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The Romanticism of Contemporary Theory: Institution, Aesthetics THE ROMANTICISM OF CONTEMPORARY THEORY The Romanticism of Contemporary Theory Institution, Aesthetics, Nihilism Justin Clemens Studies in European Cultural Transition Volume Seventeen General Editors: Martin Stannard and Greg Walker ~~ ~~o~~~~n~~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2003 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Justin Clemens 2003 The author has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Clemens, Justin The romanticism of contemporary theory : institution, aesthetics, nihilism. - (Studies in European cultural transition) 1. Romanticism 2. Theory (Philosophy) 3. Literature (Theory) I. Title 809 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clemens, Justin The romanticism of contemporary theory : institution, aesthetics, nihilism/ Justin Clemens p. em. -- (Studies in European cultural transition) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-7546-0875-1 (alk. paper) 1. Criticism--History--20th century. 2. Romanticism. I. Title. II. Series. PN94 .C59 2003 801 '.95'0904--dc21 2002074718 ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-0875-2 (hbk) Contents General Editors' Preface vi Acknowledgments vii Introduction: The Embryonic Remains viii Part I Contexts The Institution of Romanticism 3 2 Universal Anaesthesia 40 3 Nihilism, Aesthetics, and Institutions 71 Part II Interventions 4 Sex, Formalization, and Jacques Lacan 113 5 Aesthetic Multiplicity in the Work ofDeleuze and Guattari 133 6 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and the Family Romance of Queer Theory 154 7 Cultural Studies, Cultural Policy, and the Professed Anti-Romanticism oflan Hunter 170 8 Alain Badiou, or; From the Sublime to the Infinite 192 Index 216 General Editors' Preface The European dimension of research in the humanities has come into sharp focus over recent years, producing scholarship which ranges across disciplines and national boundaries. Until now there has been no major channel for such work. This series aims to provide one, and to unite the fields of cultural studies and traditional scholarship. It will publish the most exciting new writing in areas such as European history and literature, art history, archaeology, language and translation studies, political, cultural and gay studies, music, psychology, sociology and philosophy. The emphasis will be explicitly European and interdisciplinary, concentrating attention on the relativity of cultural perspectives, with a particular interest in issues of cultural transition. Martin Stannard Greg Walker University of Leicester Acknowledgments Following Friedrich Nietzsche's remarks in The Genealogy of Morals, it is tempting to identify the true ends of pedagogical practices with the corporeal transformations effected by disciplinary violence, rather than with the acquired 'capacity' and 'knowledges' that are supposedly the point of the whole procedure. Nietzsche's dictum that 'only that which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory' mingles here with his countervailing remark that 'that for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts' - suggesting the pain inflicted by the internalized dead lives on, dissimulated but indestructible, in the ascetic practices of scholarly work. It is for their indispensable aid in my acquisition of such undead figures that I would like to thank the following people: Bridget Bainbridge, Geoff Boucher, Jonathan Carter, Benedict Clemens, Ruth Clemens, Susan Cohn, Bridget Costelloe, Catherine Dale, Oliver Feltham, Rachel Hughes, Liam Leonard, David Odell, George Papaellinas, and Dominic Pettman. I must thank Christopher Feik in particular, who not only painstakingly read and reread various drafts of this book, but whose suggestions and intellectual input were critical to its elaboration and completion. I would also like to thank Phil Hunter for his conversations and for his paintings: one of his images, Ghost Paddock II, is reproduced on the front cover of this book. I would also like to acknowledge my colleagues at Deakin University for their continued advice and support, particularly Brian Edwards, Ann McCulloch, David McCooey, Michael Meehan, Jeanette Shirley, David Turnbull, David Walker, and Ian Weeks. Russell Grigg has been especially helpful, and commented extensively upon an earlier version ofChapter Eight. This book began as a doctoral thesis at the University of Melbourne, under the supervision ofDavid Bennett and Simon During. If it has been transformed, at points, radically, this is due in part to the comments and encouragement of my examiners, J. Hillis Miller and Frances Ferguson- for which I am extremely grateful. Finally, I would like to thank the staff at Ashgate Publishing for their professional support, especially Erika Gafthey and Jacqui Cornish. I am also grateful for the excellent copy-editing of Lindsey Brake. Earlier versions of Chapters Four, Five, and Seven-now substantially revised and at points unrecognizable- first appeared in, respectively, Umbr(a) 1 (1996); Antithesis 8:2 (1997); and The UTSReview4: 1 (1998).Asection of Chapter Three was rewritten as a collaborative piece with Chris Feik, and appeared as 'Nihilism Tonight .. .', inK. Ansell Pearson and D. Morgan, eds, Nihilism Now! Monsters ofEnergy (London: Macmillan, 2000). I am grateful to Andras Berkes-Brandl for permission to quote from the John Forbes' poems from Damaged Glamour (Rose Bay, NSW: Brandl and Schlesinger, 1998) reproduced here; and to the University of Queensland Press for permission to quote from Andrew Taylor's 'Travelling to Gleis-Binario', from Selected Poems I960-I985 (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1988). Introduction: The Embryonic Remains A man who is after the truth sets out to be a man of learning; a man who wants to give free play to his subjectivity sets out, perhaps, to be [an artist], but what is a man to do who is after something that lies between. Robert Musil1 It is undoubtedly more instructive to write with regard to that which we do not want to be at any price than under the suspect image of that which we desire to become. Alain Badiou2 The central contention ofthis book can be stated very simply indeed: contemporary theory is still essentially Romantic -despite all its declarations to the contrary, and despite all its attempts to elude or exceed the limits bequeathed it by Romantic thought. The simplicity of this contention is, ofcourse, only apparent. For it immediately poses such questions as: what is meant by 'contemporary theory'? What is meant by 'Romanticism'? How are these fields, tendencies, or movements to be delimited and analysed? Is Romanticism a primarily historical or theoretical determination? What other topics and evidence have to be introduced in support of such an argument? What does 'essentially' mean here? What theoretical tools are available for such a project? What status do they themselves have? What are the stakes involved in making such a claim? Whence the (intellectual or persuasive )force of designating such vast and intractable fields as 'Romantic'? If, as I maintain, these questions cannot be satisfactorily answered other than by working through my argument in its entirety, it is evidently still necessary to begin by defining terms, outlining a methodology, and providing justifications, no matter how introductory or provisional. My argument is that Romantic theory continually reproduces and proliferates itself in a regulated circulation between three insistent and uncircumventable 'problems'. These problems are very familiar ones today. They are the problem of the university; the problem of nihilism; the problem of aesthetics. For reasons that will become clearer as my argument unfolds, these could also be usefully rephrased as the aporia ofRomanticism 's institution; the aporia ofits self-diagnosis; the aporia of its proposed solution. To shift vocabulary momentarily, it might also be said that these three problems are the 'environment' into which theoretical Romanticism finds itself thrown, and which-by way of an incessant proliferation 1 R. Musil, The Man Without Qualities, Volume I, trans. E. Wilkins and E. Kaiser (New York: Capricorn, 1965), p. 302. 2 A. Badiou, Theorie du Sujet (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1982), p. 13. My translation. INTRODUCTION: THE EMBRYONIC REMAINS ix ofthemes, theoretical procedures, and zones ofengagement- it ceaselessly attempts to master, without ever being able to do so. In its necessary failure to master its environment, Romanticism tries to transvalue this failure as its own singular success. Romanticism, however, recognizing the insufficiency of the attempted transvaluation, then plunges itself back into the triple torments of its environment - whence the impossible cycle begins again. Ifthe content ofthis book is disproportionately restricted to the analysis ofmajor theoretical texts- from Immanuel
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