Beyond Supersessionism: Gillian Rose and the Rhetoric of Transcendence by Vincent William Lloyd B.A. (Princeton University) 2003 M.A. (University of California, Berkeley) 2004 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Daniel Boyarin, Chair Professor Marianne Constable Professor Charles Hirschkind Spring 2008 UMI Number: 3331699 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 3331699 Copyright 2008 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 E. Eisenhower Parkway PO Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract Beyond Supersessionism: Gillian Rose and the Rhetoric of Transcendence By Vincent William Lloyd Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric University of California, Berkeley Professor Daniel Boyarin, Chair According to Gillian Rose (1947-1995), "In the wake of Marxism and Heidegger's Nazism, everybody's looking for an ethics. But in fact they should be looking for a political theology." The "political theology" that Rose recommends rejects supersessionist logic. She finds this logic at work across the humanities, from theology to political theory to literary criticism. According to supersessionist logic, Law (metaphysics, identity, essence) is replaced by Grace (freedom, difference, pure ethics). Through subtle readings of figures ranging from Leo Strauss to Jacques Lacan to Emile Durkheim, Rose flushes out this pervasive logic - and gestures towards an alternative. This dissertation elaborates and extends her critique, identifying the supersessionist logic at work in the recent writings of John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, Jean-Yves Lacoste, and others. Further, the dissertation elaborates the alternative to which Rose gestures: a political theology placing emphasis on the virtues of faith and love, understood as modalities of social practice rather than as means of escaping Law through Grace. 1 Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1. On the Use of Gillian Rose Chapter 2. On Gillian Rose and Law Chapter 3. On Dualism: Concerning the Work of Judith Butler and Jean-Yves Lacoste Chapter 4. On Traditionalism: Concerning the Work of Jeffrey Stout and John Milbank Chapter 5. On Gillian Rose and Love Chapter 6. Beyond Transcendence: From Georges Bataille to Michel Houellebecq Chapter 7. Michel Houellebecq, Gillian Rose, and the Theological Virtues Epilogue Bibliography i Introduction In 1933, Grace Mulligan happened upon the Manderlay plantation. She discovered a community of African Americans who were never informed that slavery had been abolished. Grace took it upon herself to inform the black residents of Manderlay that they were no longer slaves, that they were now free. She abolished the rules of the plantation, "Mam's Law," and reorganized the community into a democratic polity. She remained at Manderlay to facilitate the transition from slavery to freedom, overcoming various difficulties along the way. Her efforts pay off and the new community reaped a bountiful harvest. But Grace's success was short-lived: the community soon imploded in suspicion, blood, and flames, viciously turning on itself and on Grace. Lars von Trier's film, Manderlay, ends as its fictional heroine, Grace, is fleeing the plantation. The former slaves have reimposed the Law which Grace abolished. Here we find a crystal-clear allegorization of supersessionist logic and its consequences. Grace comes from outside to replace Law - with unanticipated disastrous results. For Gillian Rose, the late English philosopher who is the topic of this dissertation, "Law" stands for essence, identity, metaphysics, or the material world; "Grace" stands for freedom, difference, pure ethics, or the ideal world. Rose suggests that the supersessionist logic of the Law/Grace split invokes an (often subtle) rhetoric of transcendence, appealing to something extraordinary to shake up the ordinary. Grace Mulligan arrived at Manderlay from a distant, unknown, land. Rose demonstrates how theorists cast "reason" (Natural Law), "unreason" (Bataille, Blanchot), "differance" (Derrida), "the virtual" (Deleuze), etc. in the role of Grace. Moreover, Rose argues that supersessionist logic extends to political theologies of "immanence" such as the project 1 of "Radical Orthodoxy" advanced by John Milbank and others. They invite Grace to enter not from the outside of a community but from within that community, through a perfecting of that community. The telos towards which the community is perfected, on their view, takes on the role of Grace: it is the point around which the rhetoric of transcendence in invoked, but the telos is never justified. The goal of Rose's work was to develop an alternative political theology, one that no longer was built on a supersessionist logic, on a rhetoric of transcendence. Her Hegelian instincts led her to abandon the split between the material and the ideal and instead to focus on the social practices and social norms of communities. Rose attempted to replace both philosophy and religious thought with "Halakha beyond Halakha," social norms as they are represented and as they are actualized, where the understanding of norms is not confined to the boundaries of any single community. In a slogan, Rose made the seemingly odd and radical claim that jurisprudence should displace philosophy and religion. But Rose was careful to avoid identifying this sort of law with the Law that is opposed to Grace. (Daniel Boyarin's recent work comparing Greek philosophy and the Talmud has noted a similar displacement of philosophy by (Jewish) law as the topic animating inquiry, and perhaps Rose's broader claim on behalf of law can be understood against the background of her equivocal Jewish/Christian identity.) Rose's work has gone largely unnoticed, and the supersessionist logic she decried remains pervasive in theoretical literature. To take but two examples: Wendy Brown's Politics Out of History begins by proclaiming the end of the relevance of metaphysics for political theory and concludes by suggesting that new possibilities of freedom are 2 emerging. Eddie Glaude's In a Shade of Blue proclaims the end of essential black identity and the beginning of new solutions to the problem of black suffering. Rose would be critical of both Brown and Glaude for invoking a supersessionist rhetoric while evading the difficult work of investigating the actual social practices and norms of the communities with which they purport to be concerned. Rose does more than suggest that supersessionist logic be exorcized from theory. She suggests that the "theological" virtues of faith and love, although commonly associated with a realm of Grace beyond the realm of Law, can be understood in such a way as to evade this supersessionist logic. Faith and love can be understood as virtues practiced within, not outside, norm-governed social practices. On her account, love involves an intensification of the ordinary task of negotiating norms and practices, offering a training ground, as it were, for life. Faith, she suggests, is a committed mode of social practice; it is what fuels our persistence in trying to get things right in the face of the many tragic circumstances which we will inevitably encounter. In this way, Rose's constructive work parallels recent investigations of the contemporary relevance of virtue ethics, such as Saba Mahmood's study of women's piety in Cairo. However, Rose makes a stronger claim than Mahmood. Mahmood emphasizes the importance of examining the practices of women that are considered virtuous in their particular culture. In contrast, Rose suggests that faith and love are modes of practice that are universally valuable, independent of the particular cultural circumstances in which they are found. This dissertation examines and builds on Rose's thought. Her work has received relatively little attention for a number of reasons. Her academic appointment, first at 1 Full references to works mentioned in the text are included in the bibliography. 3 Sussex and later at Warwick, was as a sociologist rather than as a philosopher or cultural theorist. The highly abstract nature of her work, and her dense prose, have limited the accessibility of her work to sociologists. Her idiosyncratic style, seemingly lacking in rigor, have limited the appeal of her work to philosophers and theorists. However, I suggest that Rose had much to say that is of interest today. In this dissertation, I develop Rose's own thought in various ways while also extending her critical project to respond to developments in contemporary theory. In the remaining pages of this introduction, I will first outline the structure of the dissertation. Then, I will provide a very short overview of Rose's life and work. It is important to note, though, that my interest is more theoretical than biographical. I will have little to say about Rose's biography beyond what