This essay examines animality through an analysis of Les Chants de Maldoror, an obscure but influential nineteenth-century text by the Comte de Lautréamont. Drawing upon the work of Gaston Bachelard as well as the apophatic tradition in Christian mysticism, Les Chants de Maldoror can be read as a text that complicates the boundary between animality and spirituality, producing an “apophatic animality” that ultimately impacts the poetics of the text itself.

Music, simultaneity and the relationship between the whole and the parts are three themes closely intertwined in Lévi-Strauss's work. To illustrate these themes, as gradually elaborated by Lévi-Strauss, we will follow a path in several stages along his intellectual journey: simultaneity, chess and music are the three figures that will guide us.

The philosopher is a fundamental mode of existence of the human being, yet it is experienced only by a minority, an elite. Those constitute, among themselves, a subspecies of Homo sapiens that is sometimes dubbed Homo philosophicus. Our goal here is to investigate, in depth, the philosophical foundations of this ontological-anthropological concept. We analyze the concept of the philosopher into three basic components: the thinker, the artist, and the mathematician, arguing that the three fundamentally participate in maintaining the operation of (...) the philosopher machine. The following text can be considered a contribution to metaphilosophy, written as a structured opinion piece, encompassing a series of reflections drawn from the writer’s own experience as a philosopher. The mode of the presentation is a mixture of personal and experimental writing styles, intentionally avoiding the rigid form of overtly analytical and argumentative discussions. Although numerous philosophers will be discussed below, four key figures, Nietzsche, Russell, Heidegger, and Guattari, occupy a special position in our overall opinionated view on the nature of philosophy. (shrink)

Beyond the eras a dialogue seems to have been established between Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569) and Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). The poet’s wonder at the « painting of the North », both realistic and emblematic, reveals his deepest ideal as an artist : painting, a « magical » operation, deploys a power of expression based on signs and no longer on words, which the theatre is also called upon to seize. The juxtaposition of Bruegel’s Triumph of Death and a famous drawing (...) by Artaud, Le Théâtre de la cruauté [The Theatre of Cruelty], highlights the striking convergences between the two artists. Through their pictorial works, both of them renew over the centuries the funerary and mythical symbolism of death, inherited from the macabre scenes of medieval paintings, but also from ancient times. Studying the references to theatrical iconography in Bruegel’s painting, where carnival and crudity of death reinforce each other, allows us to deepen the meaning of these resonances. For the two artists, form and poetic momentum meet so that representation, as a structure common to painting and theatre, fixes a moment of the world, while animating that moment to infinity, thanks to signs conceived as « true hieroglyphs » (Artaud), a problem that Michel Foucault associated with the strongest truth that the experience of madness carries. (shrink)

The article considers the authentic and extreme forms of metaphysics. Antonin Artaud’s personality is at the center of attention. The author endeavors to verbally explicate his metaphysics, which is not strictly verbal. The explication of Artaud’s modern metaphysics is carried out in comparison with the triad of the “ancient modernist” Gorgias. The role of nothingness and the ambivalent attitude of contemporary metaphysicians to Artaud are examined. In the author’s opinion, the position of A. Artaud can be expressed in the following (...) theses: 1) nothingness is the speculative side of the border that does not unite but separates the being; 2) the incarnation of nothingness is fraught with both an irrevocable fall into nihilism and an annihilation of nothingness; 3) during the incarnation-annihilation of nothingness, the disunity of being is ousted and its fullness is reached; 4) the sought-after fullness is different from amorphous totality and from law-abiding structuredness; 5) anarchic, in some sense, fullness of being demands a unique language which is free from repressive unification. Understanding the experience of Antonin Artaud allows to answer the questions: “What it means to be a metaphysician? Who is he, a metaphysician? What is he like?” He is the one who emphatically appeals to the flesh ; who, moreover, is not limited to the physical as well as is not alienated from it for the sake of the technical; who does not deny the role of praxis but subordinates it to poiesis; who does not seclude himself in verbal being but appeals to being as such, to its boundaries and limits. (shrink)

O presente artigo explora a divergência interpretativa entre as leituras de Jacques Derrida e Maurice Blanchot a respeito da obra de Antonin Artaud. A obra de Artaud demonstra a problemática acerca do processo da escrita como lugar de ausência, ou seja, a relação decalcada entre o pensamento e sua representação na linguagem falada e escrita. Para Blanchot, a questão sobre o impoder, inerente ao processo da escrita, é experienciada por Artaud como porvir da obra literária/poética, tais quais as obras de (...) outros autores. Nesse sentido, além de fazer de sua obra o lugar de fala sobre o vazio da própria linguagem, Artaud, para Blanchot, também fundamenta sua busca pela totalidade representativa como um problema essencialmente poético. Em contraposição, Derrida aponta que a compreensão blanchotiana de Artaud, a fim de teorizar o ser da escrita, reduz a singularidade e a unicidade da obra artaudiana comparando-a com as obras de outros autores. Nesse contexto, cria-se um paradoxo em relação à obra de Artaud: Derrida afirma a singularidade da obra artaudiana e o teatro como fundamento para uma ressignificação metafísica da linguagem; Blanchot defende que o problema de Artaud é um problema poético/literário, uma vez que a busca por uma expressão total se estende a todos os momentos da obra de artaudiana, inclusive, a teatral. (shrink)

L'oeuvre de Sartre pourrait être lue comme Vincamation de l'esprit "pathétique" et "héroïque" de l'époque de la guerre et de la Résistance. Sous le coup de feu des barricades de 44, une philosophie de la révolution commence à éclore-elle fut forgée à chaud durant cette époque de "haute température historique". C'est de la généralisation théorique de cette expérience politique cruciale, c'est-à-dire de la cristallisation du "mythe" de la Résistance, que vient, à mon avis, l'idée satrienne de révolution.A obra de Sartre (...) poderia ser lida como a encarnação do espirito "patético" e "heróico" da época da guerra e da Resistência. Sob o impacto das barricadas de 44, urna filosofia da revolução começa a desabrochar- ela foi forjada a quente durante esta época de "alta temperatura histórica". É da generalização teórica dessa experiência política crucial, isto é, da cristalização do "mito" da Resistência, que vem, a meu ver, a idéia sartriana de revolução. (shrink)

A partir de las lecturas realizadas por Blanchot y Derrida sobre la obra de Artaud, sostenemos aquí que el descentramiento antrópico de la escritura permite repensar un materialismo que hace justicia a la organolepsia impersonal del arte toda vez que no la reduce al horizonte representativo humano. En el recorrido que proponemos, la lógica que Blanchot y Derrida recuperan de la obra artaudiana implica una reconfiguración de la noción de superficie y fuerza que, concomitantemente, expone un nuevo planteo ontológico y (...) estético. Dicha propuesta revela la necesidad de una distancia con respecto al horizonte moderno para acoger la potencia inorgánica de los materiales sin expropiarlos de su animación y, a la vez, reivindicar lo viviente sin plegarlo a las condiciones de lo humano. (shrink)

Šiame straipsnyje siekiama atsakyti į klausimą, kas galėtų susieti filosofiją ir vizualiuosius bei žodinius menus. Ar įmanoma ir jei taip, tai kaip įmanoma reflektuoti visus menus kaip vieno kūrybinio įvykio momentus? Siekiant atsakyti į šį klausimą, pirma, aptariamas logikos ir kūrybiškumo susikertant menui ir filosofijai susidūrimas, antra – žodžio ir vaizdo nebendramatiškumas, surastas / išrastas belgų siurrealisto René Magritte’o ir reflektuotas Michelio Foucault. Čia sugrįžtama prie klasikinio F. Niezsche’s disputo su Sokratu apie logikos ir kūrybiškumo priešpriešą ir siekiama atsakyti į (...) klausimą, kurią pusę – Sokrato ar F. Nietzsche’s – paremia šioje diskusijoje Gilles’is Deleuze’as ir Félixas Guattari. Atrodytų, kad jie suderina logiką ir kūrybiškumą, pastebėdami, kad menas nėra nei mokslinio mąstymo, nei filosofijos koreliatas ar papildas, kad trys minties formos – menas, mokslas ir filosofija – turi po nepriklausomą specifinę kryptį, Kita vertus, interpretuodamas I. Kantą, G. Deleuze’as pastebi disharmoniją tarp vaizduotės, supratimo ir proto, ir, sekdamas Antonino Artaud’o įžvalgomis, jis išskiria naują minties tipą kaip tarpinę teritoriją tarp žodžio ir vaizdo. (shrink)

This is a translation of the original text, published on Multitudes, realized with the generous permission of the author. Being the transcription of a lecture we decided to maintain the evocative style, as well as the formula "CsO" where originally used.

This thesis is a study of Konrad Bayer's dramatic texts. It has evolved out of various attempts to read those texts, some filed and some more successful. It does not claim to be authoritative or complete, since the nature of Bayer's texts, as will become clear in the course of the ensuing chapters, means that they resist such an interpretation. To accept this was an important prerequisite for the writing of this thesis, but a difficult one to fulfill because for (...) the Bayer commentator it constitutes a certain acceptance of defeat even before one begins. Chapter 1 will begin by providing some introductory information about Konrad Bayer, including details of his life and his membership of the Wiener Gruppe, a formative phase in his development as a writer. It will also consider the historical and cultural climate of 1950s Austria that provided the backdrop for Bayer's literary work. The phenomenon of the Wiener Gruppe will then be examined against the background of preceding experimental movements, for the purpose of situating Bayer's work historically and artistically. The aim of this historical and artistic survey is to prepare for the confrontation with Bayer's texts that makes up the other chapters of the thesis. Chapter 2 will constitute a close textual study of one of Bayer's dramatic texts using criteria from the field of text linguistics. Such a study will offer an entry point into Bayer's texts and will supply material which will form the basis for the interpretative investigations of the chapters that follow it. Chapter 3 will consider the influence of language and the individual. In chapter 4 the figure of the Lion of Belfort, a recurring figure in Bayer's dramatic texts, is discussed. The final chapter of this thesis will examine the recurring motifs of violence and cannibalism and will consider them in terms of the findings of preceding chapters. (shrink)

This article begins by arguing that the ‘madness’ of Antonin Artaud is either fetishised or resisted, depending on the disciplinary angle from which one works. It proposes an alternative approach to the study of Artaud, which might avoid such pitfalls by reading Artaud’s work as performative philosophy or a philosophy of performance. The approach is defined by the principle of ‘working with’, rather than working on, a literary or philosophical figure. The second part of the article works, or philosophises, with (...) Artaud, reading his work on the ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ alongside Immanuel Kant’s work on judgment from the third Critique. It explores the Kantian distinction between determining and reflective judgment, extending reflective judgment into what I call anarchic reflection. To do so, the article elucidates the conceptual relation between actuality, entropy, an-archy, cruelty and sublimity, defining anarchic reflection as an unintentional and/or intentional crisis of the judgment or krisis of Form that opens the possibility of its transformation. (shrink)