About NFK
WHAT IS NFK?
NFK is a student association organized by philosophy students for philosophy students, in connection with the Institute of Philosophy at KU Leuven. The main goal of a student association is to connect, entertain and help their members, but NFK is so much more. The NFK praesidium members will give their heart and soul to organize debates, reading groups, parties and more. NFK will also be your educational representative among the faculty and university. We’ll see to it that the “party people” as well as the “I-prefer-a-good-book people” feel at home among us.
We’ll organize several small and big events, for culture and book lovers as well as for party animals and even for the sportfans among us. We have a weekly recurring bread meal on Friday (bread, spread and coziness for €1,50) that brings people together. We also facilitate weeekly gatherings of reading groups. There are some big annual events like our first years weekend, the formal Christmas dinner, the cultural weekend trip and the ‘open expo’ where philosophy students can exhibit their arts. We also organise small game nights and of course cantusses and TD’s as well.
Good to know
- Every philosophy student is automatically a member of NFK. We choose not to ask a membership fee. This means you can join any NFK activity at any time, buy your readers at discount prices at our ‘cudi’ and contact us with any academic question or remark you have.
- Also good to know: we do not have ‘student baptism‘ or ‘hazing’ rituals. We don’t feel like you have to prove anything, your choice for philosophy already makes you one of us.
- Since every philosopher needs fuel; NFK offers coffee and tea with free contribution in our students lounge. Our lounge is in the basement of the Institute, and is open whenever the Institute is open. Feel free to nestle yourself in one of our couches or heat your pick-nick in our microwave. As a plus, you’ll always find someone there for a nice little talk or a big discussion in our lounge.
- A last important thing to know: as a service to our members we have a ‘cudi’. This means we sell printed course readers at discount prices. We do not sell any books, and we can only sell the readers professors send us. The readers we print will be sold in the basement, next to our student kitchenette, and in the concerning classes the first week after printing is done. Opening hours of the cudi are on the website www.nfk.be and on Facebook. The cudi is open from the second week on.
How to contact us
To stay informed about our activities please subscribe to our weekly newsletter: NFKalender (fill in your name and email address on the website in the box beneath the pictures) and join the Facebook group ‘Philosophy Students KU Leuven’. We also have a NFK Facebook page. If you have education related remarks or questions you can e-mail the education team: education@nfk.be. To reach cudi: cudi@nfk.be. For general remarks or questions preses@nfk.be & vice@nfk.be, send us a Facebook message or just ask a praesidium member. You’ll be sure to bump in to one of us at the Institute at any time!
This year’s Education Team has quite a lot of girl power! They will use that power to fight for your educational rights. They will inform themselves about new regulations and upcoming changes, so they can inform you the best way possible. Whether you have questions about your exams or an opinion about educational topics – Sophie, Nynke, Zoë and Emma look forward to hearing from you! Nynke is ready to make your life better by means of a critic reflection. She knows all about politics, so be aware if you want to discuss with her. Emma has real education-skills after a year of experience. She has a love-hate relationship with spelling mistakes. Apparently, meerkats are amazing. We saw Sophie dangling on a climbing wall, skating like a hurricane and playing soccer like a real Messi in the function Sports. She will show just as much or even more enthusiasm defending your educational rights. Much speculations go round about Zoë, but after a lot of research we can tell you that she will support the right direction (our reliable reporters base their information on a certain love for the pointer of the library). If the shot is fired you can be sure that these four goddesses will go straight line to reach their goal. Be warned, the front line of the female gender is arriving.
Ann’s choice to study philosophy is the result of an existential choice between a really terribly ugly black-and-white piano chair which you compulsory have to integrate in your design and an unfamiliar chocolate with a liqueur which has a long aftertaste that can either be pretty good or horrifically disgusting. She will be in charge of amusing you with the most awful puns. She also insisted on letting you know she can offer you a second eye bargain, i.e. her contact lenses. Alexandra has a special admiration for space. She has a love for petting strange animals (she appears to have a magnet for squirrels and moles). When you run into her in Leuven, you can have the feeling she is just wandering about without any direction. Don’t worry, she does this quite often: just capturing the beauty of this world wherever she is, by driftlessly strolling through the streets. Patrisia: do not fear perfection! Art, reading, daydreaming. On a purple, smiling background. These three girls will make you know, see and hear everything you need to. Fireworks included.
Willem Kloos wrote “Art is the most individual expression of the most individual emotion” and he was spot on. When Sharon, Abel, Ellen D. and Valerie be engaged in the function culture, they’re engaged most intimate. Even in Lloret de Mar, Costa Brava, Sharon seeks culture and visits the church. (Which was pretty beautiful btw ;)). Abel also likes the taste of some culture as a real chess-hero. He absolutely appreciates the esthetic functionality of the Belgian bread cutting machines. After an excellent exhibition of her own artwork, nobody can even doubt on Valerie’s appropriateness. Eternally inspired by the Uncanny: it is said that surrealism didn’t take a step back or forth since her. Ask Ellen something about calligraphy, cranes (origami), strumming piano or harp: the expectations are high! Even though she doesn’t comb her hair. Merida from the movie Brave has plagiarized her. To make matters worse, the trend has been settled: even James May joined.
Lien and Annalise will be responsible for the Party function, which means one thing: we are going to have a lot of parties! These ladies dissociate themselves completely from the, in their opinion, sadly overrepresented stupid parties with awful music. Under their rule, “party” will mean creativity, supply and demand, and alternative hipster things. The coming year will be one with big accomplishments. They are already talking about cheese-wine-music-tapas-and poetry evenings. And just wait until you see these girls dance! So hurry up and practice your tap dance moves, because this generation of Party representatives will definitely cause some fireworks!
Your readers wil, upon your decision, be provided by Sien, Els, Leen, Stef en Dickran. With care they will copy and share the epistèmè your professors put on paper. Els panics with music, but CUDI is no disco. Sien doesn’t like pink, and Leen loves blue. What will front page colour be like? As five vestal virgins they will vigil, whit hundred open eyes over the letters in black on the white paper. Stef doesn’t like raw tomatoes and neither likes Leen Pineapples, but really, with love they’ll care for your readers. Dickran lives, takes Tomatoes and pineapples for granted. Scouting experience maybe will be of aid. With this people, the Kantian question of what you may hope will be answered like this: you’ll get more beautiful readers, than they ever were before!.
Aaron Soens, Alex Doumen and Pieter Vandemoortele. Swimmers in competition, runners and mountainclimbers on to players and referees at the Royal Belgian Football Association: the sportive philosophy student can sleep like a baby, because Pieter, Aaron and Alex lead the way. An ideal geographical spread: the Ken-dolls from Kortrijk, Limburg and Kessel-Lo descended to Leuven with a single purpose: Nfk-sports to be put on the map once and for all. No need to go around it, our heroes know what they’re doing. Inspired by prefereably commercial music they plan to expand the offer to everyone’s desire and to lead us to unprecedented results at the 24 hour run. What drives them? Well, every athlete knows that with both feet on the ground, you won’t move a step. Furthermore, they will also astonish you apart from the world of sports. Alex – friends call him Alberto – can draw and cook terrific and made his name as the one and only ‘Yes-man’ of the HIW (he once went bald for a bet!). Aaron is determined to become the greatest Pokémon-master West-Flanders has ever known and enjoys the good-life of sun and chillings every chance he gets. Pieter is an adventurer in de richest sense of the word and like a true Rescue Ranger he spares time nor effort to be there for everyone. As a volunteer at summer school he lays the foundations of a better world. You sure can count on it: with these folks we will meet a golden age.
Two women. One is punk and one is alternative. Anke and Annalise. Together with Dickran, Felix and Laurens they will organise our beloved weekly Faknights. Ask your girls to play piano or guitar. Looking for experience ask Dickran. Looking for juvenility ask Felix. Looking for Laurens: check the lounge. Please pay them -if elected- a visit next year at the M-cafe. They’ll pull your glass out of the air, before it hits the ground. Hawk eye bartenders!
There we are, writing about ourselves. People will think us arrogant when we admit that Ana and Patrisia during Gods Creation queued three times (unfairly) and were so gifted with beauty, smartness and writing talent. As for Vinsent and Vincent ̧ game was over, God knew what happened, so beauty didn’t work out. Therefore they threw themselves on democracy, where content wins from beauty. The People will be safe! They’ll try desperately keeping this years standards. He who shall live, shall see!
Holding the numbers in check, in the bank account as well as somewhere deep in the computer, is the heavy task laying on the shoulders of our informatician-philosopher-winedevotee Wouter Termont. And you know as well as I that Atlas doesn’t take vacation. You can always count on Wouter, and he will count the bills.
NFK sometimes seemed a bit of a Dutch-speaking philosphy bubble. But our philosophy is that NFK should be the favorite Kring for all philosophy students, including the internationals! They, Zoë Claesen, Esther Mulders, Leigh Karras and Elske Kronemeijer, are happy to announce a new function in NFK: function international! They want to represent the international philosophy students in the NFK and hope to establish more intercultural contacts in that way. Because studying philosophy in a foreign country isn’t only about sitting lonely in your ‘kot’ reading about Descartes. A quote that is often used to explain African ethics can make this clear: Cognatus sum, ergo sumus (“I am related, therefore we are”). Their theory is that philosophy and intercultural international contacts are interwoven. That’s of course the reason that the Erasmus-exchange programme is named after a philosopher!
NFK’s long theatre tradition will, depending on us, be continued next year. Asking Nelis, it’s all about the story. A tragedy is never abstract, however this mistake has been made in philosophy. Real human tragedy is about blood and flesh. Nelis looks at a tragedy positively and wants to make something, aided by a group dynamic and a play someone else wrote. Redaction orders four seats already. Tragedies make us happy!
This year, Wouter and Sharon will be in charge of the warm welcome and adoption of our freshman students. Wouter de Hoog is widely known as an ever smiling optimist who’s goal it is to greet everyone in positive way, to make sure they will confidently take on the future. On the last trip to London, he was the only one to cheer up the people who were suffering from sore feet and an empty stomach. No one knows what we would’ve done without him. If you take into consideration that this overly sociable guy is accompanied by Sharon, you’ll know for sure that the freshmen will have the time of their lives at NFK. Every time Sharon laughs, it sounds like elves are dancing, angels are singing, in such a delightful way you can’t do anything but laugh along, louder and louder, in a crescendo that wipes away the world. You know you’re alive because living is all about being sociable. Happiness suits you well!