Issue 21 2014 Parrhesia Number 21 • 2014 • 1-2

PARRHESIA WWW.PARRHESIAJOURNAL.ORG ISSUE 21 2014 PARRHESIA NUMBER 21 • 2014 • 1-2 EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION: CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN AUSTRALASIA Paul Alberts, Diego Bubbio, Charles Barbour, and Alex Ling This special issue of Parrhesia has developed from the 2013 Australasian Society for Continental Philoso- phy’s Conference at the University of Western Sydney. No specifc theme was set for the Conference; and precisely for this reason, we think that the papers presented at the conference—of which the articles included in this collection are a small, but signifcant, representation—provide an interesting account of Continental philosophy in Australasia. In the Features section we have collected the work of the four keynote speakers. James Martel develops an unorthodox anarchist interpretation of Walter Benjamin, placing emphasis on Benjamin’s treatment of political theology, and his notion of a ‘real state of exception’. Elizabeth Rottenberg’s article focuses on the legacy of trauma in Freud, which reminds us of the infuence that psychoanalysis still has in contemporary Continental philosophy. The interview with Graham Harman is indicative of object-oriented ontology’s attempt to reverse the linguistic turn of Western philosophy by advancing a metaphysics of things that, in his view, has its roots in Heidegger and does justice to the autonomous existence of objects. Finally, and almost as counterpart to Har- man’s interview, Gianni Vattimo opposes the need for any (new) metaphysics, by arguing that the longing for absolute, non-perspectival truths is always related to existing structures of power and is ultimately a displaced form of violence. The Essays section features ten papers, which have been selected from among the many submissions we have received for this special issue. While we cannot go through each of them here, it is worth noting the wide variety of philosophical interests (and hence of “Continental” streams) that they represent: from Nietzsche to Critical Theory (Adorno), from the Apophatic tradition to French philosophy (Camus, Foucault), from philosophy of literature (Jean Paul) to feminist philosophy, from Film Theory to speculative realism (Quentin Meillas- soux). These papers show the vitality of the various streams of Continental philosophy in Australasia—which is also demonstrated by the number of articles written by postgraduate students, and is thus indicative of the excellent quality of the research work conducted by them. EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN AUSTRALASIA Editing this collection prompted us to make some refections about the status of Continental philosophy in Australasia. Across the region, the traditions and contemporary movements in Continental philosophy are robust, maintain- ing strong interest from undergraduates, and encouraging our best students to pursue postgraduate research in good numbers. Academic philosophy in general shows a resilience that other disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences cannot often match. In a time when the Humanities seem to be under fre from every direction, it is moreover encouraging to note that the discipline of Continental philosophy has managed to escape relatively unscathed, and even paradoxically increased in strength and numbers. To register this fact we need only point to the continuing growth and signifcance over the past two decades of the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy and its annual conference, with last year’s UWS-hosted conference being the best attended to date. Perhaps this is because, at a time of rapid cultural internationalisation and shifting political horizons, the demands for both understanding and then challenging our conceptual frameworks and assumptions present themselves as essential critical practices. But Continental philosophy in particular offers the resources associated with fgures such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and De Beauvoir—as well as more recent names like Agamben, Badiou, Deleuze, Meillassoux, and Rancière—which continue to ‘speak to’ new generations, and instigate new attempts to reshape the investigative strengths of their methods. Contrary to a very common criticism against the discipline, Continental philosophy—regardless of the specifc philosophical approach in use or of the considered thinker—is not a mere historical or passively interpretative exercise: if Continental philosophy is prompted by existing philosophies, this is precisely because it shares the conviction that thought is intrinsically historical and that only by building on our intellectual legacy is it possible to contribute to a better understanding of, and effective challenge to, our current conceptual frameworks. Such renewed critical legacy, essential to the ideals and functions of higher education, means that not only do most universities in the region continue to support Continental philosophy, but they also recognize its growing attraction to students from Asian countries seeking educational experiences from Western traditions. We expect future connections and exchanges to deepen the place of Continental philosophy in the region and, as such, believe the future for the discipline remains bright. We would like to thank the authors who have contributed the papers that constitute this special edition. For their careful, constructive comments, we thank the reviewers who assisted in the review process. And we would like to thank Parrhesia and the journal’s regular editors. The Australasian Society of Continental Philosophy 2013 conference was sponsored by the University of Western Sydney’s School of Humanities and Communica- tion Arts: we thank it for its support. We would fnally like to thank those who helped us organising that event including Dimitris Vardoulakis, Mariana Fragueiro, and the dedicated and enthusiastic team of volunteers. Fi- nally, we thank Rory Duffcy who, in his capacity as research assistant, has carefully proofread and copyedited the articles. UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY PARRHESIA NUMBER 21 • 2014 • -12 ANARCHIST ALL THE WAY DOWN: WALTER BENJAMIN’S SUBVERSION OF AUTHORITY IN TEXT, THOUGHT AND ACTION James R. Martel In this paper, I will be describing how Walter Benjamin is “anarchist all the way down.” By this, I mean that Benjamin is not only an anarchist by political temperament but in just about every other way possible as well. Although Benjamin tended to refer to himself as a communist, as I will try to show, his version of commu- nism is anarchist through and through. In this paper I am going to focus on three ways in which Benjamin is anarchist: theologically, politically and linguistically. My argument throughout will be that Benjamin offers us a profoundly anarchist approach (even an anarchist method, as oxymoronic as that may sound) which en- compasses not only what he says but how he says it. Theologically, Benjamin offers us a vision of God whose essential function in terrestrial matters is to destroy false notions that human beings project onto the divine. Rather than serving as a basis for the false models of political and legal authority that leads to what he calls “mythic violence,” for Benjamin God manifests the failure of these projections to be true, leaving us radically and utterly on our own. Politically speaking, such a view enables us to act in ways that are not predetermined by myths, either of the divine or secular variety. When we fght the sense of an inevitable fate that comes along with mythic violence, for Benjamin, we become aware of the ways that human beings are capable of making their own decisions both as individuals and as members of a community. As I will argue further, this is a profoundly anarchist insight insofar as it both allows and invites the politicization of vast spheres of human life that are normally considered to be already, and invariably, determined. Finally, in terms of his linguistic practices, Benjamin’s own writings perpetuate the anarchism he describes and promotes in his texts. As a writer, Benjamin is concerned above all with suspending and subverting fgures of authority. This includes his own authority in his texts. For Benjamin, if an author speaks of decentering authority but retains a central authority as a writer in order to do so, he or she undercuts the inherent anarchism of that message. Benjamin avoids this problem by turning to techniques such as allegory and montage in order to make his own textual authority radically unavailable. In this way he repeats for the reader the position of the subject of divine acts of violence. As with that subject, Benjamin’s reader too is left to her own devices, shorn of any hope for rescue or redemption by any authority fgure. In this way, theologically, politically and linguistically, Benjamin offers something of a seamless web of anarchistic practices; hence he is anarchist all the way down. ANARCHIST ALL THE WAY DOWN To begin then, let me now get to the substance of the piece by spending some time describing how Benjamin’s anarchism works in the three dimensions I described, beginning with his theology. Whereas the large bulk of anarchist writings and leftist writings more generally are staunchly atheist, Benjamin himself is just as adamant about the critical role that God plays in human existence. For Benjamin, however, the nature and actions of God function in ways that are utterly unlike the way more orthodox renderings of God’s work in the Jewish and Christian traditions he engages with. For Benjamin, God is completely unavailable to us; any attempt to speak for or about God is inherently idolatrous; the promulgations of such idolatry leads to a completely false sense, not only of God but of reality itself, leading to the condition that Benjamin (taking the term from Marx) calls the “phantasmagoria.” For Benjamin, as already noted, God serves, not to tell us truths, since we can no longer have such knowledge, but rather enacts and demonstrates the failure of that truth in the world. For Benjamin, as far as human beings are concerned, God exists only as a wholly negative force that disrupts the falsities of the phantasmagoria.

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