Kenneth White

Kenneth White ( b. 1936 in Glasgow ) is a Scottish writer and so-called intellectual nomad and founder of Geopoetics.

He studied foreign languages ​​, literature and philosophy in Glasgow, Munich and Paris and had long held a chair in poetry of the twentieth century at the Sorbonne. He made many trips around the world. In 1989, Kenneth White, the institute " international de géopoétique ". He lives in Brittany. His poetry, travelogues ( " Wegbücher " ) and essays have been translated into many languages.

The intellectual nomad

In his book, Wanderings of the mind, nomadic ways of Geopoetics - L' esprit nomade ( Waldgut Verlag, Frauenfeld 2007) Kenneth White undertakes the spiritual travels of an intellectual nomad and gives us an idea of ​​the nature of such " intellectual nomads': He is free of cultural and scientific limitations and conventions, his spirit roams all areas of the world, without specified destination, but always on the lookout for extension of one's own knowledge and cognition.

The figure of the intellectual nomads arrived in the 19th century - think of Arthur Rimbaud -, and Kenneth White is traveling with her ​​from the Celts to Eastern philosophies, from German Romanticism to Russian nihilism, of Thoreau in the forests of America to Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger in the Engadine and the Black Forest.

" When intellectual nomad mix scholarship and wandering ," writes Kenneth White - but this wandering is stimulating and invigorating for the weary of civilization intellect. " We try, in thinking continue - and not to forget that the extreme, deep reichendste thinking will perhaps not be realized in the philosophical discourse, but in the exact or extravagant language of a poem - we try the spirit to retain the possibility the earth to inhabit a more liberal way. "

Works (selection)

  • The white country. Essays ( Dianus - Trikont book publishing house, Munich 1984)
  • The blue trail. A journey ( Ark, Zurich 1984)
  • Letters from Gourgounel, from the English by Brigitte Nutz and Andrea Spingler ( Waldgut Verlag, Frauenfeld 1987)
  • The journey of the shaman, from the French by Beat Brechbühl ( Waldgut Verlag, Frauenfeld 1995, 1999 )
  • On the way to the coast - Walking the coast ( Waldgut Verlag, Frauenfeld 2007)
  • Outside In - La figure du dehors ( Waldgut Verlag, Frauenfeld 2007)
  • Wanderings of the mind, nomadic ways of Geopoetics - L' esprit nomade ( Waldgut Verlag, Frauenfeld 2007)
Integrated Authority File
471967
de