Eternal Recurrence Research Articles

Dengue Fever in Italy: The "Eternal Return" of an Emerging Arboviral Disease.

Enhanced surveillance for dengue virus (DENV) infections in Italy has been implemented since 2012, with annual reports from the National Health Institute. In this study, we summarize available evidence on the epidemiology of officially notified DENV infections from 2010–2021. In total, 1043 DENV infection cases were diagnosed, and most of them occurred in travelers, with only 11 autochthonous cases. The annual incidence rates of DENV infections peaked during 2019 with 0.277 cases per 100,000 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.187–0.267), (age-adjusted incidence rate: 0.328, 95% CI 0.314–0.314). Cases of DENV were clustered during the summer months of July (11.4%), August (19.3%), and September (12.7%). The areas characterized by higher notification rates were north-western (29.0%), and mostly north-eastern Italy (41.3%). The risk for DENV infection in travelers increased in the time period 2015–2019 (risk ratio [RR] 1.808, 95% CI 1.594–2.051) and even during 2020–2021 (RR 1.771, 95% CI 1.238–2.543). Higher risk for DENV was additionally reported in male subjects compared with females subjects, and aged 25 to 44 years, and in individuals from northern and central Italy compared to southern regions and islands. In a multivariable Poisson regression model, the increased number of travelers per 100 inhabitants (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 1.065, 95% CI 1.036–1.096), the incidence in other countries (IRR 1.323, 95% CI 1.165–1.481), the share of individuals aged 25 to 44 years (IRR 1.622, 95% CI 1.338–1.968), and foreign-born residents (IRR 2.717, 95% CI 1.555–3.881), were identified as effectors of annual incidence. In summary, although the circulation of DENV remains clustered among travelers, enhanced surveillance is vital for the early detection of human cases and the prompt implementation of response measures.

БРОСОК КОСТЕЙ: НИЦШЕ О ЧИСТОМ ПОНЯТИИ «ПРИРОДА»

The article explores the meaning of the pure concept of «nature» found in Nietzsche’s 1881 drafts and associated with the project of returning the «meaning to the earth». As a rule, this concept and its historical consequences remain out of sight of researchers studying Nietzsche’s philosophy and Nietzscheism. This omission overshadows some important lines of genesis of modern philosophical ontologies, largely due to the split in the interpretation of nature after the era of romanticism. One of the strategies of this split is embodied in the philosophy of Nietzsche, and, through him, in the poetic ontologies of the 20th century. The study undertaken in this article primarily proceeds from Nietzsche’s texts of 1881–1882, when the idea of eternal return took shape, and then reconstructs the place of the pure concept of «nature» in the general context of the thinker’s works. The paper also analyzes the key interpretations of works by Nietzsche offered in the middle and second half of the 20th century. The greatest attention is paid to the texts of M. Heidegger and J. Deleuze, but also W. Kaufmann, P. Klossovsky, R. Safransky, P. Sloterdijk, and A. Badiou. The result of this hermeneutic and comparative-analytical work is the consideration of the pure concept of «nature» as the «meaning of the earth» through the unity of three concepts — the Dionysian worldview, the eternal return, and the will to power. The paper concludes that the concept of «nature» as immediate expressiveness of existence is opposed to the abstractness of the classical New European concept of nature («natura»). In other words, it is an ontology of «a Throw of the Dice», i.e. ontology of the chance, freeing the singularity from reflexive mediation.

Possibility of “Decision” in the Eternal Return

Possibility of “Decision” in the Eternal Return

СЕМІОТИКА СУБ’ЄКТИВОВАНОГО ЛАНДШАФТУ В НАРАТИВНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ АНГЛІЙСЬКОГО РОМАНУ ХІХ СТ.

Semiotic relations between the homo sapiens and his/her topos or environment have recently become the focus of eminent or mediated fictional subjective modelling. In the course of research with the tools of the cultural discourse analysis (CDA), a range of communicative practices has been unveiled. These include among others verbalized images of the topi, descriptive outlines of the localities and directions, ways of showing, symbolic representations of typical animals, topographic lexis, verbal and non-verbal means of the visualization of the surroundings etc. The object of the research constitutes the semiotic potential of the “ethnic-physical nomenclature”, which presupposes the application of the cultural discourse analysis to the environment as a form of subjectivized reality of the human being. Victorian writers provide us with the well of unlimited material in this respect as the experiencing subject of pre-industrial England has been portrayed as a sensitive agency in the imaginative fictional narrative world. Therefore, Victorian’s world outlook becomes the research objective of ecocriticism, a new direction of critical discourse analysis. The aim of cultural discourse analysis in symbiosis with the ecocritical approach is to investigate ways and means of correlation of verbal and non-verbal discourses and their material and physical embodiment in culture. Ecocritical reference to the Victorian period has been considered prolific in terms of discursive means disclosing complicated relations of the approaching technological progress, great discoveries in the human physic and Nature. Positing the human being in the centre of all the animal species stressed a universal character of semiosis, where the global ecological view was put on the core of the scientific and fictional manifestation. A prominent example of this cosmological feeling is seen in a close correlation of the narratives with the setting and psychological foregrounding in the novel of George Eliot “Middlemarch”, where the main character Dorothy Brooke symbolizes the Nietzschean idea of eternal return, demonstrating clear awareness of George Eliot of the evolution of species multiplied by theological subtext.

Theorizing Asia: An Introduction

Theorizing Asia:An Introduction Alex Taek-Gwang Lee (bio) In The Age of Extremes, Eric Hobsbawm suggested the term "short twentieth century" to consider the extreme experiences of the century. The period refers to seventy-eight years between 1914 to 1991, beginning with the First World War and ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The fall of the German, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires during the First World War paved the way for the Second. When the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1941, it appeared that the war had come to an end, with the Allies' "justice league" destroying the Fascist alliance. Contrary to common belief, Hobsbawm emphasized that "the Second World War had barely ended when humanity plunged into what can reasonably be regarded as a Third World War" (1994, 226). After the fall of the Japanese Empire, the United States' most pressing mission in Asia was to build an anti-communist defense line rather than decolonize the countries. In Japan, the US enjoyed establishing "a completely unilateral occupation that excluded the USSR and any other co-belligerent" (227). While Europe settled into postwar conditions, the war did not end in Asia. Ironically, the end of World War II meant the beginning of civil wars in the area. As Hobsbawm pointed out, Asia was "the zone in which the two superpowers continued, throughout the Cold War, to compete for support and influence, and hence the major zone of friction between them, and indeed the one where armed conflict was most likely, and actually broke out" (227). This geopolitical confrontation resulted in widespread violence in the region. For Asians, the end of World War II did not signal the end of the conflict but rather the beginning of a new one. It all started with the people's yearning for nation-building following Japan's defeat in World War II. For example, the Korean people wanted to build a nation-state at the time, but the situation forced them to separate into two regimes—North and South Korea. The US policy to "roll back" communism introduced the cruel division of people, divided into the inclusive group and the exclusive group by the rule of anti-communism. This violent operation rolled out in many places in the Global South. The United States' overseas policy did not aim to build a democratic regime in the areas but prioritized [End Page 1] more efficient governance to manage the anti-communist defense line. Accordingly, it helped local power elites build despotic authority. What must be stressed here is that the revival of despotism in Asia revealed the realpolitik of the anti-communist strategy, which betrayed its political cause of anti-fascism and went against people's desire for liberation. This trickery always lurks in the shadow of so-called freedom propaganda. The right of independence was not equal and was a concept used to divide people into those included in and those excluded from the nation. During the Cold War, the US supported military despotism with the pretext of protecting the "Free World" against communism in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In those areas, the Cold War had a profound impact on postcolonial nation-building. Almost all Southern Cone countries were dominated by military autocracies from the 1950s through the 1970s, an experience that continues to affect political and economic regimes to this day. The paradox is that, despite the dictatorships' breaches of human rights, the United States defended its assistance. This coalition between the US and those authoritarian regimes was called the "Condor Operation" and was seen to repress people's demand for democracy. These dictatorships caused traumatic experiences in Latin America, and those countries in the region share the crippled history of the republic. In this sense, the postwar authoritarianism in Asia is the regional occasion of the state violence and the structural consequences of the United States' geopolitical plan. Asia's experiences are not an erasable memory buried in the abyss of the past; they returns again and again to the surface of cultural consciousness. Rather than disappear, trauma constructs its origins with the eternal return of the moment. The experience is not bearable...

THE METAPHORICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE CONCEPT OF «LABYRINTH»IN B.ANTONENKO-DAVYDOVYCH’S CREATION

The article is devoted to the research of the peculiarities of the artistic content of the concept of «labyrinth» in B.Antonenko-Davydovych’s creative heritage. The structure of the labyrinth is defined not only by its direct meaning as a building from which it is difficult or impossible to find a way out, but also by the entanglement of relationships, situations, thoughts, actions etc.B.Antonenko-Davydovych’s works do not have the word «labyrinth» in their titles, but the life collisions of the characters in these works appeal to this very concept, which is a symbol of being, the idea of eternal return, the circle of life, relentless search, constant choice etc. The writer represents the existence of the characters as a labyrinth with a large number of decisions and a choice of actions, both true and false, in order to achieve spiritual balance. His characters often find themselves in a kind of labyrinth of events, feelings, emotions and, most importantly, their own interpretations of these events. The artist appeals to the metaphorical representation of the concept of «labyrinth» in order to focus attention on the complexity and entanglement of life in the chaos of the era. In the author’s works, the concept of «labyrinth» embodies the idea of searches, random movement, deviation from a rational path.In B.Antonenko-Davydovych’s creation the functioning of the concept of «labyrinth»as wanderings caused by the revolution and as the entanglement of life’s path and fate is highlighted in the novel «Za shyrmoiu» («Behind the curtain»), the stories «Smert»(«Death»), «Tuk-tuk», «Zavyshcheni otsinky», «Shchastia».The peculiarity of the labyrinth is that its construction involves finding an exit or is marked by the impasse. One of the consequences of getting out of the life labyrinth can be death –one’s own («Tuk-tuk»), a loved one’s («Za shyrmoiu» («Behind the curtain»)), someone else’s («Smert»(«Death»)). In the story «Shchastia» the exit from the labyrinth is marked as the understanding of the life, the acceptance of the past, that is a kind of rebirth.The story «Zavyshcheni otsinky» contains an indication of the impasse of the main character from the labyrinth

The Contemporary Philosophy of Science: An Eternal Return

The article explores the contemporary philosophy of science in the context of the idea of eternal return. The problematization of the intellectual field “after postpositivism” runs through the renewed questions “what?”, “how?”, “who?” and “for what?” of scientific research. This questioning is a search for bearings in the historical space and time that determines “after what?” or “back to whom?” the thinking about science unfolds. Such a reflexive appeal to the origins leads to the ideas of the philosophy of science of the first half of the twentieth century. It is then that the main differences within the research of science were formed: between sociological and methodological approaches, between philosophy and disciplines that study science, between the goals of forming a worldview and managing science. The philosophy of science “after postpositivism” expresses itself in the controversial interpretation of the subject matter and method of the study of science, in the division of labor between disciplines and approaches that lose the possibility of constructive interaction and reach the point of “science wars”. In conclusion, it is argued that philosophy as the "hard core” of scientific research, a historical appeal to the origins of scientific activity and the interpretation of the scientific revolution as a renewal of tradition can make such modernity valuable for return.

Spectres of Eternal Return: Benjamin and Deleuze Read Leibniz

The late reflections of G.W. Leibniz on eternal return have often been dismissed as insignificant as regards his wider philosophy. This may be due to the prevalent championing of his optimistic views on the continual progress of humanity, which seem to contradict the notion of eternal return. Walter Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze both put forward concepts of eternal return that form part of their respective critiques of historical progress, yet these have rarely been read in conjunction with their views on Leibniz. This article argues, first, that for Leibniz progress and return are not contradictory, and second, that Benjamin’s and Deleuze’s concepts of return were informed, in different ways, by their readings of Leibniz, and specifically by his conception of multiple worlds as the spatial equivalent of eternal return. In doing so I will shed light on the contribution of Leibniz’s philosophy not only to the progressive theories of history put forward during the Enlightenment, but also to the critique of these very visions.

Interpreting Hamlet’s Pregnant Silences: Nietzsche and Benjamin

Abstract In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the protagonist frequently and eloquently refers to his own taciturnity and to the fundamental insights into the ways of the world that this silence conceals from his interlocutors. It is partly due to this emphasis on a pivotal inaccessibilty that the play has provoked numerous philosophical interpretations. For example, Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy and Walter Benjamin in Origin of the German Trauerspiel have dealt with Hamlet’s loquacious refusal to communicate, and their interpretations, while problematic in some respects, can contribute to a better understanding of the drama, especially when they are placed in relation to one another. While Nietzsche’s somewhat forced interpretation traces Hamlet’s silence to the Dionysian experience of ancient tragedy, Benjamin’s counter-interpretation construes this silence as the expression of a specifically Protestant, melancholic conception of history, as well as of its dialectical overcoming. Although Origin of the German Trauerspiel convincingly demonstrates that Hamlet transforms his relationship to society and its language in the course of the play by reinterpreting the contingency of historical events as manifestations of eternal providence, a closer reading of the drama shows that this reinterpretation is not, as Benjamin claims, unfolding a genuinely Christian dialectic, at the endpoint of which stands the blissful silence of assured salvation. Rather, this reinterpretation appears as the expression of an amor fati that in many respects prefigures Nietzsche’s categorical affirmation of blind necessity; Hamlet’s interpretation of the course of the world as a circulus vitiosus resembles the idea of the eternal return, embracing this figure of thought in its most hopeless and most seminal form: as an apotheosis of endless annihilation.

The idea of the eternal recurrence in my work

Resume
 This text is based in the Nietzchean idea of the Eternal Return around five works of the mexican transdisciplinary artist and composer [The text author]. The author explains thoroughly this concept from different optics, linking it also to other ideas related to Budhism, science, chance and XX century literature, focusing mainly in the ciclic phenomenon developed in different works both in the visual arts and in musical composition. The structure of the text is based in establishing a comparative system between these different aesthetic approaches in order to be able to unfold them beyond the arts, dabbling too in philosophy and religion.
 
 Resumen
 Este texto está basado en la idea Nietzscheana del Eterno Retorno alrededor de cinco obras del artista y compositor mexicano transdisciplinario [el autor del texto]. El autor explica a fondo este concepto desde distintas ópticas, ligándolo al mismo tiempo a otras ideas relacionadas al budismo, a la ciencia, al azar y a la literatura del siglo XX, enfocándose principalmente en el fenómeno cíclico desarrollado en distintas obras tanto de las artes visuales como de la composición musical. La estructura del texto se basa en establecer un sistema comparativo entre estos distintos enfoques estéticos para poder desdoblarlos más allá de las artes, incursionando también en la filosofía y en la religión.

Kultura i mit — iluzje demitologizacji

One of the most fundamental existential experiences is the “indifference of the world”. Faced with the awareness of the insignificance of human fate, the lack of meaning, the indifference of the world, man creates various strategies of depotentialising reality. One of them is “story-telling”, working on a myth. Nietzsche also believed that “life needs a protective atmosphere woven from illusions, dreams, delusions”, so he tried to create a myth to fill the void left by the “death of God”. He began with Wagner’s “aesthetic myth” and went on to create a “myth of the aestheticisation of existence”. His next attempts to give meaning to human life were the story of the Übermensch and the revitalization of the myth of eternal return. Another myth which can be found at the core of Nietzsche’s philosophy is “the myth of the myth-maker”.

On the Genealogy of the Eternal Return: From Myth to Physics and Beyond

Аннотация: Ницшенің мәңгілік қайталану теориясына деген өзіндік көзқарастары грек антикалық дәуіріндегі философиялық интуициялардың сыбыры астында қалыптасты. Кейінірек зерттеуін жалғастыру үшін неміс философы кеңес алу үшін жаратылыстану ғылымдарына жүгінеді. Бұл ауқымды бастама мифтік және рационалды-эмпирикалық (яғни ғылыми) ой дәстүрлері арасындағы мағына сабақтастығын зерттеуге деген шынайы ниеттен туындады. Атап айтқанда, Ницшені миф пен ғылым арасындағы қатынас мәңгілік қайталану идеясы мен энтропия құбылысының концептуалды жазықтығында қалай ойналатыны қызықтырды. Зерттеу барысында ол метафизикалық сипаттағы идеологиялық төзімділік қазіргі ғылымның «тірек тірегі» қызметін атқара беретінін түсінді. Физика мен метафизика түбегейлі араласқан шиеленістерді шыдамдылықпен шеше отырып, Ницше өзінің «іргелі тұжырымдамасының» (EH: Z, §1) ғылыми түсіндірмесін ғасырлардың мифтік даналығымен синтездеу мүмкіндігін түсінді. Оның [алдын ала] тұжырымдары жарылғыш болды. Ұйқыдағы ғарыштық енжарлықтың орнына өзгермейтіндердің мәңгілік қайта оралуы туралы ілім барлық құндылықтарды түбегейлі қайта бағалау қажеттілігін көрсетті. Ол дәлел ретінде қайта бағалау қажеттілігі пайда болған интеллектуалды ортаға айналды. Мәңгілік қайтару теориясының күші оның тұлғалануын - 'Übermensch' - әл-ауқат формасына айналдырды. Ницше өзінің «ең маңызды идеясы» (NF-1881: 11 [148]) Силеннің қараңғы пайғамбарлығында адамзатқа алдын ала айтылған тағдырдан аулақ болу үшін жүруіміз керек жолды көрсететініне сенімді болды (BT: §4). Түйін сөздер: Энтропия, физика, дін, мәңгілік қайтару, термодинамика, миф, білім, ғылым, генеалогия, капитализм

<i>The Last Day</i> of creation. M. Naimy’s mystical manifesto

The article is devoted to the mystical manifesto The Last Day (1963) of the Lebanese novelist, playwright and journalist Mikhail Naimy (1889–1988). The author suggests that Naimy, under the spell of classical Russian literature, attempted an audacious experiment: by successfully combining the totality of concepts of Dostoevsky’s The Dream of a Ridiculous Man [ Son smeshnogo cheloveka] with the traditional mythologemes of Sufi poetry, this graduate of the Poltava theological seminary overcomes mystical imagery, and in doing so postulates human impotence in the face of the Nietzschean ‘eternal recurrence’ and the ineffable nature of true the ophanies. The article demonstrates the innovative character of The Last Day, a novel that stands apart from the works of other Pen League members: while Gibran’s The Prophet seeks to infantilise a religious myth, Naimy’s objective is to bring mythology back into the 20th-c. Middle Eastern literary discourse and reimagine it using the categories of contemporary existential philosophy. The study opens with a short biography, covering Naimy’s Russian and American periods.

A Reading of Nietzsche’s Revaluation of all Values as a Cynical Dialectic

Abstract This paper tries to interpret Nietzsche’s revaluation of all values as a dialectical structure of Cynicism. Ancient Cynicism is regarded as the thesis, modern cynicism as its antithesis, namely its decadent form. In recent years this decadence has been somewhat overcome by the attempt to underline a new Cynicism, which can be seen as a synthesis.<fnote> I’m well aware that Nietzsche did not appreciate Hegel. But I find this way of presentation quite convincing in the reading of his revaluation as a dialectical structure. And the dialectical structure is not meant in the Hegelian sense, but in the broader sense of the word. Although Nietzsche strongly criticizes Hegel’s dialectic, one can also find ‘dialectical’ features in his philosophy. The three transformations of the spirit in Thus Spoke Zarathustra can be understood as a dialectical structure: The camel that obediently carries the heavy old values is considered the thesis. The lion, which no longer respects the old values and creates only freedom, is considered the antithesis. But only the child can create new values and so the final transformation of the spirit is considered the synthesis. Moreover, Oliver Dier sees an inner dialectical movement in Nietzsche’s doctrine of the eternal recurrence (Oliver Dier, Die Verwandlung der Wiederkunft, in: Nietzsche-Studien, 30 (2001), 133–174). According to Werner Stegmaier, the word “great” in late Nietzsche also has a dialectical sense (Werner Stegmaier, Nietzsches Befreiung der Philosophie. Kontextuelle Interpretation des V. Buchs der ‘Fröhlichen Wissenschaft’, Berlin a. Boston 2012, 29). Roberto Esposito considers Nietzsche’s biopolitics to be “inscribed in the dialectic of immunity and community” (Quoted from Vanessa Lemm, Nietzsche and biopolitics: Four readings of Nietzsche as a biopolitical thinker, in: Sergei Prozorov a. Simona Rentea [eds.], The Routledge Handbook of Biopolitics, New York 2017, 50–65; here: 51).</fnote> I then compare Nietzsche’s revaluation of all values with the coin metaphor of Diogenes. The revaluation is close to Cynicism, both in a literary as well as in a philosophical way. The starting point of the revaluation is obviously Cynical. But Nietzsche takes the will to power much further than the Cynics. I subsequently discuss the danger that the revaluation of all values will result in a cynical nihilism and the way Nietzsche overcomes it with his doctrines of the eternal recurrence and the Übermensch. Finally, the paper concludes with the claim that Nietzsche completes his revaluation with his own Cynicism as a synthesis.

Joyce in the Fold, the Fold in Joyce

Joyce in the Fold, the Fold in Joyce

Synchronicity: A Dionysian Perspective

In his Zarathustra seminars, Jung described Nietzsche’s ring of eternal recurrence as an individuation symbol that denoted “the absolute completeness of the self” (Jung, 1989, p. 1044). Nietzsche conceived this idea in a moment of visionary experience “6,000 feet beyond man and time” (Nietzsche, 1888/1979, p. 100). Such experiences activate extraordinary synchronistic events. This essay opens up the intriguing question of the relationship between Nietzsche’s thought of eternal recurrence and Jung’s thought of synchronicity. While I was working on the first draft, I took a break, switched on the TV, and the image of the angelic Little Richard in performance appeared on the screen—a moment of Dionysian synchronicity!

Мифопоэтические аспекты традиционной поморской криософии и антропологии холода: реконструкция и интерпретация

This article deals with the reconstruction of the ritual-mythological origins and interpretation of archaic semantics of a number of concepts, images, metaphors and symbols that constitute the corpus of Pomor cryosophy and anthropology of the cold. The research is based on the semiotic analysis and hermeneutics of traditional texts of Pomor culture and works included in the semantic circle of the Northern text of Russian literature. The concept of cryosophy was developed by the outstanding Russian geocryologist V.P. Melnikov, who viewed it as an “ontology of the cold world”, a system of philosophical and scientific ideas about the fundamental characteristics and principles of the cryosphere in all its forms. The conceptual and methodological framework of anthropology of the cold was articulated in the works of employees of the Laboratory for Comprehensive Geocultural Research on the Arctic (Arctic State Institute of Culture and Arts, Yakutsk). The study of traditional Pomor cryosophy is based on the author’s previous research in the field of geosophy, sacred geography, and semiotics of cultural landscape of the Russian North. It is fully compliant with the subject-problem field of the anthropology of the cold. Metaphysical cold pervades all aspects of the sophic arrangement of the Pomor ethnocentrum, whose sacred geometry is similar to the configuration of “cold” societies. The class of “cold” societies based on the mythological paradigm of eternal return includes the archaic and traditional communities of the Russian Arctic (Sami, Nenets, Komi, Russian Pomors). The ideology of Old Believers was one of the leading mechanisms aimed to “cool” and maintain the homeostasis of the structure of local and ethnic communities in Pomorye. It was reflected in the sacred geometry of monastic and local self-government in the Russian North. The “cold option” of Pomor culture, along with the preserving values of the old faith, included more archaic elements and “cooling” mechanisms going back to the shamanistic ritual-mythological complex. In Pomor society, the function of such a refrigerator, preserving the sacred knowledge of the structure of the universe and maintaining the eternal still of the northern world, was performed by the poet-storyteller. He used word magic to turn the icy silence of the North into the sounding mythopoetic cosmos.

Nietzsche’s Heraclitean Doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same

Abstract There is a long and successful scholarly tradition of commenting on Nietzsche’s deep affinity for the philosophy of Heraclitus. But scholars remain puzzled as to why he suggested at the end of his career, in Ecce Homo, that the doctrine he valued most, the eternal recurrence of the same, might also have been taught by Heraclitus. This essay aims to answer this question through a close examination of Nietzsche’s allusions to Heraclitus in his first published mention of eternal recurrence in The Joyful Science and in a related set of notes from the period when he was formulating and defending his doctrine of eternal recurrence while writing Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The key to answering this question, it is argued, is that Nietzsche came to believe that the doctrine of eternal recurrence, when properly understood as requiring identical repetition, has to presuppose a Heraclitean reality of eternal, absolute, and universal flux.

Locked Groove

The locked groove begins in the realm of practical use, a technic of utilitarian function meant to safeguard via a closed pathway, preventing the stylus from drifting after a side of a record has finished. This particular strategy of containment, a preventative measure against damaging and transgressive wanderings, marks a site of desire for the medium’s preservation which manifests as a mechanism of capture. When the record’s content concludes, its form remains. The closed circuit of an infinite loop, the negative space of the locked groove inexorably returns us to the purely material, an eternal recurrence of capital’s temporality, closing the experience of the record by exposing its limits and declaring its finitude. It halts reverie and announces necessity, demanding our interaction once again with mundanity. The hiccupping pop of the locked groove is culturally ubiquitous as the melancholic soundtrack of endings finally arrived. Left unattended too long, the locked groove becomes the sonic register of anxious suspense. A sonic remainder, it arcs towards the unheimlich, each spin an increasing reminder of a missing intervention, of a welcome overstayed, an endless ending already reached. The locked groove, however, does not simply indicate the conclusion of a record as it simultaneously exists as a break in the certitude of finality, declaring an ending without ever stopping its perambulations. The locked groove holds a unique position, signaling both a residual and emergent spacetime, caught up in a holding pattern that demands a change, reliant upon our intervention in historical time, a reminder that something inevitably comes next and that we can decide the content of the subsequent movement. It awaits and anticipates. Even as it holds on to all that came before, the one-and-a-half second repetition issues forth a call to overturn or to replace or to begin again (once more from the top), beckoning for the next revolution and its eventual resolution. The interregnum of the locked groove is a contested moment, an immanent interruption on the margins. The in-between has within it the yet-to-come, that unmappable locale wherein the possibility of utopia continually resides in the assured promise that the next time will be different. The locked groove links us to a process, the ritual of engagement and tactile manipulation of the mechanics of our listening. It marks the point at which the record requests our return. It is an audible caesura that draws us back to the turntable to once more confront a silence and to once more ponder how we may, however briefly, make it otherwise.

Nietzsche’s Heraclitean Doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same

AbstractThere is a long and successful scholarly tradition of commenting on Nietzsche’s deep affinity for the philosophy of Heraclitus. But scholars remain puzzled as to why he suggested at the end of his career, inEcce Homo, that the doctrine he valued most, the eternal recurrence of the same, might also have been taught by Heraclitus. This essay aims to answer this question through a close examination of Nietzsche’s allusions to Heraclitus in his first published mention of eternal recurrence inThe Joyful Scienceand in a related set of notes from the period when he was formulating and defending his doctrine of eternal recurrence while writingThus Spoke Zarathustra. The key to answering this question, it is argued, is that Nietzsche came to believe that the doctrine of eternal recurrence, when properly understood as requiring identical repetition, has to presuppose a Heraclitean reality of eternal, absolute, and universal flux.