Utopian Discourse in the Work of Theodor W. Adorno, Luce Irigaray and Giorgio Agamben
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University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 12-2010 Messianic light : utopian discourse in the work of Theodor W. Adorno, Luce Irigaray and Giorgio Agamben. Heather Anne Thiessen 1956- University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Recommended Citation Thiessen, Heather Anne 1956-, "Messianic light : utopian discourse in the work of Theodor W. Adorno, Luce Irigaray and Giorgio Agamben." (2010). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1427. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/1427 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MESSIANIC LIGHT: UTOPIAN DISCOURSE IN THE WORK OF THEODOR W. ADORNO, LUCE IRIGARAY AND GIORGIO AGAMBEN By Heather Anne Thiessen B.A., Michigan State University, 1981 M.A., University of Chicago, 1982 M.Div., Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 2000 Th.M., Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 2002 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Division of Humanities University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky December 2010 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. MESSIANIC LIGHT: UTOPIAN DISCOURSE IN THE WORK OF THEODOR W. ADORNO, LUCE IRIGARAY AND GIORGIO AGAMBEN By Heather Anne Thiessen B.A., Michigan State University, 1981 M.A., University of Chicago, 1982 M.Div., Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 2000 Th.M., Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 2002 A Dissertation Approved on October 25, 2010 by the following Dissertation Committee: iOCssertation Director ii DEDICATION To the remarkable women who taught me to read the Bible. !1'ON n:JT1J' n~J; N; 'll 7P; 7:JNflI1Y1Jp nJpftI "For the needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever." Ps. 9:18 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank all the members of the committee, Dr. Annette Allen, Dr. Steven Matthew Biberman, Dr. Carl Hausman, and Dr. David Owen, for their patience over many years. A special debt of thanks for guidance and calm persistence goes to Dr. Mary Ann Stenger. Thanks to the Women's Center at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary for a leave that made this work possible, and for the possibilities that made taking it a struggle. Finally, deep thanks to my family, and in particular to Zoe, whose gift of parrhesia is beyond price. iv ABSTRACT MESSIANIC LIGHT: UTOPIAN DISCOURSE IN THE WORK OF THEODOR W. ADORNO, LUCE IRIGARAY AND GIORGIO AGAMBEN Heather A. Thiessen December 15, 2010 What is the idea that "utopia" names? How can discourse represent that idea? Setting aside temporarily deeper problems with the idea of representation, and focusing on how a complex philosophical discourse might approach the problem of conveying or representing a large, only fairly precise, and important idea is the question of this dissertation. It ultimately answers that question obliquely, by focusing on the way the utopian discourse present in the work of three late 20th century philosophers, Theodor W. Adorno, Luce Irigaray, and Giorgio Agamben, addresses a subject position that can be named a "subject of possibility." How this subject of possibility might relate to the possibilities for transcendence located in the material world that is the stage for utopian imagination is another area of the study's investigation. The dissertation introduces the question with a look at the problems associated with utopia. It considers utopian discourse in select works of each of these thinkers, paying attention to dystopian context, identification of style and language, subject object considerations, and the discursive treatment of space and time. In particular, it traces the theme of messianic expectation, v in a loose secular sense, through this discourse. Finally, it links the way the messianic theme provides content to the idea of utopia present in this discourse. It claims that the messianic idea thematizes a materialist interpretation of transcendence and metaphysical experience that is developed in the work of each of these authors. That is, these authors locate the metaphysical moment necessary for the idea of utopia in the transcendent relation of the material subject to the subject of language and thought; in its concrete difference from that subject. This materialist moment provides a base for a non-representational and trans formative approach to utopian imagination and perhaps even utopian practice, by linking the idea of "utopia" to a non linguistic understanding of the negation of suffering. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................ i v ABSTRACT ....................................................... v CHAPTER I. MISE-EN-SCENE ............................................ 1 The Flavor of Utopia· ................................... 1 Terminology ............................................ 3 Backstory - Established Features of Utopia ............ 13 The Subj ect of Utopia ................................. 30 Utopian Discourse in the Theatre of the Humanities .... 32 Relevance of Utopia in the Late 20th Century ........... 36 Reasons for the Choice of These Thinkers .............. 36 Transcendence ......................................... 49 The Matter of Messianic Light ......................... 51 Plan of the Work and Key Issues ....................... 56 II. REFLECTION ............................................... 58 The Universal Guilt Context ........................... 61 Adorno's Philosophical Aim ............................ 67 The Relation of Utopia to Adorno's Work ............... 74 The Actuality of Philosophy .......................... 77 Utopia in Negative Dialectics ........................ 84 Physicality and Suffering ............................ 91 Semblance and Second Reflection in Aesthetic Theory .. 93 The Concept of Utopia ................................ 98 vii CHAPTER PAGE Subjectivity and Its Objective Content ............... 99 The Myth of the Constitutive Subject ................ 102 Conceptual Commitment as Utopian Discourse ........... 105 Textual form as Utopian Discursive Practice .......... 107 Adorno's Critique of Language ........................ 113 The Subj ect of Utopia ................................ 118 Space and Time 122 Adorno's Reader as a Subject of Possibility .......... 126 III. RADIATION .............................................. 129 Dystopian Repression and Response .................... 132 Utopia in Irigaray's Work ............................ 139 A Utopian Ethical Vision ............................ 139 Love's Negative Dialectical Labor ................... 146 Sharing an Intersubjective World by Way of Love ..... 151 Features of Irigaray's Utopian Scene ................. 165 Theory as Praxis ..................................... 165 Mimesis, Poiesis, Hypnosis ........................... 168 Woman-as-Subject as a Condition for Utopia ........... 172 Pursuit of Unalienated Language 176 Treatment of Space and Time .......................... 181 Unresolved Questions ................................. 186 IV. HALO ................................................... 190 Introduction ......................................... 190 A Preliminary Note on Gender ........................ 196 Dystopian Vision - Spectacular Society ............... 198 Agamben's Theoretical Proj ect ........................ 204 Agamben's Interest in Language ...................... 207 Identity and Community .............................. 209 viii CHAPTER PAGE Vocation, Inoperativity, and Profanation ............ 211 Utopia in Agamben's Work ............................. 214 The Coming Community of Whatever Being .............. 217 "The very topia of things" .......................... 220 Anthropological Machine Out of Order ................ 225 Agamben on Messianic Time in The Time That Remains .. 231 Utopia as "The Profane" .............................. 239 Philosophy as Strategy and Intervention .............. 240 Textual Form and Considerations of Language .......... 242 The Problem of Language from a Utopian Perspective ... 244 Treatment of Subject-Object Relationship ............. 251 The Space and Time of Potentiality ................... 255 The Outside Inside .................................. 256 Time .......•........................................ 259 The Very Topia of Things ............................. 262 V. MESSIANIC LIGHTING ..................................... 265 Introduction - The Subject of Utopia ................. 265 Summary ............................................. 265 The Subj ect of Utopia ............................... 265 Critical Comparisons ................................. 268 One Dystopian Assessment in Three Parts ............. 268 Dystopian Suffering ................................. 271 Critical