...on Walter Benjamin's "Critique of Violence" having now begun, on a Long Sunday. For the circuitous-inclined, a more originary plug may be found here and a more interesting one here. So far there have been excellent contributions from Marc Lombardo and Alain Wittman. Update: Better late than never.
I've also switched the comments back to blogger, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who uses Haloscan. Apologies to all deleted on the main page. By all means feel free to start again.
Alternatively, here's something by Scott McLemee on Barthes' The Neutral.
And in case you missed it (as apparently I did, by about an ocean), Zizek and Badiou and others were recently at Birbeck (extensive sound files, transcription, photos, and interesting coverage here and here.
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"Boredom is the desire for happiness left in its pure state."
-Giacomo Leopardi
"Something that would reduce or enhance the feeling of boredom." - "We're not bored." "We're not capable of it."
-Maurice Blanchot
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2 comments:
That Neutral book is I think extremely important. Extremely. For just one thing, given the times, the possibility that an entirely different (or is it?) cultural operating system is about to swamp "our" decks. Barthes's reaction vs. the blandness of China... and the poststructuralist turn... and the road not taken that's implicitly there....
Like how would Benjamin have answered the same question Barthes was faced with in China? Given the history of barbarism encoded in every instance of aesthetic interest?
Anyway, if I um was allowed to read books other than those that I'm teaching in 8 hours... You can be assured it'd be long since read. I even have a photocopy of the rarish Barthes's monograph on China that I made a long time ago... Still to read...
But, just saying, I think my second book might start with all this. Not to tip my hand or anything. McLemee's review is a good one...
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