The Writing of Innocence

Aïcha Liviana Messina

Description

The Writing of Innocence explores the topic of innocence and the peculiar relationship to Christianity in the writing of Maurice Blanchot. Its starting point is that innocence is not a condition relegated to a mythical past but rather one resulting from the construction of the subject in and through language. Hence, we don't lose innocence; instead, we are lost by innocence. It is an excess, not a lack. This inverted notion of innocence raises new ethical and political issues that Aïcha Liviana Messina unfolds through vigorous re-readings of a series of biblical motifs, including law, grace, and apocalypse. The closing chapter turns to the convergences and divergences between Jean-Luc Nancy's and Blanchot's understandings of the deconstruction of Christianity. With a foreword by philosopher Serge Margel, The Writing of Innocence offers a fresh perspective on Blanchot's writings in general and on his dialogue with Hegel in particular. While staging innocence in its philosophical and literary dimensions, The Writing of Innocence provides singular readings of works by Kierkegaard, Agamben, Derrida, Nancy, Camus, Hugo, and Kafka.
Acknowledgments

Foreword
Serge Margel

Introduction: The Fall of Innocence

1. Law

2. Grace

3. Innocence

4. Apocalypse

5. The Deconstruction of Christianity in Nancy and Blanchot

Conclusion: The Innocence of the Stone

Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Éthique et morale
• Philosophie du langage
• Philosophie de la religion
• Philosophie et théologie
• PHILOSOPHY
• Comparative Literature
• Movements
• Ethique et morale
• Déconstruction
• Deconstruction
• Philosophy of religion
• Literary criticism
• Religión
• Philosophie de la langue

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438489018
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Writing of Innocence
SERIES EDITORS
David E. Johnson, Comparative Literature, University at Buffalo
Scott Michaelsen, English, Michigan State University
SERIES ADVISORY BOARD
Nahum Dimitri Chandler, African American Studies, University of California, Irvine
Rebecca Comay, Philosophy and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto
Marc Crépon, Philosophy, École Normale Supérieure, Paris
Jonathan Culler, Comparative Literature, Cornell University
Johanna Drucker, Design Media Arts and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Christopher Fynsk, Modern Thought, Aberdeen University
Rodolphe Gasché, Comparative Literature, University at Buffalo
Martin Hägglund, Comparative Literature, Yale University
Carol Jacobs, German and Comparative Literature, Yale University
Peggy Kamuf, French and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California
David Marriott, History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz
Steven Miller, English, University at Buffalo
Alberto Moreiras, Hispanic Studies, Texas A&M University
Patrick O’Donnell, English, Michigan State University
Pablo Oyarzun, Teoría del Arte, Universidad de Chile
Scott Cutler Shershow, English, University of California, Davis
Henry Sussman, German and Comparative Literature, Yale University
Samuel Weber, Comparative Literature, Northwestern University
Ewa Ziarek, Comparative Literature, University at Buffalo
The Writing of Innocence
Blanchot and the Deconstruction of Christianity
Aïcha Liviana Messina
Cover image: Recomposition 4, 2021 , by Susanne Doppelt. © Susanne Doppelt, 2021. Used with permission.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2022 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 whatsoever 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
Name: Messina, Aïcha Liviana, author.
Title: The writing of innocence : Blanchot and the deconstruction of Christianity / Aïcha Liviana Messina.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2022] | Series: SUNY series, literature … in theory | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021048869 | ISBN 9781438488998 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438489018 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Blanchot, Maurice. | Innocence (Psychology) | Nancy, Jean-Luc.
Classification: LCC B2430.B574 M47 2022 | DDC 194—dc23/eng/20220103
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021048869
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Serge Margel
Introduction: The Fall of Innocence
1. Law
2. Grace
3. Innocence
4. Apocalypse
5. The Deconstruction of Christianity in Nancy and Blanchot
Conclusion: The Innocence of the Stone
Notes
References
Index
Acknowledgments
This book took shape progressively from 2014 to 2021.
I would like to thank Ilit Ferber, Adam Lipsczyc, Andrea Potestà, and Nassima Sahraoui, with whom a small but durable research group emerged and has not only continued but has amplified over time. In this context, a very embryonic version of chapter one was presented in 2014 in a seminar called “Language and Violence” at Tel Aviv University, and a first version of chapter three was presented in Warsaw the following year in a seminar called “Space and Violence,” after which we spent an entire afternoon commenting on a passage from Melville’s Billy Budd .
A previous version of chapter one was also presented in Buffalo in 2014 at a conference organized by two extraordinary friends and colleagues, Rodolphe Gasché and David E. Johnson, whose way of cultivating friendship and thought allowed me to persevere in this book project. I’m infinitely grateful to them and to the whole audience that was present in Buffalo, and in general to the Department of Comparative Literature at the University at Buffalo where I have often enjoyed attending their excellent lecture series.
In November 2015, I presented an early draft of the first part of chapter five in an international conference on the thought of Jean-Luc Nancy titled “Jean-Luc Nancy, penser la mutation,” organized by Jérôme Lèbre and Jacob Rogozinsky. I would like to thank them for their invitation, for their trust, and for this important moment of rigorous thought, but also for friendship, which they made possible. When the conference began, the audience and the speakers were still shocked by the terrorist attack that had just taken place in Paris.
In September 2015, I presented a first draft of the final part of chapter five in the city of Messina at an event on Nancy’s book The Disavowed Community , organized by Caterina Resta, Rita Fulco, and myself. Their collegiality and friendship doubtlessly keep me joyful in the world. I thank them, and I thank Jean-Luc Nancy who, besides being there with an invaluable generosity, commenced speaking in Italian without noticing, thus overcoming his own idea that he was not able to speak it. The content that became part of chapter five was also presented in the Eugenio Donato Seminars in Buffalo, organized by Rodolphe Gasché, whom I can never thank enough. I would like to extend all my gratitude to the audience for their insightful questions and many thoughtful reflections.
The last part of chapter five discusses an article co-written by Juan Manuel Garrido and myself that was published in Cahiers Maurice Blanchot . I would like to thank Danielle Cohen-Levinas and Michaël Holland for their invitation to write this article, which indeed was the occasion to clarify Nancy’s difficult, important, and controversial book. I’m grateful to Juan Manuel Garrido, with whom I’ve shared many discussions and learned one important aspect of the Greek philia (friendship) in which philosophical differences have not only their place, but also their histories. I’m also very grateful to María del Rosario Acosta whose reflections, after she read this co-written article, have been decisive in the elaboration of chapter five . I also thank her for inviting me to give a seminar called “Deconstruction of Christianity in Nancy and Blanchot” at DePaul University, as well as the students who attended the seminar.
Finally, a less embryonic version of chapter one was presented at Emory University, in a talk organized by Matías Bascuñán in 2019, who has been, with Manuela Ossa, a formidable host. Their trust, their desire to think, their high expectations are indeed vital, constantly aiming to rethink academia and the university.
Enormous thanks also to Marcia Cavalcante, who edited the dossier on History, Today in Philosophy Today , where a first version of chapter four was published.
I also extend my thanks for the help I received either to edit this manuscript or to translate some portions directly, and to improve or complement some ideas.
Preliminary versions of some chapters were originally written in French and have been translated into English. Jonathan Cimon-Lambert translated a preliminary version of chapter one . Lena Taub translated a preliminary version of chapter four . Donald Cross translated the conclusion and has helped to revise chapter two . I would like to express my gratitude to them and to Cheryl Emerson, who not only helped to revise the whole manuscript of this book, but who has also commented on it and participated in its unfolding. I would also like to thank Luís Felipe Alarcón for his comments and careful reading of the first version of the complete manuscript and, in general, for the horizon his point of view manages to open—and for his unwavering friendship.
This work was made possible above all by the commitment, energy, and concern of the students, friends, and collaborators with whom I organized lecture groups and seminars on Blanchot. It’s a formidable opportunity to be able to share such disarming writings in contexts where we can take the time to let writing question our categories of knowing and being. This has been the case in a reading group on The Writing of the Disaster , whose participants include Víctor Ibarra, Julieta Marchant, Amanda Olivares, Mauricio Oportus, Ricardo Perez, Rudy Pradena, Felipe Quintero, Marcela Rivera, and Cristián Rustom.
The last version of this book included a response to the commentaries formulated by the anonymous readers. I’m extremely grateful for their very important and insightful remarks, for their suggestions, and for their careful reading.
It’s important to acknowledge that this work was made possible thanks to the support of the Chilean National Funding for Scientific and Technologic Development (Fondecyt 1210921) and of Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago de Chile.
I would also like to thank The New Centennial Review , Philosophy Today , and Les cahiers philosophiques de Strasbourg where preliminary versions of the first part of chapter one , of chapter four , and of a portion of chapter five have been published. A previous version of chapter one originally appeared in CR: The New Centennial Review (vol. 15, no. 3, 201–24),—published by Michigan State University Press. A previous version of chapter four originally appeared in Philosophy Today (vol. 60, no. 4, 877—92). A brief portion of chapter five originally appeared in CR: The New Centennial Review (vol. 17, no. 3, 63–80) published by Michigan State University Press and in Les Cahiers philosophiques de Strasbourg (no. 42, 153—68).
Foreword
S ERGE M ARGEL
The Exposure of Innocence and the Desire for Inexistence
First and foremost, innocence does not exist. It is a state of grace, or a gift.