The Possibility of Conversation

Abstract

In the present article I am concerned with conversation as a way of participation. Hearing, speaking, and silence will cross and create the possibilities of the conversational space I explore. The question of participation opens the essay and leads to the notion of incision both between and within speakers. Speaking is depicted as basically cut by an unheard, repressed silence. The unsilencing of silence evokes a conversation conscious of itself in sadness and in laughter and a reopening of the door for creative speech. The shift of conversation toward its creative possibilities will be likened to a leap to a public square of speaking voices or a piazza of conversation. The article will traverse a certain critical path, mainly through Erving Goffman's idea of staged talk and Jacques Lacan's notion of split within the speaking subject.