The Story of Dialectics and the Trickster of History

Abstract

Drawing on Hegel’s interpretation of narrative and Lyotard’s rejection of “grand” dialectical narratives, this paper addresses the relationship between emancipatory dialectics and narrative form. It begins by establishing the intimate connection between dialectical thought and narration. On this basis, the paper argues that varying conceptions of dialectics can be associated with varying structures of narrating history. Finally, the paper makes the case for identifying a specific narrative form adequate to the radical rereadings of Hegel that have replaced the perspective of the master (the subject privileged by a given system of historicity) with the perspective of the slave (who, while excluded from historicity, struggles against this exclusion). This narrative form corresponds to none of the classical Greek genres; it is best described as a trickster tale.