Chronicle of Separation

Michal Ben-Naftali, Mirjam Hadar

Description

A unique feminist approach to the legacy of Jacques Derrida, Chronicle of Separation is a disparate yet beautifully interwoven series of distinct readings, genres, and themes, offering a powerful reflection of love in-and as-deconstruction. Looking especially at relationships between women, Ben-Naftali provides a wide-ranging investigation of interpersonal relationships: the love of a teacher, the anxiety-ridden bond between a mother and daughter as manifested in anorexia, passion between two women, love after separation and in mourning, the tension between one's self and the internalized other. Traversing each of these investigations, Chronicle of Separation takes up Derrida's Memoires for Paul de Man and The Post Card, Lillian Hellman's famed friendship with a woman named Julia, and adaptations of the biblical Book of Ruth. Above all, it is a treatise on the love of theory in the name of poetry, a passionate book on love and friendship.

Sujets

• Western philosophy
• Literary theory

Informations

• Publié par: Fordham University Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780823265824
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

CHRONICLE OF SEPARATION

CHRONICLE OF SEPARATION

ON DECONSTRUCTION’S DISILLUSIONED LOVE

MICHAL BEN-NAFTALI

Translated by MIRJAM HADAR

Fordham University PressNew York2015

Copyright © 2015 Fordham University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ben-Naftali, Michal.  [Kronikah shel peredah. English]  Chronicle of separation : on deconstruction’s disillusioned love / Michal Ben-Naftali ; translated by Mirjam Hadar.  pages cm. —(Idiom: inventing writing theory)  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-0-8232-6579-4 (hardback) —ISBN 978-0-8232-6580-0 (paper)  1. Deconstruction. 2. Interpersonal relations. 3. Gender identity. 4. Anorexia nervosa. I. Title. B809.6.B4613 2015 149'.97—dc23 2014033583

Printed in the United States of America

17 16 15

First edition

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CONTENTS

1

2

3

4

5

Foreword: Friendship, Unauthorizedby Avital Ronell

Preface

From Absolute Love to the Politics of Friendship

Let’s Show Our (Post) Cards

Julia

“And She Dîd Eat and Was Suficed and Left”: Deconstructîon as an Anorexic Perspective

The Book of Ruth

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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FOREWORD: FRIENDSHIP,UNAUTHORIZED Ronell

Avital AVITAL RONELL

I have wanted to get a cose-up, to conirm an încomparabe aîance. Maybe show up for her, îf ony as a measure of the posta ogîc to whîch her wrîtîng bears wîtness. I coud enact the stas of arrîva, trackîng the uncharted conver- gence of a destîny and îts destînatîon. Show up wîthout propery manîfestîng, develop an itinerary that stays depropriative—at once steady in its nearness and prudenty off range. Phîîppe Lacoue-Labarthe has taught us to thînk în terms of deproprîatîon, whîch entaîs a form of rîgorous hesîtatîon when as - sumîng responsîbîîty for the work or thought of another, an ay or ancestor, or unknown stragger of wrîtîng. I woud be capabe, I te mysef, of refraînîng from puttîng stakes down as one does when caîmîng a terrîtory. To the extent that I am at a “capabe”—wîed-to-power on any eve of exîstence, abe to ac - company and say and squeak, îke my cousîn Joseine, Queen of the Mausvok. But that’s another story of certîiabe kînshîp, another deproprîatîng route; I sha desîst from exporîng my îterary roots to foow a dîfferent cut of destî- natîon. Posta ogîc îndîcates that we mîght not make ît, that some other form of address, înadvertent and remote, mîght overtake the trave pan that I had în mînd. Nonetheess, I wanted to show up for her, take the ca by accompany- îng her wrîtîng, at east part of the way. Not sure what în fact propeed me, I woud do my best, “faîre mon împossîbe,” as I sometîmes te mysef. But why, in this instance and to this address?

1

Maybe we were meant to be friends. Yet, so much militated against such an extravagance:the hypothesîs that we were meant to be frîends. Language, phil- osophical habits and markers, existentially pitched checkpoints were stacked against us. On what basis could I possibly befriend Michal B.—according to what ledger of determinations, approved contingencies, contractual loopholes, or transferential coordinates? The blocked passage to friendship remains a di-

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AVITAL RONELL

lemma for those constituted, if only in passing, as women. The restrictive cov- enant is a rigorous part of the order of things. When you’re a girl, friendship doesn’t just happen; you have to be willing to go against all sorts of grains and tradîtîonay set restrîctîons, the bowback of cynîca postuatîons. Stî, no lex of muscled lucidity will help you make the grade as friend, for the situation is not a matter of some accidental lockout. Our metaphysical heritage has rigorously demanded the embargo on the female clasp of friendship. Despite revolutionary breakthrough stances or carefully attended displace- ments, one stî remaîns tethered to a gratîng herîtage that deines, oppresses, structures, feeds, reguates, or pumps any attempt at reconigured personhood, setting up the rules and regs, metaphysically speaking, that make politically- tinged aspects of relatedness an affair of men. Metaphysics, our homeroom language and shared existential springboard, puts a ban on friendship among women. The stakes are undoubtedly high, for the motif of friendship ensures the modeling of all sorts of vital ethical and political dispositions, grounding our sense of justice. As Derrida has argued, friendship serves as the blueprint for political and amorous cleaves. Women, for the most part, have been assigned to the historical sidelines, even though they prove adept at traumatically intrusive break-ins and manage to achieve a modicum of social rewrites. One thinks of Antîgone, of Keîst’s femînîne igurînes that shoot out counter-memory to bock historical narratives of entitlement; one continues to be struck by the howls of one-woman–lone-warrior types like Valerie Solanas; one continues to stress over the seethîng delatîons of Ingeborg Bachmann and the ongoîng pee-down of Sylvia Plath. (I have more names in mind; I love enumeration and memorial- izing remembrance—I can go overboard with my lists, but this is not the place.) So. How to get around this embarrassment and still make some sort of legiti- mate outreach program primed on the protocols of friendship stick? My share ofPenis-neid is wrapped up in withheld friendship, an attachment or dispo- sition, an inclination of being-in-the-world declared off-limits to women. Of course male designees yammer staggeringly, from Aristotle to our day, about the nearly impossible attainment of friendship, but that plaint operates on an entirely other level and register of constraint and taboo. Maybe I was called up by a different politics of friendship, a different grid or writing practice that pulls one close to another’s distress. I search out the skies daily for smoke signals, often discreet and sophisticated or technologically up- graded. I am always on the lookout for signaling systems, no matter how remote or deferred, no matter how misdirected or suddenly they appear on my desk. I

FRIENDSHIP,UNAUTHORIZED

am not the only one waiting anxiously at the ready to sign for a designated—or stray—envoi. I for my part may be the warp of a defective GPS, for I cannot imag- ine that my function as address has been taken all that seriously. Still, things, no matter how delected or dead etter boxed, do have a way of showîng up at my door or on my desk (the door is law for Celan, the desk for Kafka: these are not contingent architectural motifs). I have little to offer, and less that I can do. At most, I can provide a reading. But is that so derisory? For so many of the lumi- nous writers that command my moves and immobility, reading sets the stage for friendship’s sweep, for the amicable rejoinder, establishing the levers that pull in another Dasein. I irst heard of Mîcha Ben-Naftaî from Marguerîte Derrîda one afternoon în Ris-Orangis, when we were hanging out and Jacques was taking lunch in Paris with his Hebrew translator. Since that initiatory encounter—a rumor, a discreet shadow enfolded in theAufgabefrom which Walter Benjamin whipped us (well, me) into a hysterical frenzy—I have been following Ben-Naftali’s trajectory, won- derîng, among other thîngs and destînatîons, about the vectors deinîng our intellectual kinship and the conditions of ana priorifellowship, quietly staging the “sîght unseen” kînd of embrace that I was prepared to offer. Or, dîggîng out of a paleonymic rut, let us say that I probed the premises for establishing a rela- tionality, whether gendered or not, maybe even scouring our shared traditions în search of soîd amîty, a kînd of grrshîp, sînce “feowshîp” sounds pecuîar, if not altogether void. In any case, I have felt, from day one, responsible to and for Michal Ben-Naftali. Lately, though, the gentle disposition has turned into a streak of fearfulness, for I have become anxious about initializing her important text, upsetting its carefully laid tracks and ecosystems with my inescapable trip- ups prompted by the historical panic attacks that make language hard to come by, self-undermining and capable of upturning the most serene trajectories of thought. Aready în the eary paragraphs I laî about for a bosterîng îdîom, a way to desîgnate “feowshîp” among, et us say, women—or more crunched still, among women authors, philosophers in the feminine, and the stock of con- ceptual incompatibilities bequeathed to Michal and me. The inevitable slip-up, the stammer and stall, is not entirely my fault when I try to give expression to an inclination on my part tobefriendMichal Ben-Naftali. You already know that, on the whole, philosophy squeezes out friendship among women, even merey so-caed and dîficuty coded women.I am on repetîtîon compusîon; but thîs bears repeatîng, caîng out, obsessîng wîth, amentîng.There’s simply no call for friendship among women in the meta-

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