Édouard Glissant, Philosopher

Alexandre Leupin, Andrew Brown

Description

One of the greatest writers of the late twentieth century, Édouard Glissant's body of work covers multiple genres and addresses many cogent contemporary problems, such as borders, multiculturalism, postcolonial and decolonial studies, and global humanities. Édouard Glissant, Philosopher is the first study that maps out this writer's entire work in relation to philosophy. Glissant is reputed to be a "difficult writer;" however, Alexandre Leupin demonstrates the clarity and coherence of his thinking. Glissant's rereading of Western philosophy entirely remaps its age-old questions and offers answers that have never been proposed. In doing so, Glissant offers a new way to think about questions that are at the forefront of Global Humanities today: identity, race, communities, diasporas, slavery, nation-states and nationalism, aesthetics, ethics, and the place and function of poetry and art in a globalized world. This book will elucidate Glissant's theoretical writings, not only in England and in America but also in the anglophone Caribbean, Africa, and India.

Sujets

• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438483276
• Langue: English

Extrait

ÉDOUARD GLISSANT, PHILOSOPHER
SUNY series in Contemporary French Thought

David Pettigrew and François Raffoul, editors
ÉDOUARD GLISSANT, PHILOSOPHER
Heraclitus and Hegel in the Whole-World
A LEXANDRE L EUPIN
Translated by Andrew Brown
French Voices Logo designed by Serge Bloch.
This work received the French Voices Award for excellence in publication and translation. French Voices is a program created and funded by the French Embassy in the United States and FACE Foundation (French American Cultural Exchange)
Cover painting entitled “The Quest for a Tree” is by Sylvie Sema; used by permission.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Leupin, Alexandre | Brown, Andrew, translator.
Title: Édouard Glissant, philosopher : Heraclitus and Hegel in the whole-world / Alexandre Leupin, translated by Andrew Brown.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Series: SUNY series in Contemporary French Thought | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438483252 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438483269 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438483276 (ebook)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for Sylvie
When a poet dies, his most beautiful images,
his most influential works,
as well as his most everyday words,
are immediately safeguarded
in imperceptible fissures of the improbable,
and in the mysterious cracks of time,
where those bold enough can consult them.
—Glissant, Philosophie de la Relation
All philosophy is an art.
—Glissant, Une nouvelle région du monde
It is not the system that needs to be challenged.
  What needs to be challenged
is any system that seeks to be systematic.
—Glissant, L’Imaginaire des langues
A living poetry must be part of life itself.
—Hegel, Esthétique IV
The death of poets also has a certain allure
which much more overwhelming
or terrifying sorrows do not possess. It is because we
feel that a great poet,
here among us, enters into a solitude
that we cannot conquer.
And once he has gone, we know
that if we were to follow him that minute into the endless shadows,
never could we see him or touch him.
—Glissant, Philosophie de la Relation
Embraces
Wholes and not-Wholes
An accordance, a discordance
Consonant and dissonant
And of all things one
And of the One all things
—Heraclitus, Fragment X
Contents
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Translator’s Note
Chapter 1 “The immense foliage of a Louisiana oak, like a flattened palaver tree”
Chapter 2 “Repetition is not an unnecessary duplication”
Chapter 3 “I do not reject, I establish correlation”
Chapter 4 “This need to go beyond one’s own subjectivity”
Chapter 5 “Everything is in everything”
Chapter 6 “Universality has no language”
Chapter 7 “Bounds, breaks and sudden leaps”
Chapter 8 “Only the poets”
Chapter 9 “The beauty of beauty”
Chapter 10 “The dispute, one of the safest and oldest reinforcements of thought”
Chapter 11 “We do not name Relation”
Chapter 12 “Now there are only beings”
Chapter 13 “The slave is the one who does not know, but who desires with all his strength to know”
Chapter 14 “I change things, through exchanging with the other, and yet without destroying or distorting myself”
Chapter 15 “And so we bring down (as if literally) the letter of the world”
Chapter 16 “Imagine a thousand birds taking flight over an African lake”
Chapter 17 “The continuity of the living is a spiral that does not fear to be interrupted”
Chapter 18 “Yes, yes, everything is alive”
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Abbreviations
CC
La Case du commandeur [ The Commander’s Hut ] (Paris: Le Seuil, 1981)
CL
La Cohée du Lamentin, Poetics V [ La Cohée du Lamentin, Poetics V ] (Paris: Gallimard, 2005).
DA
Le Discours antillais [ Antillean Discourse ] (Paris: Le Seuil, 1981)
DG
Discours de Glendon [ Glendon Speech ] (Toronto: Éditions du GREF, 1990)
EBR
Les Entretiens de Baton Rouge ( The Baton Rouge Interviews ), with Alexandre Leupin (Paris: Gallimard, 2008). English translation: The Baton Rouge Interviews with Édouard Glissant and Alexandre Leupin , trans. Kate M. Cooper (Liverpool, 2020)
FM
Faulkner, Mississippi (Paris: Stock, 1996)
IBM
L’Intraitable Beauté du monde. Adresse à Barack Obama [ The Intractable Beauty of the World. Address to Barack Obama ] (Paris: Éditions Galaade, 2009)
IL
L’Imaginaire des langues [ The Imaginary of Languages ], with Lise Gauvin (Paris: Gallimard, 2010)
IP
L’Intention poétique [ The Poetic Intention ] (Paris: Le Seuil, “Pierres vives,” 1969), republished as Poétique II [ Poetics II ] (Paris: Gallimard, 1997)
IPD
Introduction à une Poétique du divers [ Introduction to a Poetics of Diversity ] (Paris: Gallimard, 1996). English translation: Introduction to a Poetics of Diversity , trans. Celia Britton (Liverpool, 2020)
L
La Lézarde [ The Lizard ] (Paris: Le Seuil, 1958). English translation: The Ripening , trans. Michael Dash (London: Heinemann, 1985)
ME
Mémoires de l’esclavage [ Memories of Slavery ] (Paris: Gallimard, 2007)
MI
Le Monde incréé [ The Uncreated World ] (Paris: Gallimard, 2000)
MPHN
Manifeste pour les produits de haute nécessité [ Manifesto for Products of Prime Necessity ] (Paris: Éditions Galaade, 2009)
NRM
Une nouvelle région du monde, Esthétique I [ A New Region of the World, Aesthetics I ] (Paris: Gallimard, 2006)
O
Ormerod (Paris: Gallimard, 2003)
PC
Poèmes complets [ Complete Poems ] (Paris: Gallimard, 1994)
PhR
Philosophie de la Relation , Poésie en étendue [ Philosophy of Relation, Poetry in Extent ] (Paris: Gallimard, 2008)
PR
Poétique de la Relation, Poétique III [ Poetics of Relation: Poetics III ] (Paris: Gallimard, 1990)
QLMT
Quand les murs tombent: l’identité nationale hors-la-loi? [ When the Walls Fall: National Identity as Outlaw? ] (Paros: Éditions Galaade, 2007)
QS
Le Quatrième Siècle [ The Fourth Century ] (Paris: Le Seuil, 1964)
S
Sartorius, le roman des Batoutos [ Sartorius, the Novel of the Batoutos ] (Paris: Gallimard, 1999).
SC
Soleil de la conscience [ Sun of Consciousness ] (Paris: Éditions Falaize, 1956), republished as Poétique I [Poetics I] (Paris: Gallimard, 1997)
SR
Le Sang rivé [ The Blood Bound ] (Paris: Présence africaine, 1961)
TeM
La Terre magnétique , Les Errances de Rapa Nui , L’Île de Pâques [ The Magnetic Earth, The Wanderings of Rapa Nui, Easter Island ], in collaboration with Sylvie Séma (Paris: Le Seuil, 2007)
TFEV
La Terre le Feu l’Eau et les Vents, une anthologie de la poésie du Tout-Monde [ Earth Fire Water and Winds, an Anthology of the Whole-World ] (Paris: Galaade, 2010)
TM
Tout-Monde [ Whole-World ] (Paris: Gallimard, 1993)
TTM
Traité du Tout-Monde, Poétique IV [ Treatise on the Whole-World, Poetics IV ] (Paris: Gallimard, 1997). English translation: Treatise on the Whole-World , trans. Celia Britton (Liverpool, 2020)
Acknowledgments
First and foremost I wish to express my deep appreciation to Sylvie Glissant, whose vision of Édouard Glissant’s work and the generous information she has provided have been an invaluable contribution to the writing of this book. Without her encouragement and support, this project would have been abandoned many times.
Thanks also to Jean-Claude Milner for his many clarifications on the question of universality, and to François Raffoul for his evaluation of the Hegelian dialectic.
Thanks are also due to Deans Guillermo Ferreyra and Gaines Foster of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Louisiana, who have so often supported me, as well as the Manship family, thanks to whom I have been able to benefit from many scholarships. The Regents of the University of Louisiana deserve a special mention: in conjunction with the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, they granted me a sabbatical year without which this book would not have seen the light of day.
Thanks also to Chelsea Rye and Jeanne Jégousso for preparing the manuscript.
Tr