Showing papers in "parallax in 2002"
TL;DR: Merleau-Ponty as mentioned in this paper argued that the body does not present itself as the object of external impressions do and that perhaps even these latter objects do no more than stand out against the a Ú ective background which in the first place throws consciousness outside of itself.
Abstract: The body is an a Ú ective object, whereas external things are from my point of view merely represented [...] For if I say my foot hurts, I do not simply mean that it is a cause of pain in the same way as the nail which is cutting into it, di Ú ering only in being nearer to me; I do not mean that it is the last of the objects in the external world, after which a more intimate kind of pain should begin, an unlocalized awareness of pain in itself, related to the foot only by some causal connection and within the closed system of experience. I mean that pain reveals itself as localized, that it is constitutive of a ‘pain infested space’. ‘My foot hurts’ means not: ‘I think that the foot is the cause of this pain’, but: ‘the pain comes from the foot’ or again ‘my foot has a pain’ [...] my body does not present itself as the object of external impressions do and that perhaps even these latter objects do no more than stand out against the a Ú ective background which in the rst place throws consciousness outside of itself. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception
40 citations
TL;DR: In this article, what is queer theory doing with the child? Parallax: Vol. 8, Random Figures, pp. 35-46, with a discussion of the relationship between gender and the child.
Abstract: (2002). What is Queer Theory Doing With the Child? Parallax: Vol. 8, Random Figures, pp. 35-46.
31 citations
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TL;DR: In these past, dark days it has been difficult to draw a line between the outrage and anxiety provoked by terrorist attacks, and the urgent need for some more humane and historical re-enforcement on the tragedy itself as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In these past, dark days it has been diYcult to draw a line between the outrage and anxiety provoked by terrorist attacks, and the urgent need for some more humane and historical re ection on the tragedy itself. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? The appalling images of death, destruction and daring that invaded our homes on September 11th left us with no doubt that these unimaginable scenes belonged to a moral universe alien to ours, acts perpetrated by people foreign to the very bre of our being. But CNN had a sobering tale to tell. While the headline news staggered from one towering inferno to another, the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen interspersed its roll-call of the brave and the dead, with lists of Hollywood movies – lms that had told a similar story many times before, and new, unreleased movies that were about to tell it again. What was only an action movie last week, turned on Tuesday into acts of war. Same mise-en-scene , diVerent movie.
30 citations
TL;DR: Fanon as discussed by the authors, I am a Master: Terrorism, Masculinity, and Political Violence in Frantz Fanon, Vol. 8, Fanon & the Impasses of Modernity, pp. 84-98.
Abstract: (2002). I am a Master: Terrorism, Masculinity, and Political Violence in Frantz Fanon. Parallax: Vol. 8, Fanon & the Impasses of Modernity, pp. 84-98.
27 citations
TL;DR: The first meeting we had was over a curry, which was too spicy, and she asked me about my name and I said it was of German origin, and meant "little ''little '' y'' as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: You have invited me to lunch because you want to pick my brains. So we meet at Central, then walk down the road to the Malaya. This is our rst meeting and I immediately nd you attractive. Over curry, which you nd too spicy, you are curious about my name. I say it is of German origin, and means ‘little y’. Because you speak French I can point out that it is a cognate of mouche: ‘My name is Monsieur Mouche.’ And you laugh.
25 citations
TL;DR: Fanon et al. as discussed by the authors describe difference embodied: Reflections on Black Skin, White Masks, and the Impasses of Modernity, pp. 54-68.
Abstract: (2002). Difference Embodied: Reflections on Black Skin, White Masks. Parallax: Vol. 8, Fanon & the Impasses of Modernity, pp. 54-68.
24 citations
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that women's ability to sexually reproduce has long counted as one of the most obvious signiµ ers of sexual difference between women and men.
Abstract: In public discourse, (some) women’s ability to sexually reproduce has long counted as one of the most obvious signi ers of sexual diVerence. Whatever social, political and economic changes might take place to alter women’s position in society, female sexual reproduction is seen as both immutable ‘fact’ and cause of structural diVerences between women and men. Of the almost countless references to female ‘materiality’ as reproduction, my training as a sociologist secures Emile Durkheim’s rendition as a particularly sharp thorn in my side. He writes that ‘society is less necessary to her because she is less impregnated with sociability [...] Man is actively involved in it whilst woman does little more than look on from a distance’. Not only does Durkheim remind his readers that it is female bodies that can be (passively) impregnated, but this impregnation is limited to eshy materiality (babies). If male bodies are (actively) impregnated, it is with decidedly non-material sociality.
24 citations
TL;DR: The notion of virtuality and posthumanity is much in the air today as discussed by the authors, and the dominant narratives of the new technological culture are cyber-tions of disembodiment, which is often expressed in terms of a switch from physical reality to virtual reality.
Abstract: Questions of virtuality, and of posthumanity, are much in the air today. We live in a time of massive technological, as well as social and political, change. Much of this change has to do with globalization, that is to say, with an economy that networks itself ubiquitously across the planet, thanks to the instantaneous transnational communication of ows of information and money. Concomitant with this transformation is a devaluing of the material and the local. This is often expressed in terms of a switch from physical reality to virtual reality. To use the terms of Manuel Castells, we are moving in the direction of a culture founded on a ‘space of ows’ that replaces the old ‘space of places’, and a ‘timeless time’ that replaces the time of history and memory, as well as the time of daily routine under industrial capitalism. In line with these transformations, the dominant narratives of the new technological culture are cyber ctions of disembodiment. We ourselves are said to be made out of ‘information’, rather than bodies and physicality, or even atoms and forces. And this information is generally seen as being a pattern that can be incarnated indiVerently in any number of material substrates: carbon, silicon, whatever. The mind, supposedly, is software that can be run on many diVerent kinds of hardware. Some computer scientists (for instance, Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil ) even wax rhapsodical about the prospect of abandoning our archaic, fallible organic bodies, and downloading our minds into computers or robots, sometime in the foreseeable future.
22 citations
TL;DR: The Anarchy between Metapolitics and Politics as mentioned in this paper is an example of a meta-architecture between metapolitical and political systems, and Levinas and politics.
Abstract: (2002). An-archy between Metapolitics and Politics. Parallax: Vol. 8, Levinas and Politics, pp. 5-18.
18 citations
TL;DR: The Assumption of Negritude: Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, and the Vicious Circle of Racial Politics as discussed by the authors is a seminal work in the history of race relations.
Abstract: (2002). The Assumption of Negritude: Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, and the Vicious Circle of Racial Politics. Parallax: Vol. 8, Fanon & the Impasses of Modernity, pp. 69-83.
16 citations
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TL;DR: The end of the book is being opened up, distributed and outsourced; its content and functions disseminated, hypertextualized, transformed and multimediated into an edgeless web of a billion lexias, mathematical ideograms, icons and image streams circulating on the net as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The end of the book? Yes – storehouse, producer and disseminator of knowledge, instrument of western monotheism, begetter of civilization – the ancient, selfstanding, alphabetic text which folded so much between its edges and covers, is being opened up, distributed and outsourced; its content and functions disseminated, hypertextualized, transformed and multimediated into an edgeless web of a billion lexias, mathematical ideograms, icons and image streams circulating on the net.
TL;DR: Arden and Garret as discussed by the authors escaped from the Tower of London by tying a long rope tied over the ditch to a post, and sliding down upon the Tower wharf to the water.
Abstract: This night there are escaped out of the Tower, viz. John Arden and John Garret. Their escape was made very little before day, for on going to Arden’s chamber in the morning I found the ink in his pen very fresh. The Manner of their escape was thus. The gaoler, one Bonner, conveyed Garrett into Arden’s chamber when he brought up the keys, and out of Arden’s chamber by a long rope tied over the ditch to a post they slid down upon the Tower wharf. This Bonner is also gone this morning at the opening of the gates [...] I have sent hue and cry to Gravesend and to the Mayor of London for a search to be made in London and in all the liberties.
TL;DR: The Empire of the Intensities: A Random Walk Down Las Vegas Boulevard as discussed by the authors is a novel book about a random walk down a Las Vegas strip, narrated by a man.
Abstract: (2002). Empire of the Intensities: A Random Walk Down Las Vegas Boulevard. Parallax: Vol. 8, Random Figures, pp. 78-91.
TL;DR: In 2001, the 21st anniversary of the so-called Berber Spring (tafust imazighen in Tamazight), the Berber Cultural Movement (MCB) renewed their protests against the Algerian government as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: During the spring of 2001, the Berber Cultural Movement (MCB) renewed their protests against the Algerian government. Prompted by the murder of a student, the MCB called a rally and general strike in Tizi Ouzou, east of Algiers. The date marked the 21st anniversary of the so-called Berber Spring (tafust imazighen in Tamazight) when Kabyle demonstrators demanding recognition of Tamazight language and culture were harshly repressed by Algerian authorities. Recognition of Tamazight (the Berber dialects of the Maghreb) remained a centrepiece of the Berber platform in 2001. The government maintained its opposition and responded with force. After ve months of demonstrations, with scores more left dead, the government nally wavered. On 4 October 2001, on the eve of a rally planned for Algiers, an anxious Prime Minister Ali Ben is announced that the government would recognize Tamazight as an oYcial national language.
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TL;DR: Fanon on the surface as discussed by the authors is a seminal work in the history of modernity, focusing on the Impasses of Modernity, and its relationship to Fanon's work.
Abstract: (2002). Fanon on the Surface. Parallax: Vol. 8, Fanon & the Impasses of Modernity, pp. 116-128.
TL;DR: The authors investigates some of the issues posed by the introduction of race into a dialectic of recognition, which is part of Fanon's original contribution to dialectics, and investigates the relationship between race and reciprocity in Black Skin, White Masks.
Abstract: ‘Since the Black man is a former slave’, Fanon writes at the end of chapter 2 of Black Skin, White Masks, ‘we will turn to Hegel’. Though the penultimate chapter of the book contains Fanon’s most sustained critique of Hegel’s master/slave dialectic, Fanon’s concern with reciprocity and his claim that ‘man is only human to the extent to which he tries to impose his existence on another man to be recognized by him’, is a central feature of the radical humanist project that constitutes Black Skin. This article investigates some of the issues posed by the introduction of race into a dialectic of recognition which is part of Fanon’s original contribution to dialectics.
TL;DR: Michaux's (First) Mescaline painting as discussed by the authors is a small oil painting, approximately 18 3 14 cm in size, applied to unprepared wood, the oil paint seeps into the grain making the colours and forms ambiguous and ill-deµ ned.
Abstract: Michaux’s (First) Mescaline Painting ( gure 1) is a small oil painting, approximately 18 3 14 cm in size. Applied to unprepared wood, the oil paint seeps into the grain making the colours and forms ambiguous and ill-de ned. It is diYcult to ascertain what it is a painting of; neither gurative or abstract it seems to evoke rather than describe or represent. On rst viewing the image seems akin to a murky, gaseous universe or an imaginary planetscape. It is also diYcult to ascertain whether it resembles an endopsychic or external ‘vision’. It is not static, it will not cohere either as subject matter or as surface matter. Even the colours Michaux applied seem unearthly even though he used mainly earthy browns and yellows.
TL;DR: Fanon has been a site of intense intellectual debates, political disagreements, and diverse ideological investments among African American, postcolonial, Africanist, Marxist, postmodern, feminist, literary and cultural critics.
Abstract: The work and life of Frantz Fanon has been a site of intense intellectual debates, political disagreements, and diverse ideological investments among AfricanAmerican, postcolonial, Africanist, Marxist, postmodern, feminist, literary and cultural critics. As Nigel Gibson writes in the introduction to one of the most comprehensive collections of Fanon criticism, Rethinking Fanon, the fact ‘that Fanon is engrossing to critics on both sides of the postmodernist/modernist divide; that he is claimed by Afrocentrists and Marxists; that he is engaged by feminists and postcolonial literary critics; that he is the object of such varied appreciations as well as misconceptions is itself an accomplishment’. Yet, while this continuing debate is indeed a testimony to the importance and the vitality of Fanon’s thought to numerous elds in the humanities, it has often produced many one-sided interpretations of his texts re ecting the entrenched divisions in our contemporary critical praxis. Indeed, as early as 1970 Tony Martin called for rescuing ‘Fanon from the critics’ – a call that twenty years later reverberates in a diVerent tonality in Henry Louis Gates Jr’s indictment of ‘Critical Fanonism’. Writing in the early 1990s, Gates makes a famous charge that Fanon’s texts have been reduced to a kind of narcissistic mirror that can only re ect the impasses of the post-modern, post-colonial condition. Because of this narcissistic investment, Fanon has proved to be ‘an almost irresistible gure for a criticism that sees itself as both oppositional and postmodern’.
TL;DR: The writer of these words is an academic man in his early fifties who has never been fucked in the ass as discussed by the authors, and for a number of reasons, this writer may very well go to his grave without ever having been fucked.
Abstract: The writer of these words is an academic man in his early fifties who has never been fucked in the ass. Indeed, for a number of reasons, this writer may very well go to his grave without ever having been fucked in the ass.1 Not utterly a stranger to some relatively thin and shallow forms of receptive anal eroticism, this writer has nonetheless never known what it feels like to be ass-fucked, has never fully experienced what Leo Bersani describes as “the seductive and intolerable image of a grown man, legs high in the air, unable to refuse the suicidal ecstasy of being a woman” (“Rectum” 212). That is to say, I have never negotiated with this “seductive and intolerable image” of being fucked in the ass as anything other than image, as anything more (or less) than metaphor. Of course, the extent to which I find this image seductive only as image may well indicate the extent to which I must find it intolerable as embodied fact, since I have never factually tolerated it. And yet, as my previous writings on masculinity and the male body lay bare, I have indeed been unable to refuse Bersani s various elaborations of anal sex as metaphor—for ebranlement, for self-shattering, for the abdication of phallic power, for the exuberant discard of hyperbolic subjectivity, for a beneficent crisis in and of the masculinist self. I have allowed myself to be seduced by the thrust of Bersani s arguments, by the cold intimacy—the anal battery, if you will—of his words.
TL;DR: In the work of Merritt as mentioned in this paper, a Deleuzean impetus at work is found in the rethinking of the unity of feminine identity without resorting to humanism.
Abstract: The armature structuring the project locates various conjunctions between feminist notions and those of Deleuze and Guattari: primarily, the conceptualization of diVerence that is not subordinated to identity or the same, and which facilitates the being of becoming and a radical form of multiplicity de ned by an outside – ‘the abstract line’/‘the line of ight’/‘deterritorialization’. In this scheme the ‘feminine’ is unrepresentable, ‘she’ is the site of ‘an-other system of representation’. In the work of Natacha Merritt one discovers a Deleuzean impetus at work. Like Deleuze, Merritt is interested in rethinking the unity of feminine identity without resorting to humanism. Merritt’s cyber-images, like Deleuze’s mechanic couplings, are a ‘ gure’ of inter-relationality/receptivity that deliberately negates categorical distinctions. Ultimately the process is expanded through Merritt’s images, a working through of the feminine historical condition, speci cally the mass images/concepts/ representations of women, before woman can emerge into diVerence and particularly into the diVerence of ‘becoming-woman’.
TL;DR: The authors consider the issue of politics in Levinas's work and why we feel the need to respond to the possibility of finding a passage between Levinas' ethics and politics, in the sense of an apology or an explanation for remarks Levinas made in the context of certain political moments.
Abstract: What does it mean to consider the issue of politics in Levinas’s work? Why should we feel the need to respond to the possibility of nding a passage between his ethics and politics? It seems that there are several ways to consider these questions. A response could entail writing either an apologetics or an explanation for remarks Levinas has made in the context of certain political moments. It could entail an examination of his fundamental concepts and show how his ethics always already implies a politics. It could result in reading Levinas as the prototype of a conservatism – his radical ethics revealing that the place he desires to protect and terms a non-lieu can best be understood as a form of nationalism, in the sense of a sympathy for Zionism.
TL;DR: Fanon as discussed by the authors read Black Skin, White Masks through the Cat and Mouse of Reason and a Misguided Theodicy, a Questioning Body of Laughter and Tears.
Abstract: (2002). A Questioning Body of Laughter and Tears: Reading Black Skin, White Masks through the Cat and Mouse of Reason and a Misguided Theodicy. Parallax: Vol. 8, Fanon & the Impasses of Modernity, pp. 10-29.
TL;DR: In this paper, a partir da leitura talmudica “Envers Autrui”, a texto investiga algumas dimensoes do pensamento de Levinas em relacao aos temas da linguagem, justica, perdao, and pluralidade, entre outros, estabelecendo relacoes com alguns aspectos da filosofia analitica and do penamento do Kant and William Galston.
Abstract: O texto investiga algumas dimensoes do pensamento de Levinas em relacao aos temas da linguagem, justica, perdao e pluralidade, entre outros, a partir da leitura talmudica “Envers Autrui”, estabelecendo relacoes com alguns aspectos da filosofia analitica e do pensamento do Kant e William Galston.
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TL;DR: Levinas and Patocka as discussed by the authors argue that the human relation is oriented by a Saying that transcends this rationality, and that it requires an enquiry on human interiority, which rationality and knowledge most of the time are oblivious to.
Abstract: Both Levinas’s and Patocka’s works meditate on the tragic ascendancy of war over life and thought. The atrocities that occurred during the 20th century, since the First World War, and the violent death that was the result of them for millions of people but left the political institutions indiVerent, resigned to this fate and even compromised, do not allow philosophers to avoid facing this distressing reality. Only those among them who mistake philosophy for a speculative or erudite exercise forget that philosophers also are involved in this struggle. According to Patocka, human suVering ‘holds them by the throat’. Now if it is true, as he also argues, that no one may choose what he has to answer for, the philosophers of his generation must answer for a century which is entirely under the seal of war, which means under the seal of facing death. In that case, above all else, politics is the scene where philosophers are put to the test, because the struggle for justice, freedom and peace do not allow them to withdraw from the world. We know that Patocka’s life and death testify in favour of this commitment. Levinas also shares Patocka’s view on the philosopher’s responsibility, yet according to him the wars and the barbarity of the 20th century above all require a radical challenge of the essence of philosophy and politics since the catastrophes that occurred underlie their ineradicable failure. It does not mean to give up the idea and practice of philosophy and politics, but it means not to let them monopolize this struggle for justice, freedom and peace. According to Levinas peace does not only rely on political concepts, it requires an enquiry on human interiority, an enquiry that rationality and knowledge most of the time are oblivious to. It requires analysing how the human relation is oriented by a Saying that transcends this rationality.
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TL;DR: For instance, this paper argued that it is the trajectory, the displacements of the inevitably ‘purloined’ letter, rather than its contents or author, that aligns it with the fate of an individual.
Abstract: ‘Every existence’, Paul Morand once suggested, ‘is an anonymously sent letter’. Morand himself was happy to have gured out the provenance of the three postmarks (Paris, London, Venice) authenticating the letter his life had been, but his metaphor invites a more ambitious discovery: that of the author, if not the contents, of one’s letter. Lacan here nds himself curiously allied with Morand: it is the trajectory, the displacements of the inevitably ‘purloined’ letter, rather than its contents or author, that align it with the fate of an individual. And yet who, of those who have bought into the epistolary metaphor, can not at some point have entertained the well nigh theological dream of determining the date, place and author of the letter one’s life will have been? Until recently, I was not among them. Lacan’s fabled Seminar on the Poe text, which I had translated in a state of protracted febrility I still dimly recall, had seemed a nec plus ultra beyond which I had no pretension of going. Even Benjamin, in a short text I translated more recently under the title ‘Stamp Scams’ (compressed from the German ‘Briefmarkenschwindel’), a kind of child’s version of ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, was convinced that the future of the epistolary genre, or at least that of its aesthetic pretensions, lay, beyond content, beyond the aura of (even the rarest of ) postage stamps, in some future ornateness of the postmark per se.
TL;DR: In this paper, a third party is a permanent entry within the intimacy or the immediacy of proximity, or an incessant correction of the asymmetry, justice begins before justice, which is not an empirical fact, the necessary passage from face-to-face to plurality.
Abstract: Before politics, before justice, before ontology, there is proximity, ‘an immediacy antecedent to questions’, the in nite responsibility for the other. ‘It is troubled and becomes a problem when a third party enters’. Here proximity and responsibility become justice. Here we pass from the ethical to the political. The entry of a third party implies the comparison of incomparables. But it is not an empirical fact, the necessary passage from face-to-face to plurality. Justice – the political justice, which implies representation, ontology, synchrony and so on – is ‘more ancient than itself and than equality implied by it’. Insofar as ‘the other (Autrui) is for the rst (d’emblée) the brother of all the other men’ – Totality and Innity said ‘le tiers me regarde dans les yeux d’autrui’ [‘the third party looks at me in the eyes of the other’ ] – insofar as the entry of the third party is a permanent entry within the intimacy or the immediacy of proximity, or an incessant correction of the asymmetry, justice begins before justice. Proximity shows itself d’emblée justice. Things are complicated from the beginning.
TL;DR: This article examined the relation between Judaism and Marxism in the work of Levinas and found that Levinas's support for syndicalism, revolutionary action and Marxist humanism troubles any attempted simple identiµ cation of his thinking with a conservative or liberal political philosophy.
Abstract: What is the relation between Judaism and Marxism in the work of Emmanuel Levinas? References to Marx and Marxism, often critical, appear intermittently in Levinas’s philosophical writings. But, for reasons that will hopefully become obvious soon, I will try and clarify this question by looking closely at one of Levinas’s Talmudic Readings, ‘Judaism and Revolution’. As was Levinas’s annual habit from 1960 onwards, this text was rst delivered to one of the Colloques des intellectuels juifs de langue française in Paris, March 1969. As such, this text is interesting not only because it gives one of Levinas’s clearest responses to dramatic events of 1968 in France, in particular the student movement and the question of revolutionary Marxism, but also because it illuminates well the relation of his ethical thinking to politics and, in particular, Marxist politics. Indirectly, but not incidentally, Levinas’s quali ed support for syndicalism, revolutionary action and Marxist humanism troubles any attempted simple identi cation of his thinking with a conservative or liberal political philosophy, which is – to say the least – a risk in the contemporary reception of Levinas’s work.
TL;DR: Fanon's Theory of Consciousness as mentioned in this paper has been used in Sartre's "Racing the Ego" and Fanon's "The Impasses of Modernity".
Abstract: (2002). (e)Racing the Ego: Sartre, Modernity, and Fanon's Theory of Consciousness. Parallax: Vol. 8, Fanon & the Impasses of Modernity, pp. 46-53.
TL;DR: In this paper, an eroticization of the text without prescription and without end is presented, which is partly from within the terms of what Alice Jardine once called Jacques Derrida's "pornosophy" and comes to find a greater radicality available via Walter Benjamin's work on translation.
Abstract: In the following passages I begin to articulate an eroticization of the text without prescription and without end. This is partly from within the terms of what Alice Jardine once called Jacques Derrida’s ‘pornosophy’. Yet it also breaks with the letter of that pornosophy and comes to find a greater radicality available via Walter Benjamin’s work on translation. Although Benjamin may not immediately spring to mind to ground an emerging politics and poetics of queer sexuality, certainly Gayatri Spivak has named translation as an erotic relation bound to undo the translator’s ‘(selv)edges’. Here, however, I appropriate Benjamin specifically for his uprooting of metaphor as it attempts to root kinship and reproduction in nature rather than language. While Derrida’s work is frequently hospitable to that of Benjamin, ‘Des Tours de Babel’ risks reinscribing the seminal logic that ‘Die Aufgabe des Ubersetzers’ arguably displaces. Even though Derrida is, of course, sympathetic to the translation of the site of reproduction from nature to language, my concern is that the hymeneal discourse effecting this turn hampers the style of translation as intercourse. Rather than seek to correct, or to discipline, the translation of ‘The Task of the Translator’, this paper contributes to its afterlife bearing in mind the somewhat divergent readings offered by Derrida, Carol Jacobs, and Paul de Man.