Javier Gomá

Javier Gomá Lanzón
Javier Gomá
Born	1965 Bilbao

Era	21st century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy

Javier Gomá Lanzón (born 1965) is a Spanish philosopher who is the executive director of the Juan March Foundation in Madrid, Spain, a post he has held since 2003. He holds a doctorate in philosophy and degrees in both classical philology and Spanish law.

In 1993 he was the highest scoring candidate in the civil service examinations to serve as a legal counselor to the Spanish Council of State, the highest consultative body of the Spanish government, which he served actively until taking leave in 2008.

Gomá is married and the father of four children.

Writing and lecturing

Gomá is the author of the following books: Imitación y experiencia [Imitation and Experience] (Pre-Textos, 2003), Aquiles en el gineceo [Achilles in the gynaeceum] (Pre-Textos, 2007) and Ejemplaridad pública [Public exemplarity] (Taurus, 2009).

Ejemplaridad pública was chosen as one of the 20 best books of 2009 (17/20) by the literary supplement Babelia.^[1] The book is available in Italian and is pending publication in English in a translation by the late hispanicist Thomas Mermall, who spent the last year of his life on the work.

This trilogy is to be followed by a monograph on hope entitled Necessary but impossible, or what can we hope for? In the works, the book will address what Gomá sees as the remaining element of his work: viewing "exemplarity from the perspective of hope".^[2] In this way the book will complete a general philosophical project he calls a "theorem of experience and hope".^[2]

In addition to these books, Gomá has also published two collections of essays – Ingenuidad aprendida [Learned naïveté] (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2011), a book of seven essays that promote the project of recovering a "worldly philosophy" [filosofía mundana] which, while tied to the present, seeks to be universal;^[3] and Todo a mil [Everything a thousand] (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2012), a collection of 33 "micro-essays" of roughly a thousand words each previously published in the literary supplement Babelia. He has called Todo a mil a book written in installments like many 19th century works.^[4]

Gomá commissioned and coordinated a series of lectures at the Juan March Foundation that he collected and introduced in Ganarse la vida en el arte, la literatura y la música [Making a living in art, literature and music] (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2012). The title for the book is taken from one of Gomá’s essays in which he used the phrase "earning a living" as a way of saying we must all earn our position in the world, that it is not given to us. He went on to suggest that a productive way to view cultural history would be to examine the ways in which artists have made their living (supported by benefactors, wealthy patrons, inheritance or wage labor – among others) and how their identification with or rejection of those means of support influenced their work.^[5]

Besides his books, Gomá has published many articles in the popular and scholarly press including, among other publications: the newspapers, ABC, La Vanguardia, El País, and La Razón; the literary supplements ABCD and Babelia; and the journals Claves de la Razón Práctica, Revista de Libros, El Noticiero de las Ideas, Turia and Revista de Occidente.

Imitación y experiencia, Javier Gomá’s first book, brought immediate recognition in the form of the Spanish National Literature Award for Non-fiction in 2004. Prior to that, in 2001, he had received the Thirteenth Annual Award in Journalism of the Spanish Institutional Foundation (FIES) for his article La majestad del símbolo [The majesty of the symbol]. In 2011, he was honored with the award for outstanding work in cultural journalism, an award jointly sponsored by ABC Cultural (the cultural supplement of the newspaper ABC) and Ámbito Cultural (a sponsor of cultural activities funded by El Corte Inglés).

Gomá has lectured on subjects related to his works at a great many Spanish institutions, as well as at universities in the United States, Italy, Chile and Argentina. He has also given lectures and written essays and articles on the foundation sector.

He was elected in 2012 by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the fifty most influential Latin American intellectuals.^[6]

Other professional activities

Among his other associations and activities, Gomá serves as a member of the Advisory Council of the Revista de Estudios Orteguianos (Review of Ortegean Studies), the Board of Directors of the Spanish Council of Foundations, the International Visitors Program of the US State Department/US Information Agency and the Board of Trustees of the Royal Theater Foundation of Madrid. He also contributes to Spanish National Radio.

Awards

2001. Thirteenth Annual Award in Journalism of the Spanish Institutional Foundation
2004. Spanish National Literature Award for Non-fiction
2011. ABC Cultural & Ámbito Cultural Award
2012. II Political Journalism Award "Antonio Fontan" by the article "Yo no he sido"

Works

Javier Gomá is the author of the following monographs:

Imitación y experiencia, Pre-Textos, 2003; pocket edition in Crítica, 2005. Spanish National Literature Award in 2004. ISBN 84-8191-565-3
Aquiles en el gineceo, o aprender a ser mortal, Pre-Textos, 2007 ISBN 978-84-8191-813-7
Ejemplaridad pública, Taurus, 2009. ISBN 978-8430606832
Esemplarità pubblica, translated into Italian by Armando Editore, Roma, 2011 ISBN 978-8860818003
Necesario pero imposible, o ¿qué podemos esperar?, Taurus, 2013 ISBN 9788430602100

He has published collections of his lectures, essays and articles:

Ingenuidad aprendida, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2011 ISBN 978-84-8109-919-5
Todo a mil: 33 microensayos de filosofía mundana. Galaxia Gutenberg, 2012 (two editions) ISBN 978-8481099751
Materiales para una estética, Cátedra Jorge Oteiza, 2012 ISBN 978-84-9769-284-7
Razón: portería, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2014 ISBN 978-84-15863-76-2

He commissioned and coordinated and wrote the introduction to Ganarse la vida en el arte, la literatura y la música, Galaxia Gutenberg, dir., 2012 (ISBN 978-84-8109-962-1). He is also co-author, with Carlos García Gual and Fernando Savater of the book Muchas felicidades, Ariel, 2014.

He has published a collection of his writings on foundations:

Carta a las fundaciones españolas y otros ensayos del mismo estilo, Pre-Textos, 2014 ISBN 9788415894476

On October 22, 2014, Taurus is going to publish a pocket edition of his tetralogy on exemplarity consisting of Imitación y experiencia, Aquiles en el gineceo, Ejemplaridad pública and Necesario pero imposible, o ¿qué podemos esperar?