Remains of a Self Solitudes and Responsibilities Michaelsen, Cathrine Bjørnholt Publication date: 2017 Document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Document license: CC BY-NC-ND Citation for published version (APA): Michaelsen, C. B. (2017). Remains of a Self: Solitudes and Responsibilities. Publikationer fra Det teologiske Fakultet. Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet Vol. 72 Download date: 29. Sep. 2021 CATHRINE BJØRNHOLT MICHAELSEN BJØRNHOLT CATHRINE ISBN 978-87-93361-32-4 CATHRINE BJØRNHOLT MICHAELSEN Remains of a Self Solitudes and Responsibilities Solitudes and Responsibilities Remains of a Self CATHRINE BJØRNHOLT MICHAELSEN Remains of a Self Solitudes and Responsibilities Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 72 CATHRINE BJØRNHOLT MICHAELSEN BJØRNHOLT CATHRINE ISBN 978-87-93361-32-4 CATHRINE BJØRNHOLT MICHAELSEN Remains of a Self Solitudes and Responsibilities Solitudes and Responsibilities Remains of a Self CATHRINE BJØRNHOLT MICHAELSEN Remains of a Self Solitudes and Responsibilities Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 72 REMAINS OF A SELF SOLITUDES AND RESPONSIBILITIES REMAINS OF A SELF SOLITUDES AND RESPONSIBILITIES Cathrine Bjørnholt Michaelsen PhD Thesis The Faculty of Theology Department of Systematic Theology ‘Self-understanding and Self-alienation’ University of Copenhagen February 2017 Remains of a Self. Solitudes and Responsibilities Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 72 Licensed under CreativeCommons Cathrine Bjørnholt Michaelsen ISBN: 978-87-93361-32-4 (print) ISBN: 978-87-93361-35-5 (pdf) Published by The Faculty of Theology, Copenhagen University Karen Blixens Plads 16 2300 København S. www.teol.ku.dk Cover Art: ‘Le coupeur de gorge’ by Carl Fredrik Hill with permission from Malmö Konstmuseum. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge and express my gratitude to the Velux Foundations and the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, for making possible the research project “Self-understanding and Self-alienation” of which this thesis is a part. Many thanks as well to the research group: Arne Grøn, Josef Parnas, Maja Zandersen, Mads Gram Henriksen, Gry Ardal Printzlau, and Morten Sørensen Thaning. It has been a privilege to work with all of you. I am especially grateful to my supervisor Prof. Arne Grøn, who has shown me great trust and support even from before I finished my Master’s thesis, and who gave me the chance not only to become part of a research project but also to write this thesis entirely on its own premises. It is with immense regret that Arne could not see the research project, which he initiated and of which he was the main applicant and principal investigator, through to its end and with it neither this thesis. I wish him all the best. I am therefore indebted to Prof. Claudia Welz who had the courtesy and kindness to take over the supervision where Arne could not continue. Claudia, I am grateful for your knowledgeable guidance and I admire your courage, strength, and wits in matters of work as well as in life. I also wish to acknowledge Morten Sørensen Thaning, Copenhagen Business School, for his co-supervision throughout the entire period and Gry Ardal Printzlau for her help with setting up the text in the final stages. I would like to thank the Center of Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University, for making my research stay possible, and especially Prof. Catherine Malabou who agreed to be supervising during the stay and whose teaching I greatly appreciate and admire. Thanks also to The Augustinus Foundation for financial help towards the living expenses in London and to Malmö Konstmuseum for their permission to use the drawing by Carl F. Hill at the front cover. Great thanks are due to the members of the assessment committee, Emeritus Professor Leslie Hill (University of Warwick), Associate Professor Henrik Jøker Bjerre (Aalborg University), and Associate Professor Carsten Pallesen (Copenhagen University) by whom it has been an honor and a privilege to be read and assessed. To Carsten Pallesen, especially, not only for chairing the assessment committee, but also for his assistance in solving issues of a more formal character as head of the PhD school at the Faculty of Theology and for his general interest and support. To Darío Gonzáles not only for his thoughtful comments to the theme of this thesis, and for lending me a book at a critical point, but also for having supervised both my Bachelor’s and Master’s thesis. I could not have asked for a better one. Many thanks to Richard Lambert for reading drafts of several of the chapters and for contributing with critical yet encouraging comments, and to Nicole Standen-Mills for her fast and efficient proofreading. Thanks also to the members of the newly started Derrida reading group: Daniel, Helene, and Mads Peter, some of whom have generously read and commented on drafts to chapters of this thesis. I hope our little group will continue into the future. Most of all, I am deeply thankful to B. I have no words to express my gratitude for your immense care and patience throughout the bumpy road not only of writing a PhD thesis but even more so of life. Thank you for your reassuring words, your listening ears, and for your unbelievingly penetrating and profound eyes, thought, and heart (even if it is no more than four chambers and a pump that works). Without you, nothing would be written here. To conclude these acknowledgements I therefore cite one of your favorites citing Bataille: “Here, the exhaustion is initial: my reason for writing is to reach B.” - (Jean-Luc Nancy, “Exscription”) CONTENTS Abbreviations .............................................................................................. 11 Introductory Remarks .................................................................................. 21 Remains of a Self? ................................................................................... 21 Outline of the Thesis ................................................................................ 30 Methodological Considerations: .............................................................. 32 Deconstruction and Psychoanalysis ......................................................... 32 I. The Solitude of Not Being Able to be Alone .......................................... 45 I.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 45 I.2 A Preliminary Remark on the Critical and the Clinical ..................... 47 I.3 Artaud and the Structure of Theft....................................................... 50 I.4 The Structure of Theft as a Problem of Representation ..................... 60 I.5 Painful Reversals in Artaud’s Text .................................................... 66 I.6 The Strategy of Counter-Theft ........................................................... 73 I.7 The Risk of Autoimmunity inherent to the Counter-Theft ................ 79 II. The Solitude of Dependency .................................................................. 85 II.1 Introduction ....................................................................................... 85 II.2 Solitude and Originary Being-with-Others ....................................... 87 II.3 A Community of Solitaries ............................................................... 96 II.4 Originary Being-with-Others as the (Im)possibility of Absolute Solitude .................................................................................................. 102 II.5 The Phantastic Desire of Sovereign Solitude.................................. 114 III. The Solitude of Impersonality ............................................................. 119 III.1 Figurations of the It in Freud ......................................................... 119 III.2 To Go Beyond or Not Repeatedly: Reading the Jenseits. ............. 124 III.3 Playful Repetitions ......................................................................... 129 III.4 Repetitions Beyond Pleasure ......................................................... 132 III.5 A Duality of Drives ....................................................................... 138 III.6 A Lacanian Digression on Desires and Drives .............................. 145 III.7 Does One Exclude the Other? ........................................................ 149 III.9 A (Counter-)Rhythmical Nachspiel ............................................... 157 IV. The Solitude of Unhomeliness ............................................................ 163 IV.1 The Duplicity of Repetition Revisited ........................................... 163 IV.2 Reading the Unhomely .................................................................. 168 IV.3 Disturbances of the home: Reading Das Unheimliche .................. 173 IV.4 Daemonic Redoublings and Repetitions ....................................... 177 IV.5 Après Coup(ure)—Repetition in Lacan ........................................ 185 IV.6 Scenes of Cutting ........................................................................... 193 IV.7 Resuming: The Same in the Other is the Other in the Same. ........ 202 V. The Solitude of Dissolution .................................................................. 207 V.1 Introduction: The Relation of Anxiety to the Uncanny .................. 207 V.2 The Object of Anxiety .................................................................... 211 V.3 A Reversal of the Mirror Stage ....................................................... 219 V.5