
The Vocation of Writing
Literature, Philosophy, and the Test of Violence
Marc Crepon(Author)
State University of New York Press
Published on 2. January 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
212 pages
978-1-4384-6960-7 (ISBN)
Description
Explores how violence structures language and the writing of literature and philosophy.
Within the violence our societies must confront today exists a dimension proper to language. Anyone who has been through the educational system, for example, recognizes how language not only shapes and models us, but also imposes itself upon us. During the twentieth century, this system revealed how language can condemn one to a certain death. In The Vocation of Writing, philosopher Marc Crepon explores this dimension of language, convinced that the node of all violence pertains first to language and how we make use of it. Crepon focuses on Kafka, Levinas, Singer, and Derrida, not only because each rose against commandeering language in order to warn against the next massacres, but also because their work affirms the vocation of writing-that which makes literature and philosophy the final weapon for unmasking the violence and hatred that language bears at its heart. To affirm the vocation of writing is to turn language against itself, to defuse its murderous potentialities by opening it toward exchange, responsibility, and humanity when the latter fixes the other and the world as its goals.
Within the violence our societies must confront today exists a dimension proper to language. Anyone who has been through the educational system, for example, recognizes how language not only shapes and models us, but also imposes itself upon us. During the twentieth century, this system revealed how language can condemn one to a certain death. In The Vocation of Writing, philosopher Marc Crepon explores this dimension of language, convinced that the node of all violence pertains first to language and how we make use of it. Crepon focuses on Kafka, Levinas, Singer, and Derrida, not only because each rose against commandeering language in order to warn against the next massacres, but also because their work affirms the vocation of writing-that which makes literature and philosophy the final weapon for unmasking the violence and hatred that language bears at its heart. To affirm the vocation of writing is to turn language against itself, to defuse its murderous potentialities by opening it toward exchange, responsibility, and humanity when the latter fixes the other and the world as its goals.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Albany, NY
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: College Graduate Student and over
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
352 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4384-6960-7 (9781438469607)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
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E-Book
04/2018
1st Edition
State University of New York Press
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Persons
D. J. S. Cross is a FONDECYT Postdoctoral Fellow at the Instituto de Filosofia at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. Tyler M. Williams is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Midwestern State University.
Content
Translators' Note
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Practices of Language and Experience of Violence
1. Self-Knowledge (A Reading of Kafka's Diaries)
2. Impossible Anamnesis (Kafka and Derrida)
3. Shares of Singularity (Celan-Derrida)
4. On a Constellation (Levinas, Derrida, Blanchot, Readers of Celan)
5. "that tumor in the memory" (Levinas)
6. On Shame (Levinas)
7. A "balancing pole" over the Abyss (Victor Klemperer and the Language of the Third Reich)
8. Duped by Violence? (A Reading of Sartre)
9. "the spirit of storytelling" (A Reading of Kertesz)
10. "Surviving": The Novel (A Reading of Kertesz's Galley Boat-Log)
11. "a profound feeling of protest" (A Reading of Singer)
12. "And nobody here knows who I am" (Emigrant Voices: Arendt, Sebald, Perec)
13. On Fear of Dying (Three Russian Stories)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Practices of Language and Experience of Violence
1. Self-Knowledge (A Reading of Kafka's Diaries)
2. Impossible Anamnesis (Kafka and Derrida)
3. Shares of Singularity (Celan-Derrida)
4. On a Constellation (Levinas, Derrida, Blanchot, Readers of Celan)
5. "that tumor in the memory" (Levinas)
6. On Shame (Levinas)
7. A "balancing pole" over the Abyss (Victor Klemperer and the Language of the Third Reich)
8. Duped by Violence? (A Reading of Sartre)
9. "the spirit of storytelling" (A Reading of Kertesz)
10. "Surviving": The Novel (A Reading of Kertesz's Galley Boat-Log)
11. "a profound feeling of protest" (A Reading of Singer)
12. "And nobody here knows who I am" (Emigrant Voices: Arendt, Sebald, Perec)
13. On Fear of Dying (Three Russian Stories)
Notes
Bibliography
Index