Idea Of Hospitality Research Articles

“To Petrus”: Coetzee, Krog, critics

Through analysis of recent Coetzee criticism and Krog's recent creative non‐fiction this review‐article invokes distinctions between ‘mimetic’ and ‘autotelic’ responses to text/context/reception interactions. If Coetzee is seen by his critics as autotelic (discourse deconstructed from within his work) Krog links imitations of the real to artistic and social commitment. Accordingly, Krog's interpretation of Petrus's story (the Petrus of Disgrace) differs from Lurie's interpretation. Despite this the conclusion is that among contemporary writers of South African interest Coetzee and Krog offer literary criticism its richest rewards. “J M Coetzee and his Doubles.” Conference, New York University (27–28 April 2007). Journal of Literary Studies 25(4), 2009. Guest Editors: Mark Sanders & Nancy Ruttenburg. 143pp. Mike Marais. 2009. Secretary of the Invisible: The Idea of Hospitality in the Fiction of J M Coetzee. Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi. 249pp. Carrol Clarkson. 2009. J M Coetzee: Countervoices. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. 230pp. Antjie Krog. 2009. Begging to be Black. Cape Town: Random House Struik. 291pp.

Towards a Philosophy of Queer Alterity. Faith and Democracy

The text is an intervention in post-secularist and anti-fundamentalist philosophy of affective alterity. It attempts to reconstruct the philosophical tradition of affective alterity and to construct a theory of it. Homosexuality is affective alterity, the other love of Thou and I. We explore dynamic religions in their openness to the Other. Emphasis is on Judaism and the "Love the stranger" postulate in the Hebrew Bible; we go back to biblical and rabbinical literature as well as Erich Fromm's and Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytic interpretations of them. The idea of hospitality, rooted in the Bible and the Koran, was revived by Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Griselda Pollock, and Geoffrey H. Hartman. It is of urgent importance in Poland where fundamentalist misogyny and homophobia increase. In our paper, queer rights are examined as human rights - and this is again pertinent in Eastern Europe. The methodology of the intersection of cultural analysis and Jewish studies here are inspired by Mieke Bal and Ernst van Alphen. The particular connection between Jewishness and queerness is stressed by Daniel Boyarin, Ann Pellegrini and Alisa Solomon; as we write, it is to be found in today's Poland in the Shterndlech Iton Babel magazine, published by the younger generation. Also, the feminist studies of Maria Janion, Kazimiera Szczuka and Bozena Uminska are of significance here. We end with visual culture productions: the queer or omni-sexual art exhibition against nationalist censorship Love and Democracy, curated by Pawel Leszkowicz in Poznan (2005), and in Gdansk (2006). Throughout the paper we propose our understanding of love. The text whose part is entitled "Faith and Democracy" is a sequel to our Polish-language book Love and Democracy. Reflexions on the Homosexual Question in Poland (2005) with an extensive English summary. Our loves, our subjectivities are despised and disrespected, but created in art, philosophical research, and activism. Let us exercise (in) love.