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A Study of Alterity and Influence in the Literary and Philosophical Neighbourhood of Jean Genet and Emmanuel Levinas

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A Study of Alterity and Influence in the Literary and Philosophical Neighbourhood of Jean Genet and Emmanuel Levinas A study of alterity and influence in the literary and philosophical neighbourhood of Jean Genet and Emmanuel Levinas Thomas F. Newman University College London A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2008 UMI Number: U593B63 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U593363 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Declaration I declare that the work presented in this PhD is my own. This thesis is the one on which I wish to be examined. Thomas F. Newman 29 January 2008 2 Thesis Abstract The dissertation is a chiasmic reading of the works of Jean Genet and Emmanuel Levinas, examining the way they each address the relation to the Other in terms of ethics and subjectivity. Whereas a straightforward association between the two writers might seem paradoxical because of the differences in their approaches and rhetoric, a chiasmic reading allows intricate approaches, moments of proximity and departures to be read both conceptually and aesthetically. We show that these two writers share a tightly-woven discursive neighbourhood, and examine that neighbourhood through detailed analysis of various textual encounters. We trace patterns of influence which allow us to consider our writers’ decision-making processes in the genesis of their texts. Genet and Levinas develop views surprisingly close to each other’s of the “face-to-face encounter”, which they place at the origin of language seen both as expression and commandment. Each approaches that encounter simultaneously in terms of the possibility of welcome, and the possibility of violence and betrayal. Considerations of influence from sources common to both, especially Paul Valery and Fyodor Dostoevsky, serve to extend our analysis of their thought on address to include the encounters they share within discursive history and across the genres. The theatre figures in both oeuvres as a powerful way of considering the radical passivity of the individual’s relation to the world. The passive subject, unable to escape alterity, is also unable to escape a certain liberty of choice and action, and a call to engagement. This call may take surprising forms, and even provoke the subject’s defection over to the Other; or the substitution of the Other’s claims for its own. This interstice between the individual and a plural world serves to disorder totalisation, characterised by hostility, and open new possibilities of interaction in its place. 3 Contents Thesis Abstract ..............................................................................................................3 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................5 Abbreviations ................................................................................................................6 Introduction................................................................................................................. 10 Chapter I: Alterity and Influence in Dostoevsky...................................................... 17 1. Intersubjective space and polysemy ..................................................................17 2. Intersubjective space and the Other .................................................................. 34 3. Egology and substitution................................................................................... 63 4. Egology and betrayal ..........................................................................................91 Chapter II: The animation of the inanimate trace...................................................109 1. Speech, writing and the trace .......................................................................... 109 2. The trace in Genet; the dire and the dit in Levinas....................................... 127 3. The face in art....................................................................................................138 Chapter III: Production............................................................................................. 170 1. Theatre and witnessing .....................................................................................170 2. Drama, action and passion................................................................................186 3. The continuation of the tragic spirit............................................................... 206 4. Society of two and Society of one.................................................................. 224 5. The One Church vs the Church of One..........................................................229 6. Aisthesis and drama: two modalities of sacrifice..........................................254 7. Production and the theatre............................................................................... 270 8. The space of witnessing.................................................................................. 277 Conclusion.................................................................................................................283 Bibliography..............................................................................................................290 4 Acknowledgements I am grateful to Tim Mathews for his patient supervision; to Schirin Nowrousian for her extensive advice on drafts; to those who helped me with corrections, references and proofing especially Regan Phillips, Leonardo Meirelles, Dimitri Delmas, and my brother Joe, as well as my colleagues at UCL and Paris III, Ruth Austin, Anthony Cordingley, Sylwia Scheuer and Grace Tempany; to Denis Guenoun at Paris IV for the stimulation of his teaching; to ACLM and the KATZ for accomodation and hospitality, especially Fran Pizarro, Simon Randall and Anthony McNamara; to Bernard Tillet for his generous addition to my book collection; and to my parents for their unwavering encouragement. I also thank Albert Dichy and Laurent Boyer for help and permission with the consultation of unpublished material at 1’IMEC; and the AHRC for funding the project. 5 Abbreviations* Levinas Texts ADV L ’Au-dela du verset: lectures et discours talmudiques (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1982) AQE Autrement qu’etre ou au-dela de Vessence (La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974) AQEb Autrement qu'etre ou au-dela de Vessence (Paris: Martinus Nijhoff/biblio essais, 1978) OB Otherwise than Being, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, 1981) DEE De Vexistence a Vexistant (Paris: Vrin, 1963) DHH En decouvrant Vexistence avec Husserl et Heidegger, 3rd edn rev. with new essays (Paris: Vrin, 2001) DL Difficile Liberte, 3rd edn rev. (Paris: Albin Michel/biblio essais, 1976) DLM Dieu, la mort et le temps, notes Jacques Rolland (Paris: Grasset/biblio essais, 1995) DMT Dieu, la mort et le temps, notes by Jacques Rolland (Paris: Grasset/biblio essais, 1995) DVI De Dieu qui vient a Videe, 2nd edn (Paris: Vrin, 1986) Eel Ethique et infini (Paris: Artheme Fayard/biblio essais, 1982) EN Entre Nous (Paris: Grasset/biblio essais, 1991) EV De I ’evasion, intro. Jacques Rolland (Paris: Fata Morgana/biblio essais, 1982) HdH Humanisme de Vautre homme (Paris: Fata Morgana/ biblio essays, 1972) NP Noms Propres (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1976) OBL De Vobliteration, on Sacha Sosno, photography by Andre Villers, 2nd edn (Paris: Editions de la Difference, 1998) PH Quelques reflexions sur la philosophie de Vhitlerisme (Paris: Editions Payot/Rivages, 1997) RO ‘La Realite et son ombre’, Les Imprevus de Vhistoire (Paris: Fata Morgana/biblio essais, 1994), orig. Les Temps Modernes, 38 (1948), 771-89. TA Le temps et Vautre, 5 thedn (Paris: Quadrige/Presses Universitaires de France, 1994) * Abbreviations will be used in the body of the text without prior footnote reference. We quote Autrement qu ’etre and Totalite et infini in both the Nijhoff and ‘biblio essais’ editions, and mark the ‘biblio essais’ edition with a ‘b’. For these two texts we have also added the ‘b’ marker to their Ibid. notation, givingIbidb for the ‘biblio essais’ edition. 6 Tal Totality and Infinity, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne, 1969) (2007) Tel Totalite et infini (La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961) Telb Totalite et infini (Paris: Martinus NijhoffTbiblio essais, 1971) THI Theorie de I’intuition dans la Phenomenologie de Husserl, 8th edn (Paris: Vrin, 2001) SMB Sur Maurice Blanchot (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1975) Genet Texts GOC Jean Genet CEuvres completes (Paris: Gallimard, 1951-1991), in six volumes, will be referred to as GOC followed by the corresponding volume number. GTC Jean Genet Theatre Complet, ed. Michel Corvin and Albert Dichy (Paris: Gallimard/Pleiade, 2002) will be referred to as GTC. AC Tes Palestiniens Genet a Chatila, texts collected by Jerome Hankins (Paris: Solin, 1992) AT L Atelier dAlberto Giacometti, ill. edn (Paris: L’Arbalete, 1963) CA Un captif amoureux, (Paris: Gallimard, 1986) Cat Genet, exhibition catalogue, Musee des Beaux-Arts de Tours, 8 April-3 July 2006 (Paris: Farrago, 2006) CQR
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