Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe Research Articles

Staging division: power, violence, and theatricality in The Baby of Mâcon

ABSTRACT Peter Greenaway’s The Baby of Mâcon (1993) was highly controversial at the time of its release; its means for critiquing cinematic voyeurism and the exploitability of audiences were received as blasphemous and misanthropic. This essay shows that the politics of this film is more complicated, and more profoundly democratic, than has so far been acknowledged. Drawing on Claude Lefort’s work on the “symbolic dimension” of the political and on Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s work on theatricality and “originary mimesis,” it argues that The Baby of Mâcon is a political-ontological fiction that holds a key to understanding the director’s democratic vision in the post-Thatcherite cultural climate of the early 1990s. In the process, not only does this essay advance a new perspective on the film’s complex structure and on the themes of corporeality and sacrificial violence and their place in Greenaway’s work, it also demonstrates the relevance of an ontologized concept of “staging” for reading this unique cult director’s political films.

Intimations of a Lyricism sans Subject

The lyric is a form or genre of poetry often intimately related to subjectivity. But is a lyricism divested of the subject possible? By examining the philosophical refl ections of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe upon lyricism, poetry, and their relation to subjectivity, this article explicates how an impersonal lyricism is not only possible, but perhaps necessary. If we wish to do justice to the phrasing or saying of poetic language, then we must endeavour to think the displacement of the subject in and by the very language that the poem expresses. Following Lacoue-Labarthe, this article explores the paradoxical turn of lyricism—that it is bound to the subject, but not to its personal expression; rather, to its disappearance, its displacement, in the expression of language itself. By tracing a sketch of Lacoue-Labarthe’s poetics, relating this thought to the lyrical theories of Hamburger and Culler, and providing a brief explication of one of Lacoue-Labarthe’s “poetic” writings, lyricism is shown to be the testament to the disappearance of the subject, the remainder of a disappearance already passed insofar as the poem remains. What remains is that the lyrical subject would be no “subject” at all—only language itself, intimating its own diction.

Excluding the Jew Within Us - Jean-Luc Nancy

Reviewed by: Excluding the Jew Within Us by Jean-Luc Nancy Jean Axelrad Cahan Excluding the Jew Within Us. By Jean-Luc Nancy. Translated by Sarah Clift. Cambridge, MA: Polity, 2020. 60 pages. $15.95 (paper). Understandably, the question of what went wrong in the twentieth century, with (among other things) two global wars and totalitarian political systems, will not let go of us Westerners. In the present work, the internationally renowned French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy engages with this problem. Like a Picasso sketch, the book outlines an answer with disarming simplicity—the achievement of such simplicity in both art and philosophy rests on decades of study and practice. Nancy obtained his doctorate under the supervision of Paul Ricoeur and is strongly influenced by the psychoanalytic approach of Jacques Lacan. He has written on an exceptionally wide array of topics including the philosophies of Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger, the nature of pluralist politics, contemporary globalization, and film. Several works were written in collaboration with his friend Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, another pre-eminent postwar French thinker. Nancy is perhaps best known for La Communauté désoeuvrée (1986), usually translated as The Inoperable Community. [End Page 431] Reaching across the Atlantic to both North and South America, Nancy seeks the sources of enduring antisemitism: what course did the "anathemas of John Chrysostom, the diatribes of Luther, the rantings of [The Protocols of the Elders of Zion] and the ideology of Mein Kampf" take, such that antisemitism is still alive and well from Pittsburgh to Toulouse (vii)? What explains this "stupefying continuity with, and continuation of, a disease and a derangement that has belonged to the West since its very inception" (viii)? In order to understand this stupefying continuity, Nancy begins by discussing the Arendtian notion of the banality of evil and the case of Heidegger. Heidegger was at once the great philosopher leading us to critiques of biologism, technologism, and other corruptions, and one who—as is apparent from the Black Notebooks—fell into "a passive acceptance of stereotypes that emerge from the unfathomable depths of hatred" (11), just like millions of other people. What was it about "the very genesis of the West" that permitted or created not merely the emergence of hatred of the Jew but its "intimate incorporation"? Here, Nancy begins to apply psychological or psychanalytic concepts: incorporation as he understands it is a "capacity for absorption that is itself fed by a powerful energy" (13). He compares the incorporation of hatred to the incorporation of a technological device, let us say a smartphone: after an initial self-conscious effort, the usage becomes virtually automatic, or as Nancy prefers, banal. Skepticism begins to seep cautiously into our reading: is this a viable comparison? The habit of using a technical device seems more like the acquisition of a skill, like baking bread, than the adoption of a belief or set of attitudes, however uncritical. There remains an element of assenting judgement, of conscious position-taking, even in the spewing of the most foolish opinions. In conjunction with the case of Heidegger, Nancy also introduces Lacoue-Labarthe's concepts of "historial" and "spiritual" antisemitism. Lacoue-Labarthe's own analysis of antisemitism appeared most famously in the book Heidegger, Art and Politics: The Fiction of the Political (1986). To say that antisemitism is both historial and spiritual is to say that it is broadly civilizational (a term Nancy is reluctant to use) or cultural—antisemitism is rooted in [End Page 432] the cultural origin(s) of Western civilization. Such a broad civilizational approach, Nancy believes, contrasts strongly with that of the standard authorities, among whom he includes the Critical Theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, the historian Leon Poliakov, and the philosopher Hannah Arendt. We might note here that this list is quite outdated: an enormous amount of both empirical and theoretical work has been done since the studies written by these authors were published. Be that as it may, Nancy proceeds to give an exposition of his own civilizational approach, one which I would call a psycho-metaphysical one; it is an approach on two levels, those of psychology and ontology, running as it were concurrently. According to Nancy...

Between Mask and Uniform: The Undecidability of Mimesis

In this essay I address the problem of identity formation posed by our mimetic condition by considering the relationship between art, domination, and liberation. To better understand how the artistic gift can engender liberation, even if permanently at risk of being instrumentalised for domination, I propose an analysis of the differences between an artistic mask and a uniform. More specifically, I focus on how each of these mimetic forms mobilise different kinds of actions due to the different conceptions of identity that underlie them: the temporary result of an instance of identification among many others, in the case of the artistic mask, and a permanent stabilisation, in the case of the uniform. I ground this differentiation in an analysis of the film Der Hauptmann (2018) by Robert Schwentke and on readings of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy’s critique of ‘ The Nazi Myth’ (1990) constitutive of the mimetic turn.

The Singing Voice and the Delighted Listener

This article focuses on the way in which cinema in recent decades has been listening to the operatic voice and exploring its perception. It is suggested that this interest has been stimulated by Roland Barthes’ S/Z (1970), which, like Honoré de Balzac’s Sarrazin, centers on the moment when the listener encounters and admires the sing- ing (operatic) voice. The connection of this S/Z fragment with the chapter Admiration in Fragments of a Love Speech and with Barth’s experience as a listener, reflected also in his other works (The Grain of the Voice), is emphasized. Barth’s S/Z is considered in line with the reflection on music set by Søren Kierkegaard in his treatise Either/Or (1843). In this line, the author includes Charles Baudelaire’s letter to Richard Wagner (1860) and its analysis by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe in Musica ficta (1982–1991) to indicate the “operatic climate” of the 1980s and the intensity of the discussion of the phenomenon of opera in which the cinema has become involved. Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva (1981) is considered as an example of a response to Barthes’ text; the criterion for the selection of other films (by Fellini, Herzog, Szabó, Russell, Demme, Darabont, Almodóvar) is the captured encounter between the (operatic) voice and homo audiens. It is a cinema that observes “the gaze of our hearing” (Alexander Mikhailov), reaches a new level (a new depth and intimacy) of relationship with opera and looks for ways to the very core of operatic magic, exploring the point of erotic encounter between voice and hearing. The article dis- cusses the opposition of the “intellectual vs sensual and erotic” in the performance, perception and exploration of music (Roland Barthes, Caroline Abbate, Vladimir Yankelevich) and the ability of cinema to offer the listener in front of the screen a musical experience similar to that of the listener on screen and allow the listener to be “delighted” himself — passive and “captivated,” according to Barth. The process of listening unfolds in time, structured by the musical form, which cinema is also able to reflect in its movement, that is, it is able to convey “the tensions of feeling” (Lacoue-Labarthe).

Donna Haraway’s Antiphilosophy: Objectivity Without Objectification

Donna Haraway’s article “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Femi- nism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective” (1988) has been translated into Rus- sian by Lolita Agamalova and Elena Kostyleva, and their translation is published for the first time in this issue of Logos. The translators provide a foreword which dis- cusses the relationship between power and knowledge as a central issue for Haraway and for feminist epistemology. For Haraway, this question primarily concerns posi- tions of power in the production of scientific knowledge. The foreword explores the context in which Haraway’s work emerged and its synthetic attitude toward both the social-constructionist approach to the problem of objectivity in science and femi- nist critical empiricism. Haraway’s position reaches a critical understanding of the metaphysical method as producing knowledge obtained “from nowhere,” knowledge as if seen by the eye of God. From her point of view, men undertake the production of knowledge as if they are disembodied, not burdened with corporeality, as if they have leaped out of their bodies (she calls this the “god trick”). As an alternative, Har- away suggests using other methods of visualization (vision from a specific point, an embodied position, a particular body) conceptualized by her as multiple “situated knowledges.” Taken to its limit, this approach would be antiphilosophical. But at the same time, what happens to philosophy itself if power and knowledge are denoted within it? Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s article La transcendance finit dans la politique (1981) is considered on this issue for its analysis of Heidegger’s attempt to assert the hegemony of philosophy over other sciences.

Art’s Passing for Hegel, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Nancy

This article explores the understanding of æsthetics in the work of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy. It does so in relation to Hegel’s claim about art’s dissolution or passing at the end of the classical Greek age, as the world entered the modern Christian age. For the two French thinkers, their relation to Hegel (and to a large extent æsthetics generally) turns on the claim that art was, but is not. The article looks first at Nancy’s discussion of the young girl carrying fruit, a figure used by Hegel to depict this scene in the history of spirit, then moves on to a rarely read but significant article by Lacoue-Labarthe, “The Unpresentable,” before some final thoughts.

On Nancy, Hölderlin, the Fragmentary and the One

Even though his texts do not refer to the poet as frequently as is the case with Nancy’s friend Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, the importance of Friedrich Holderlin’s writing and thought for Nancy’s phi...

Nötr Maske, Nötrlük, Komedi

This study is based on the neutral mask studies that have great significance within the acting studies of Jacques Copeau and Jacques Lecoq, who pursued physical theater studies in the 20th century European theater. The aim is to offer a reading on the possibilities that the concept “neutral” opens up for the actor. The possibilities that the search for the neutral implies for the actor will be explored as a ground without any identity or belonging -i.e., an interspace toward differentiation, transformation, taking shape, and character and role building - by approaching the term “neutral” with the active mimesis and passive mimesis of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. Further, by highlighting the relation as well between neutrality - as an inter-space without any identity or belonging - and comedy, the comedy potential that the act of taking theatrical form and disguise holds will be explored along with the concepts of “duality” and “playfulness.”

André Bazin's Eternal Returns: An Ontological Revision

The recent publication of André Bazin's Écrits complets (2018), an enormous two-volume edition of 3000 pages which increases ten-fold Bazin's available corpus, provides opportunities for renewed reflection on, and possibly for substantial revisions of, this key figure in film theory. On the basis of several essays, I propose a drastic rereading of Bazin's most explicitly philosophical notion of “ontology.” This all too familiar notion, long settled into a rather dust-laden couple (“Bazin and ontology”) nonetheless retains its fascination. Rather than attempting to provide a systematic reworking of this couple along well established lines, particularly those defined by realism and indexicality, this article proposes to shift the notion of ontology in Bazin from its determination as actual existence toward a more radical concept of ontology based on the notion of mimesis, particularly as articulated, in a Heideggerian mode, by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. This more properly ontological concept, also paradoxically and radically improper, is shown to be at work already in Bazin's texts, and it allows us to see that far from simplistically naturalizing photographic technology, Bazin does the contrary: he technicizes nature. If Bazin says that the photograph is a flower or a snowflake, he also implies that, like photographs, these are likewise a kind of technical artifact, an auto-mimetic reproduction of nature. Bazin likewise refers to film as a kind of skin falling away from the body of History, an accumulating pellicule in which nature and history disturbingly merge. This shifted perspective on Bazin's thinking is extended further in reference to Georges Didi-Huberman on the highly mimetic creatures known as phasmids, insects that mimic their environement. I extend this into the dynamic notion of eternal return, an implicit dimension of Bazin's thinking, clarified here in reference to Giorgio Agamben and the “immemorial image” which, like Bazin's “Death Every Afternoon,” presents an eminently repeatable deathly image, an animated corpse-world that can be likened to hell.

Mimesis : Concept singulier-pluriel, entretien avec Jean-Luc Nancy

Jean-Luc Nancy takes the recent return of attention to mimesis as a starting point for considering the relationship between philosophy and literature, especially in terms of “une mimesis littéraire vraiment du monde dans lequel on est.” Reflecting on his lifelong philosophical project, Nancy stresses the constitutive connection between mimesis and the call for “un savoir vrai, un savoir juste.” Nancy discusses his work and life with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, his involvement in the linguistic turn, structuralism, and deconstruction, addressing topics at the heart of his philosophical work – such as the subject, community, myth, fascism, and democracy – and ending with reflections on the Covid-19 pandemic and the sharing it generates.

Self-Hating Nazis

From Heidegger’s portentous “Letter on Humanism” (written in 1946 and published in France the next year) to Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy’s trend-surfing 1980 conference “The Ends of Man” (inspired by Jacques Derrida’s celebrated 1969 essay of the same name), the dereified human subject was over and again cast by leading thinkers of mid-century Europe as a relic of Western metaphysics in decline—on its way out with logocentrism, late capitalism, and liberal democracy. In between, there was Michel Foucault’s “Death of Man,” Roland Barthes’s “Death of the Author,” and, in a similar spirit, Louis Althusser’s “anti-humanist” interrogation of the constitutively benighted “subject of ideology.”

Altering Bodies: Thinking of intervention through impersonation

This essay stages a philosophical dialogue between one of Plato’s earliest and shortest works, Ion, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s deconstructive reflections on Diderot’s paradox of the actor. It takes the rhapsodic practice of the ancient figure of Ion as a reference point for thinking about the performer’s intoxicating nature and investigates its philosophical, bodily and psychological implications as well as its critical potential. It will proceed in three stages. The first part takes a detailed look at the absolute focal point of Ion, namely the analogy between the rhapsode’s intoxication and the Heraclean lodestone. The second part addresses the ‘logic’ of the magnet specifically from Ion’s point of view, which entails a critique of Socrates’ assumption of Ion being ‘out of his wits’ when he performs. The final part shows, with the help of Lacoue-Labarthe’s radicalization of Diderot’s paradox – the actor is nothing and everything at the same time – how Ion’s intoxicating impersonations can be considered an imperative for catharsis and critical intervention.

Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us by Simon Critchley, and: Poetics of History: Rousseau and the Theater of Originary Mimesis by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe

Reviewed by: Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us by Simon Critchley, and: Poetics of History: Rousseau and the Theater of Originary Mimesis by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe David Krasner TRAGEDY, THE GREEKS, AND US. By Simon Critchley. New York: Pantheon Books, 2019; pp. 336. POETICS OF HISTORY: ROUSSEAU AND THE THEATER OF ORIGINARY MIMESIS. By Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. Translated by Jeff Fort. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019; pp. 176. Tragedy and philosophy have a long history of antipathy. Plato and his later acolyte Rousseau, in particular, saw tragedy, with its supposed corrupting influence and disingenuousness, as so anathema to their visions for humanity as a whole that they banished tragedy from their morally utopian cities. They each viewed theatre, with its emphasis on mimesis, as deceptive slight-of-hand and therefore un-trustworthy; it teaches people that simulacrum is a substitute for genuine human interaction and so encourages a disregard for virtue and decorum among the populace. Plato, in particular, saw tragedy as the harbinger of imagination run amok, misdirected from idealistic pursuit and toward delusion, fakery, and untrustworthiness. In the tenth book of Plato’s Republic (c.370 bce), he inveighs against tragedy’s emphasis on appearance over reality. The performing artist is an imitator who dwells in appearances rather than truth and deceives through phantasm. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles (Letter to M. D’Alembert on the Theatre, 1758) similarly condemns tragedy (and comedy) as frivolous amusements, promoting what he calls “the double illusion of self-love” (la double illusion de l’amour propre)—leading to egocentric narcissism at the expense of humility, restraint, and truthfulness. For Rousseau, flaunting oneself (se montrer) is as bad as portraying oneself in a role (se montrer autre que ce qu’on est), the very skill of an accomplished actor. Ultimately, theatre is antithetical from what he calls “the natural man” (l’homme sauvage), which is the basis of his promulgation of the raw (and thus sincere and natural) condition of humanity against Enlightenment rationality. Simon Critchley and the late Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe seek to turn the tables on the vexed relationship between tragedy and philosophy. They examine tragedy and its opponents, credit tragic theatre as virtuous, and raise critical questions about the usefulness of tragedy in our current lives. Critchley wants to “defend tragedy against philosophy,” positing that “tragedy articulates a philosophical view that challenges the authority of philosophy by giving voice to what is contradictory about us, what is constricted about us, what is precarious about us, and what is limited about us” (9). In other words, philosophy, emerging from Plato, seeks to bring clarity and pristine ideality to life, while tragedy, by contrast, fosters contradictions, presents incomprehensible suffering, and illuminates the uncertainty of existence. Critchley presents tragedy as a visceral, non-rational condition of life that gainsays Plato’s attempt to lift humanity toward the light of rationality. Tragedy, contra Plato’s idealization, is closer to, and more consistent with, the truth of lived experience. The significance of Lacoue-Labarthe’s study lies in demonstrating the importance of Rousseau’s thought for the advancement of theatre. His counterintuitive argument (which cuts against the grain of Rousseau’s objection to theatre) unfolds as follows: if Rousseau believes humanity is at its best when stressing the raw, honest, nascent state-of-nature, then imitation is one of the most salient and well-known features of our Ur-like (originary) behavior. Thus if imitation (mimesis) is a core feature of l’homme sauvage, theatre is the repository of imitation, leading to the subtitle of the book, “originary mimesis.” Rousseau’s “The Savage Man” is for Lacoue-Labarthe, admiringly, “a mimetic animal” who is therefore “originarily, an actor” (33–35). It follows that Rousseau actually favors theatre because imitation is natural sincerity, sincerity is exemplary [End Page 381] (being honest and virtuous), and theatre is imitation—ergo, theatre personifies humanity at its most sincere. Both authors stake their claims through labyrinthian arguments. Each painstakingly and articulately takes readers through dialectical ebb and flow, with Plato (for Critchley) and Rousseau (for Lacoue-Labarthe) as their chess-like competitors. Critchley writes passionately with a presentist emphasis on Greek drama in order...

Poetics of History: Rousseau and the Theater of Originary Mimesis by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe

Poetics of History: Rousseau and the Theater of Originary Mimesis by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe

Filosofía, poesía y política en Carlos Astrada. Notas para una lectura de la noción de "mito" en "El mito gaucho" (1948).

El mito gaucho (1948) es considerado uno de los libros más importantes y representativos de Carlos Astrada. Leído a menudo enfatizando el contexto histórico-político de su publicación —la Argentina justicialista, movimiento político al que Astrada prestó su adhesión—, el propósito del presente trabajo es ofrecer una mirada que priorice el aspecto filosófico del texto. Para ello, analizamos los distintos alcances de la noción de mito, buscando establecer las relaciones entre filosofía, poesía y política en la obra citada. Destacamos la influencia de la tradición romántica alemana —entendida en sentido amplio, de Herder a Nietzsche—, como así también de Heidegger, para lo cual nos valemos de la interpretación propuesta por Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, que pone el acento en la cuestión del mito. La parte final del trabajo está dedicada a poner de relieve las tensiones contenidas en la noción de mito astradiana.

SCENES OF POST-WAR FRENCH THOUGHT

This essay follows the movements of the word “scene” across post-war French thought. The word appears at pivotal moments in the period: it is at the centre of Laplanche and Pontalis’ development of a concept of fantasy; it allows Jacques Derrida, in his early work, to yolk together heterogeneous registers of his thought; it becomes the focal point of representation, political or otherwise, in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe; and it structures Jacques Rancière’s polemics with Althusser and then Auerbach. In tracking the itinerary of the word, I restage some of the fundamental philosophical problems of the period around the structure and origins of representation.

PHILIPPE LACOUE-LABARTHE’S INTERPRETATION OF WALTER BENJAMIN IN HEIDEGGER AND THE POLITICS OF POETRY

Walter Benjamin is a persistent but elusive presence in many of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s writings, and the relationship between Lacoue-Labarthe and Benjamin is accordingly both significant and difficult to grasp. In Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry (2002), Lacoue-Labarthe more explicitly and directly engages with Benjamin than anywhere else. Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry continues the project of Heidegger, Art and Politics (1987). That is, it continues Lacoue-Labarthe’s attempt to come to terms with Heidegger’s political engagement with German National Socialism. Accordingly, this article starts by outlining Lacoue-Labarthe’s approach to Heidegger’s politics in Heidegger, Art and Politics. It then considers how Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry continues Lacoue-Labarthe’s criticism of Heidegger and what roles Benjamin plays in this. The third section takes a closer look at Lacoue-Labarthe’s interpretation of Benjamin in Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry and argues that Lacoue-Labarthe’s Benjamin is exceedingly Heideggerian. This is intriguing since Lacoue-Labarthe often opposes Benjamin to Heidegger in order to distance himself from the latter. The conclusion argues that Benjamin nevertheless allows Lacoue-Labarthe to articulate his own position vis-à-vis Heidegger.

Universalism and the (un)translatable

ABSTRACTA unified set of questions arises in translation theory as it does in philosophy: how can one particularity be related to another? Can any general truth emerge from this relationship? And if so, in what particular language might this general truth be thought about and discussed? This article explores how various French thinkers have addressed these questions, from Alain Badiou's recent account of philosophical French in terms of universalism, to Antoine Berman's and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe's readings of an alternative approach to universalism provided by German thought. Where a key passage in Badiou's text suggests that he has Friedrich Hölderlin in mind, this poet-translator provides an explicit model for the other two thinkers.

Autentyczność i przeszkoda. O paradoksalnych figurach autentyczności w kulturze XXI wieku

<p>Artykuł jest poświęcony figurze paradoksu, która odgrywa kluczową rolę w procesie kształtowania się idei autentyczności, a także konstruowania tekstów kultury na niej skupionych. Tekst ma charakter teoretyczny, analizuje pojęcie paradoksu w kontekście autentyczności, a także jego znaczenia dla konstrukcji tej idei. Autorka poddała analizie fundamentalne dla autentyczności dzieła Denisa Diderota (Paradoks o aktorze) oraz Jean-Jacques’a Rousseau. Oba utwory zostały poparte krytycznymi współczesnymi analizami – odpowiednio autorstwa Philippe’a Lacoue-Labarthe’a oraz Jeana Starobinskiego, a także innymi opracowaniami. Przedstawienie fundamentalnych dla dyskursu o autentyczności rozpraw ma na celu próbę zderzenia ich z współczesnym sposobem mówienia na temat tej idei oraz określania jej paradoksalności. Zasadniczą koncepcją artykułu jest przedstawienie takich figur paradoksu, które wpływają na kształt oraz dynamikę pojęcia autentyczności w epoce oświecenia i współcześnie.</p>