studies, vol 3. (Stockholm: Södertörns Högskola, 2006)

– „Europas’ Zwischendeutigkeit“, in Über Zivilisation und Differenz. Beiträge zu einer politischen Phänomenologie Europas, eds. L. Hagedorn u. Michael Staudigl (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2008)