Magical Thinking in times of crisis

14 Mar 2025

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The writer Alberto Manguel and the historian José Emilio Burucúa talk about the persistence of magical thinking in the contemporary world, its relationship with the construction of knowledge and its influence on art, science and religion over the centuries. Above all, they analyse the role of magical thinking as an instrument of interpretation and action upon reality in periods of turbulence.

KEF supports Burucúa's stay in Lisbon through the Atelier programme. 

Alberto Manguel (1948, Buenos Aires) grew up in Tel Aviv and Argentina, and adopted Canadian nationality in 1982. He was a reader for Borges between 1964 and 1968. He has lived in Spain, France, Italy and England, making a living as a reader and translator for various publishers. He has edited about a dozen anthologies of short stories on themes as diverse as the fantastic and erotic literature. He is an essayist, an award-winning novelist and the author of several international bestsellers, such as The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, A History of Curiosity, The Library at Night, Packing My Library, With Borges, A History of Reading and A Reading Diary (published by Tinta-da-china between 2013 and 2022). He published in Portugal, as a world premiere, the Recipes from Imaginary Places (2021) and A Perplexed Guide to Portugal (2022). He was director of the National Library of Argentina between 2016 and 2018. He received the Formentor Prize for Letters in 2017. Currently, he lives in Lisbon, where he directs Espaço Atlântida.

José Emílio Burúcua (Buenos Aires, 23 November 1946) is an award-winning Argentine essayist and art historian, PhD in Philosophy and Letters, researcher and professor at the National University of San Martín. He has published books and articles on the history of perspective, the historical relations between images, ideas, techniques and materials of colonial painting in South America. Visiting professor at the universities of Oviedo (Spain) and Cagliari (Italy), Directeur d’Études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, Winter Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles, California), Gastwissenschaftler at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, visiting professor at the Collège de France, Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and Fellow at the IAS-Nantes. He is a member of the National Academy of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, the National Academy of History and director of Eadem utraque Europa, a journal published by the "Edith Stein" Centre for Cultural and Intellectual History at the National University of San Martín (UNSAM). 

 

Information

Dialogues - with Alberto Manguel and José Emílio Burúcua
14 March at 7 pm
KEF: Rua de Santa Catarina, 9 - 3rd floor.
Free admission. Subject to capacity.