Richard M. Kearney | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1954 (age 71–72) Cork, Ireland |
| Spouse | Anne Bernard |
| Awards | Election to theRoyal Irish Academy (1998) |
| Education | |
| Education | University College Dublin (BA) McGill University (MA) Paris Nanterre University (PhD) |
| Doctoral advisor | Paul Ricoeur |
| Other advisor | Charles Taylor |
| Philosophical work | |
| School | Continental philosophy,hermeneutics,phenomenology |
| Institutions | Boston College |
| Main interests | hermeneutics,phenomenology,philosophy of religion,aesthetics |
| Notable works | The Wake of the Imagination (1998),Poetics of Imagining (1998),On Stories (2001),Debates in Continental Philosophy (2004),Anatheism (2011) |
| Notable ideas | Diacritical hermeneutics, Carnal hermeneutics,[1] 'Anatheism'[citation needed] |
| Website | richardmkearney |
Richard M. Kearney (/ˈkɑːrni/; born 1954) is an Irishphilosopher andpublic intellectual specializing in contemporarycontinental philosophy. He is the Charles Seelig Professor inPhilosophy atBoston College and has taught atUniversity College Dublin, theSorbonne, theUniversity of Nice, and theAustralian Catholic University. He is also a member of theRoyal Irish Academy. As a public intellectual in Ireland, he was involved in drafting a number of proposals for aNorthern Irish peace agreement (1983, 1993, 1995). He is currently international director of theGuestbook Project.
Kearney studied atGlenstal Abbey under theBenedictines until 1972 and graduated with a B.A. in 1975 from University College Dublin. With fellow students he launched the "Crane Bag" journal. He completed an M.A. atMcGill University with Canadian philosopherCharles Taylor in 1976 and held a Masters Travelling Studentship, National University of Ireland, in 1977. He then completed his Ph.D. withPaul Ricœur atUniversity of Paris X: Nanterre. He corresponded withJean-Paul Sartre,Jacques Derrida and other French philosophers of the era.[citation needed][2] He was also active in the Irish, British, and French media as a host for various television and radio programs on literary and philosophical themes. His work focuses on the philosophy of the narrative imagination,hermeneutics andphenomenology. Notable academic posts include University College of Dublin (1988–2001), The Film School, UCD (1993–2005), the Sorbonne, University of Paris (1995), and Boston College (1999–present).
Richard Kearney currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts, where he is married to Anne Bernard and has two daughters, Simone and Sarah.
Among Kearney's best-known written works areThe Wake of the Imagination (Routledge, 1998),Poetics of Imagining (Fordham, 1998),On Stories (Routledge, 2002; translated into Dutch and Chinese),Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness (Routledge, 2003; translated into Greek and Korean),Debates in Continental Philosophy (Fordham, 2004),Modern Movements in European Philosophy (Manchester University Press, 1984), andAnatheism: Returning to God after God (Columbia, 2011; revised editions published in French and Italian).
Kearney's work attempts to steer "a middle path between Romantic hermeneutics (Schleiermacher) which retrieve and reappropriate God as presence and radical hermeneutics (Derrida,Caputo) which elevatesalterity to the status of undecidablesublimity."[3] He calls his approach "diacritical hermeneutics."[3]
