Abraham Kuyper Lecture 2024
Désanne van Brederode
Writer in Residence VU Amsterdam academic year 2024-2025
Désanne van Brederode is appointed Writer in Residence at VU Amsterdam. She takes over from Nina Polak and made her entrance on May 13 at the Abraham Kuyper Lecture in the Amsterdam Westerkerk.
At the beginning of the lecture, Van Brederode says: "You may remember that at some point it was decided to replace the expression 'mentally handicapped' with 'people with intellectual disabilities'.
This new definition gave me a liberated and joyful feeling in two ways: it did justice to those with intellectual disabilities, who were still seen as spiritual beings, i.e. as human beings - AND it made it clear, albeit implicitly, that human beings are spiritual beings, regardless of their intellectual abilities.
Based on this rightful substitution, one might have expected that since then the differences between mind, mind, brain, wiring, spirit, consciousness, feelings and emotions, and soul or psyche have been discussed with at least as much care. Not to mention identity and personality. The opposite is true."
"There is so much you don't know. Infinitely more than what others don't know about you and than what you don't know about yourself."
On her appointment as Writer in Residence, she says: “I chose the theme of 'playful drive': a capacity situated between our physical-emotional and intellectual-moral drives. According to the poet, (drama) writer, and thinker Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), it is play that truly makes humans human - sensitive, imaginative, free. Instead of 'either/or', not just 'and/and', but a lively, dynamic middle ground that we must continue to create ourselves. How? That is what I hope to explore this year together with others. Sensually, imaginatively. Animated, inspired, with passion!"
"I have come to believe that a threefold view of man, consisting of body, soul and mind, or of wanting, feeling, thinking, does much more justice to human experiential reality."
Van Brederode is the eighteenth Writer in Residence at VU Amsterdam and the successor of Nina Polak and previous Writers in Residence such as Arnon Grunberg, Bas Heijne, Maxim Februari, Ernest van der Kwast, Ronald Giphart, Renate Dorrestein, and Abdelkader Benali. The appointment of the Writer in Residence at VU Amsterdam is made possible in part by VUvereniging (Dutch only). During her tenure as a Writer in Residence, Van Brederode will also give lectures at the Faculty of Humanities.
Désanne van Brederode (1970) is a writer, philosopher, and essayist with an extensive literary oeuvre. She studied philosophy at VU Amsterdam and made her debut with the novel 'Ave verum corpus' in 1994. Since then, she has published a large number of other works, including Mijn denken is een hartstocht (2002), the diary Barsten (2006) and 'Modern dédain' (2006). She recently released her new book Hoe het vuur te redden (How to Save the Fire).
Van Brederode is also involved in social initiatives; she was a board member of The Syrian Committee and is a member of the Advisory Board Philosophy at VU Amsterdam.
magazine for humanities alumni june 2024