‘Not In Our Name’: Blanchot, Politics, the Neuter

Abstract

Readers of Blanchot have long been aware of the importance of politics in the writer's intellectual itinerary. But though the history of Blanchot's political involvements is now quite well documented (albeit frequently misrepresented to polemical ends), much remains to be understood about Blanchot's conception of the political. Prompted in part by his support for the ‘Not In Our Name’ appeal, which was to be one of Blanchot's last political gestures, this essay fragment, which is part of a longer inquiry, reconstructs the writer's thinking on the question of the subject of politics and the closely related issue of the relationship between law and violence. It examines Blanchot's response to Hölderlin's translation of a famous fragment from Pindar entitled ‘Das Höchste’ (‘The Most High’) and places Blanchot's writing within the wider context of the political thought of Benjamin, Schmitt, Agamben, and Derrida.

From resistance to invention in the politics of the impossible: Bernard Stiegler’s political reading of Maurice Blanchot

“…These two themes will lead us from the first volume of Technics & Time to the political adoption of impossibility in Automatic Society. Thus, while BlanchotÕs work underpins his own sense of politics (Blanchot, 1988;Hill, 2007;Hole, 2013;Iyer, 2004), of interest here how his philosophy of literature is transformed by Stiegler into a philosophy of technics, with its own political ramifications. We will, however, return to BlanchotÕs politics in order to show how these political ramifications form StieglerÕs shift of focus from the impossible to the improbable.…”

Do Roman Ao Récit? Metamorfose E Escritura Do Desastre Em Thomas L’obscur, De Maurice Blanchot

“…Não obstante, a carta que visitamos de Maurice Blanchot, bem como a polêmica sobre uma conversão, poderia nos conduzir a pensar que Auschwitzé por este nome que a obra posterior de Maurice Blanchot, sobretudo, L'Écriture du désastre, se reportaria ao evento histórico que poria fim à hesitação que, embaraçosamente, se expressava, na França dos anos 30, por meio de uma indecisão quanto a uma resposta à invasão e remilitarização da Renânia, que teve lugar em 1936, ou quanto à possível adesão nacional de judeus franceses tocados pelo sionismo -ou a memória de Auschwitz tenham provocado um abalo na leitura das crônicas de Blanchot, se considerada a agressividade da interpelação aos franceses. Leslie Hill (2007) citaria uma crônica publicada em Combat, em 7 de julho de 1936, cujo título é "Terrorismo: método de salvação pública":…”