Žarko Paić
Žarko Paić was born in 1958 in Kutina, Croatia and with his graduation thesis, mentored by Vanja Sutlić (Can a Play of the World Help Get over Metaphysics?), he already hinted that he was interested in important issues and that he wanted to pursue them through different tools, including literature. Soon he earned an MA with a thesis on Sartre, before a committee including another important philosopher, Branko Despot. His development trajectory brought him the prize of Seven Secretaries of SKOJ, which did not get lost in memories precisely because of its winners’ biographies. A PhD thesis on ‘culture as a new ideology’ will arrive much later, after a lot of personal and general upheaval, marked by his first book on the ‘end of the European mind’ (Njihalo na kraju stoljeća) and a collection of poetry (Aura) in the early nineties. Paić himself categorises his scholarly, cultural interests into three branches – 1) philosophy of art, philosophy of politics, aesthetics and media theory; 2) sociology of culture, sociology of fashion and contemporary art theory; and 3) globalisation theory, history of political ideas and image science – which relates him to the academic sphere, as a professor of academic courses, founder and editor of journals and editions, organiser of symposiums, author of around 20 books. However, ever since he organised representative literary and cultural events at a library in Ivanićgrad which attracted both speakers and audience, he has not given up on applied, promotional ambition, deeming it important to speak publicly the way Book Fair(y) in Istria does. “The problem of our time is not fear, but indifference,” he said in Pula at the presentation of his book Doba oligarhije. Primarily, “towards other people’s suffering”, about which he will discuss, also from the point of view of lyrical textuality of the collection Uronjeni, at the Breakfast with the Author, returning after 10 years.