fragilekeys

(The following text was given on August 27, 2011, at the University of Iowa’s 12th annual Religion and Literature conference.  The topic was “Uncanny Homecomings,” and I wrote on Paul Celan’s 1960 Meridian speech. For those who would like to consult the speech itself, click here for a link to Rosemarie Waldrop’s translation.)

In Light of Utopia

Today I will discuss with you the thought that the poem takes for “its home and hope.” The thought is this: that the poem makes possible an encounter between an “altogether other” and a “not-so-distant” other, and that the poem only exists for the sake of this encounter. I will begin by discussing what is required of the poet and the reader according to Celan’s vision for poetry, and I will finish with a freer discussion on the nature of this encounter and its consequences for us and for “poetry.” I admit that today I am not going to give you a systematic analysis of the Meridian speech. Instead I am going to try to speak in its direction, and to share with you the path of poetry that it points out. In other words, rather than trying to look upon this work from the outside, I will try to show forth its inside, and to conjure before you what Celan’s work has long conjured up for me. Continue reading →

What is at play in our communication…? The question of philosophy as “literature,” which is about asking how far it is possible to take the third person discourse in philosophy. At what point must ontology become… what? Become conversation? Become lyricism? … The strict conceptual rigor of being-with exasperates the discourse of its concept. (Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural, p 34)

I’m returning to my old self (the dead one, for whom I attest so well…). That is to say: I’m returning again and again to the subjectivization process that has made me “who I am”: that unknown truth that constitutes me as not yet being myself. In other words, the event of my own discourse, which no one, not even I, can appropriate.

Will I ever be myself? Immortal challenge of “exceedation,” meet animal torment! But I must pursue exceedation in spite of the limitless failure I recognize in my attempt to “inscribe” what is Immortal about “me.” For I am tired of being swayed by those who consider philosophy to be about “usefulness,” those who say, “That is all well and fine, but what can I do with it?” Those who ask such questions don’t have time for me in the first place, and I can’t blame them. For it’s not only am I exhausted by what is going on with me, or rather, by what the “going-on” that I am is. What’s more, I’m trying to be attentive enough to not mask over my exhaustion: to share that too. And because of my graciousness on this point (alas, it was unavoidable for me!), I’m stupid enough to think you’ll have patience for me; that you’ll recognize in all of this that something of your self is at stake. But I’d be lying if this meant we’d form a nice happy community together upon recognizing this. On the contrary, we seem doomed to cast one another out, crying, seized and consigned by the truth-process that we are. Oh, whoever you are, wherever you are, there is a kind of helpless love here, en ruine, despite how it drives us (apart). But at this point, “it is impossible to reach a clear distinction between determination and exhaustion.” The I that I speak, he is “a transient fact, not only as a result of [his] chance birth and [his] approaching death, but also because the process that determines [me] is the one that exhausts [me]” (Bataille). This is all, I know, stated much too seriously. And alas, while it is terribly serious, by the end, it isn’t really serious at all, I know. In fact, I can already hear them laughing… And yet: “There is no point in doing philosophy if it isn’t to try and accompany this exhaustion of discourse to its limits…” Continue reading →

“So,” I told myself (I don’t know if I was overcome: the difficulties were finally bringing me relief), “the only thing left for me to do is beyond my strength.” –Georges Bataille

An odd coincidence prompted this post. Yesterday morning, I stumbled upon various virtual productions of American “Marxist” political theorist Jodi Dean. This morning, I awoke to a comment by Aaron Wentz on my previous post about Zizek’s book FTTF, asking me if I’d seen Dean’s video on the Communist Horizon and if I had any thoughts about organizing. He asks specifically:

I wonder, in practical terms, where this is happening, where the Left (Communists) are organizing themselves (again).  The reason I ask is that I want to involve myself.  Have you seen this beginning to happen, in any serious way around theory (not some outmoded protest model)? Continue reading →