Zugl.: Wien, Universiẗat, Diss.

Zugl.: Bremen, Univ., Diss., 2007

This essay attempts to listen to meaning in the borderland, and asks in between which faculties and senses, through which we see and/or listen to the world, do we seek sense? My writing is located on this border, or more precisely on the erased border that I call an interspace or an interval, the place where we look for sense in the relation between language, philosophy, politics, and music. I have done this through the reading of three contemporary philosophers: Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Angela Davis. Derrida and Nancy have provided me with a theoretical and philosophical background for my approach to Davis’s philosophic and political claims. My analysis sets out from Derrida’s différance and what it reveals in the sign system of language. This is continued through a discussion of Nancy’s question: Is philosophy capable of listening, in all senses of the word? Is the philosopher not someone who always hears? In my reading, this connection is established through the blue notes. Davis, finally, provides me with a support for my claim that we, in the political significance of blues, in the traces of meaning that it contains, might be able to listen to Derrida’s différance. Keywords: Listening, meaning, différance, blues, sonority, blue notes, in between, border, subject, Jacques Derrida, Angela Y Davis, Jean-Luc Nancy. / Denna uppsats syftar till att försöka lyssna till meningen i gränslandet – mellan vilka relationer i våra förmågor och sinnen, av att se och/eller lyssna till världen, söker vi mening? Jag vill skriva om den gränsen, eller mer kanske den utsuddade gränsen i platsen jag kallar mellansfär och mellanrum, som den plats där vi söker mening i relationen mellan språk, filosofi, politik och musik. När vi idag söker mening och talar om varat, om individen och subjektivitet, kan det vara så att vi inte längre kan göra det genom fasta tecken, system och former? Istället för att stanna kvar i ett tillstånd av upprepande och separerande som landar i uteslutande och förtryck, i värdeskalor och normer, istället för att endast höra klassiska notsystem, eller förstå språkliga regler hos fasta teckensystem; kan det vara så att vi idag får vända oss till lyssnandet och mellansfären i de blå tonernas différance för att förstå olika individer och subjektivitet i relation till världen? Genom att göra en analys av Derridas term différance i hans text med samma namn: ”Différance” ur boken Margins of philosophy, ska jag försöka närma mig Nancys bok Listening samt läsa hans text genom tanken på différance i Nancys teori och förståelse om lyssnandet.  För att undersöka hur lyssnande och musik kan få ett praktiskt uttryck, av de teoretiska meningarna vi söker i différance, vill jag använda musikgenrerna blues och jazz och de blå toner som bluesen förhåller sig i och mellan. Min teori är att bluesen kan ge en plats (av flera) för var skillnader möts mellan text, värld och musik; platsen där différance kan lyssnas till, synliggöras och hörs. I den teorin vänder jag mig till Angela Davis bok Blues Legacies and Black Feminism som stöd för bluesens utveckling. Det jag ämnar närma mig hos Davis är just bluesens meningssökande och plats i samhället

Avec la sécularisation, la laïcité et la diversité croissantes de la société québécoise, la place de la religion en général et du catholicisme en particulier se sont vues remises en question. Cette situation a d’ailleurs mené à la mise en place de deux commissions : l’une sur la place de la religion à l’école (1999) et l’autre sur les pratiques d’accommodements reliées aux différences culturelles (2008). Ces deux commissions auront fourni énormément d’informations sur les rapports qu’entretiennent encore les Québécois avec le catholicisme. Cette recherche a donc pour but de faire le point sur certains aspects du catholicisme au Québec à partir d’une perspective reposant principalement sur des instruments heuristiques issus des écrits signés « Jacques Derrida ». Pour ce faire, nous nous appuierons sur les travaux du Groupe de travail sur la religion à l’école, de la consultation générale sur la place de la religion à l’école et de la commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles. Nous posons comme hypothèse que de manière générale, les Québécois entretiennent avec le catholicisme, des rapports « archivaux », c’est-à-dire conditionnés par des perceptions de ce dernier informées par son passé, plutôt que par son présent. De plus, ces perceptions du catholicisme, probablement développées dans le sillage de la Révolution tranquille et peut-être même un peu avant, nourriraient l’existence de « spectres » qui viendraient hanter les rapports des Québécois à tout ce qui touche le religieux et la diversité culturelle. En ce sens, il s’agit d’une dimension essentielle de ce que nous appellerions la « postmodernité » religieuse québécoise. Pour illustrer ce propos, nous mènerons une analyse de contenu documentaire. Premièrement, nous procéderons à l’analyse thématique de centaines de documents (rapports de recherche, rapports officiels, mémoires) déposés lors de ces débats. Le logiciel QDA Miner permettra d’effectuer une analyse documentaire en identifiant les passages thématiques reliés à la recherche. Nous procéderons ensuite à une analyse plus fine de ces extraits sélectionnés à partir de perspectives philosophiques provenant principalement du philosophe Jacques Derrida. / Due to the secularisation, laicité and the growing religious diversity of Quebec society, the place of religion and Catholicism has been questioned. This situation has led to the creation of two commissions: one on the place of religion in school (1999) and the other on Accommodation practices related to cultural differences (2008). These commissions gave a lot of information about the relationship between Quebecers and Catholicism. This research aims to understand certain aspects of Catholicism in Quebec with a perspective using texts signed "Jacques Derrida". To do so, we will use the works of Groupe de travail sur la religion à l’école, of General Consultation on the Place of Religion in School, and of Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences. Our research hypothesis is that generally Quebecers have an ‘archival’ relationship towards Catholicism. Meaning, past perceptions of Catholicism as opposed to present ones condition this relationship. Moreover, these perceptions of Catholicism, that probably developed either just prior to or during the Quiet Revolution in the sixties, would feed the existence of "specters," or "ghosts," that haunt the relationship between Quebecers and everything related to religious and cultural diversity. This would be a fundamental dimension of what we would call the Quebec religious "postmodernity". To illustrate this statement, we will first analyse hundreds of documents deposed to these commissions. The software QDA Miner will help to perform a documentary analysis by identifying key passages related to this research. Then, we will analyse more accurately, the selected passages using philosophical perspectives mainly from Jacques Derrida.

La rencontre tant attendue entre Hans-Georg Gadamer et Jacques Derrida a finalement eu lieu au Goethe-Institut de Paris en 1981. Le dialogue espéré entre l'herméneutique et la déconstruction s'y est cependant à peine engagé. Selon la plupart des commentateurs, la conférence qu'y a prononcée Derrida n'était d'ailleurs même pas liée à la rencontre. Nous ne partageons pas cette opinion. Derrida a choisi de critiquer l'interprétation heideggérienne de Nietzsche, alors que Gadamer venait de faire un plaidoyer inconditionnel en sa faveur. De plus, la structure axiomatique de l'unité et de la totalité que Derrida met en question dans sa conférence est la même que celle qu'il a ailleurs attribuée à l'herméneutique. En mettant en doute la primauté de cette structure, il s'en prenait donc aux fondements de l'herméneutique telle qu'il la concevait. Enfin, sa conférence a laissé entrevoir une conception de l'interprétation dont l'absence d'horizon de vérité exclut l'herméneutique. / The long-awaited encounter between Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jacques Derrida finally took place in Paris' Goethe-Institut in 1981. However, the expectations of a dialogue between hermeneutics and deconstruction were hardly fulfilled. Most commentators even agree that the conference Derrida read on this occasion had nothing to do with the actual encounter. We disagree with this assessment. Gadamer had already openly and unconditionally endorsed Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche and Derrida chose this occasion to criticize it. Moreover, he called into question the same axiomatic structure of unity and totality that he had elsewhere presented as hermeneutics' own. By questioning this structure, he was attempting to dismantle the core of what hermeneutics was to him. Finally, his conference provided a glimpse into an interpretative approach that completely excludes the truth-centered interpretation of hermeneutics.

Pour exprimer ou définir une idée nouvelle, Derrida détourne souvent le sens d’un mot en se l’appropriant. La relation de Derrida avec les idées est telle que leur transmission passe par un vocabulaire spécifique, notamment l’analyse de l’étymologie (vraie et fausse). Mais quelle est sa conception du mot ? Quelles en sont les implications et les conséquences ? Pour répondre à ces questions, l’approche la plus féconde consiste à suivre au plus près celle que Derrida utilise en abordant la langue par rapport à la grammaire au sens large (c’est-à-dire tout ce qui fait événement dans la langue). En effet, la relation entre le mot et l’idée prend tout son sens dans l’analyse de certaines scènes bibliques, telles celles de la Genèse ou encore du mythe de Babel. Le fameux énoncé inaugural de l’Évangile de Jean, « Au commencement était la parole... », fait retour dans l’œuvre de Derrida, où il connaît plusieurs variations : il mérite examen, dans la perspective d’une déconstruction du logos et des origines de la langue. Le corpus de notre étude porte principalement sur trois textes de Jacques Derrida : « Des tours de Babel » (L’art des confins, PUF, 1979), Schibboleth – Pour Paul Celan (Galilée, 1986) et Donner la mort (Galilée, 1999), ces textes permettant tous une interrogation de l’« intention » divine dans le langage. Notre visée, en privilégiant dans l’œuvre derridienne ces « exemples » bibliques, est d’étudier la démarche de Derrida dans la « création » d’une langue, aspect qui a toujours été inséparable de l’élaboration de sa philosophie et auquel il a accordé la plus grande attention. À terme, ce travail se veut une contribution à la pensée du philosophe, portant sur un aspect capital de son travail et battant en brèche l’idée que son écriture est « absconse » ou « hermétique », alors qu’il y va pour lui de la mise en œuvre de sa manière même de concevoir la langue. / In order to express or define a new idea, Derrida often alters the meaning of a word in order to make it his own. Derrida’s relationship with ideas mostly expresses itself through a specific vocabulary which finds its roots in an etymological analysis (whether true or false). How does Derrida conceive the word? What are its implications and consequences? In order to answer these questions, one ought to follow closely Derrida’s approach of language through grammar in its broader sense (meaning anything which produces an event in language). It is by the examination of biblical episodes such as Genesis or Babel’s myth that the relationship between a word and the idea it represents is better conceived. The inaugural sentence in the gospel of John, “In the beginning was the Word…”, is often present in Derrida’s work, where its numerous occurrences undergo various transformations: this requires a closer inspection, especially in retrospect of logos’s deconstruction and the origin of language. This analysis will be based upon, amongst other texts, Shibboleth: for Paul Celan, The Gift of Death and “Des Tours de Babel” since they allow the possibility of a “divine intention” within language. Our objective, through a preferential study of those biblical “examples” in Derrida’s work, is to study his creation process pertaining to language. This aspect has always been intertwined with the elaboration of his philosophy and he has given it the utmost attention. In the end, this analysis presents itself as a contribution to the philosopher’s thinking, addressing a paramount aspect of his work while disproving the idea that his writing is “unreachable”, whereas it is, in fact, a question of how Derrida conceives language.

[pt] Esta tese se propõe a refletir a postura de Jacques Derrida diante das obras de arte ditas visuais. Partindo de uma invisibilidade na fonte de todo visível, Derrida problematiza a estrutura hierárquica do pensamento estético, abrindo uma outra abordagem artística não sobre, mas em torno das obras. O famoso tema de um abalo desconstrutivo no pensamento metafísico da presença desdobra-se, neste trabalho, na in-visibilidade do traço do desenho e na espectralidade da imagem cinematográfica. / [fr] Cette thèse vise à penser le point de vue de Jacques Derrida vis-à-vis les oeuvres d art visuels. En partant d une invisibilité à la source du visible, Derrida met en question la structure hiérarchique de la pensée esthétique en ouvrant une autre approche, non pas sur les images, mais autour d elles. Le célèbre thème du choc déconstrutif dans la pensée métaphysique de la présence est traité, ici, dans l in-visibilité du trait du dessin et dans la spectralité de l image cinematographique.

Maître Eckhart a donné à penser à trois grands ténors de la phénoménologie : Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida et Michel Henry. Cette présence d'un penseur médiéval, à la fois philosophe et théologien, n'est pas sans poser question dans un contexte contemporain. Une relecture de l'ensemble des occurrences eckhartiennes en phénoménologie conduit à une double constatation. D'une part, son influence est décisive et d'autre part, elle est divergente. Loin d'être anecdotique, le recours à Eckhart concerne la méthode phénoménologique elle-même. Il surgit là où le pouvoir constituant de l'ego fait problème, c'est-à-dire là où la phénoménologie husserlienne devient problématique. Cependant, les solutions apportées par Heidegger et par Henry sont antinomiques, tandis que Derrida reste dans une ambiguïté voulue. Alternative ou non-alternative : ou bien se laisser aller à la temporalité en déconstruisant l'ego, ou bien se détacher du monde pour fonder la subjectivité ; ou bien ne pas choisir entre la temporalité et l'ego. Ce conflit d'interprétations ne peut être démêlé qu'en revenant aux principes herméneutiques que le Thuringien met lui-même en oeuvre. Il en découle une ouverture de l'ego à une altérité transcendantale athématique. Parce que Maître Eckhart élabore une véritable « mystique spéculative », il est possible de penser un contrecoup théologal sur la phénoménologie de Husserl. L'approche des redoutables questions de l'intersubjectivité transcendantale s'en trouve renouvelée. Encore faut-il accepter la percée de l'ego. / Meister Eckhart gave to think of three big tenors of the phenomenology: Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida and Michel Henry. This presence of a medieval thinker, at the same time a philosopher and a theologian, is not without asking question in a contemporary context. A review of all the eckhartian occurences in phenomenology led to a double observation. On one hand, his influence is decisive and on the other hand, it is divergent. Far from being trivial, the recourse to Eckhart concerns the phenomenological method itself. It appears where the constituent power of the ego makes problem, that where the husserlian phenomenology becomes problematic. However, the solutions brought by Heidegger and by Henry are paradoxical, whereas Derrida stays in a deliberate ambiguity. Alternative or non-alternative: either let go itself in the temporality by deconstructing the ego, either get loose from the world to establish the subjectivity; either do not choose between the temporality and the ego. This conflict of interpretations can be solved only by returning to the hermeneutic principles which the Thuringian operates himself. It follows itself an opening of the ego in an athematic transcendental alterity. Because Meister Eckhart develops a real « mystic speculative », it is possible to think a theologal repercussion on the phenomenology of Husserl. The approach of formidable questions of the transcendental intersubjectivity is renewed there. Still it is necessary to accept the breakthrough of the ego.

As catástrofes coletivas impostas pelos regimes autoritários, sejam eles racistas, tal como o apartheid na África do Sul, sejam eles diretamente políticos, tal como a ditadura militar no Brasil, implicam esforços diários de reflexão e ação política. O que caracteriza estes governos é a violação aos direitos de seus cidadãos por meio de um brutal aparato policial-militar. E o pior: todo esse esquema foi montado e mantido pelo Estado, que institucionalizou a prisão, a tortura, o desaparecimento e o assassinato. As sociedades têm enfrentado o seguinte problema: como conciliar o passado doloroso com um presente democrático, administrando os conflitos que com a mera passagem institucional de um governo de exceção para um democrático não se encerraram. Isto porque as violações aos direitos humanos não se restringiram às instituições políticas, mas, indo muito além, atingiram os indivíduos e alteraram significativamente a subjetividade dessas sociedades. A oposição entre a razão política pacificadora do Estado e as memórias doloridas sobre a ditadura militar brasileira obstrui a expressão pública da dor e reduz a memória às emoções privadas. A sociedade sul-africana, valorizando as narrativas, tornou públicas estas experiências ao divulgar as narrativas construídas em seu espaço, criando um impacto na sociedade, seja em suas subjetividades ou mesmo nas políticas públicas adotadas posteriormente. Abriu mão de punir quem confessasse tudo, em nome de uma conciliação nacional. Já no Brasil, a conciliação promovida entre a anistia de 1979 e a democratização de 1985 teve por preço a omissão das memórias do horror. Nossa idéia é que diante da queda de investimento no diálogo e na convivência pública democrática, a publicidade dos traumas e ressentimentos por meio das narrativas poderia contribuir para a consumação do luto e para o aprimoramento dos elos sociais. / The collective catastrophes imposed by authoritarian regimes, be they of racist character, like apartheid in South Africa, or be they of strictly political character, like the military dictatorship in Brazil, require daily efforts of reflection as well as political action. These governments were characterized by their systematic violation of their citizens\' rights by brutal military and police apparatus. Worst of all, the whole scheme was set up and maintained by a State which institutionalized imprisonment, torture, disappearance and murder. Thus, these societies are left today to face a difficult issue: how to reconcile such painful past with a democratic present, and still manage the conflicts that do not end with a mere institutional passage from a dictatorial government to a democratic one. Human rights violations were not limited to political institutions, but went far beyond; they reached individuals, and they modified the subjectivity of those societies significantly. The opposition between the State pacificatory political reason and the painful memories regarding Brazilian military dictatorship obstructs public expression of pain and reduces memory to private emotions. In contrast, by valuing the narratives of the past, the South African society tried to recover the memory of the painful moments making these experiences public by publishing their narratives. South Africans gave up punishing those State criminals with the only condition they would confess everything, in order to foster a national conciliation. In Brazil, however, the ideal of a national conciliation to put an end to military rule paid the huge price of silencing the memories of pain, torture, and death. This had an impact on society, on its subjectivity and even on the public politics adopted later. Our point of view is that due to the lack of investment in the dialogue and in the democratic social communion the publicizing of traumas and resentments by means of narratives could contribute to realization of the mourning, thus promoting social bonds.

[pt] Esta dissertação toma por objeto privilegiado de análise o livro L Intrus (O Intruso), do filósofo francês (1940) Jean-Luc Nancy. O livro mescla a escrita poética à reflexão propriamente filosófica e oferece, por conseguinte, o desafio de uma compreensão que tome em conta esse duplo viés. Partindo da abordagem inicial sobre o caráter do livro, é formulada a hipótese central de pesquisa: a questão do intruso, implícita no livro de Nancy, versa sobre o caráter desconstrutivo tanto do corpo social, quanto do corpo privado. Ambos funcionariam articulando-se numa dupla injunção, que no primeiro caso, apresenta-se numa investigação sobre o contato entre os termos intruso e estrangeiro, e no segundo caso, entre intruso e estranho. A pesquisa atua, ainda, num registro marcadamente contemporâneo. São as exigências, os problemas, as crises do mundo de hoje que norteiam as leituras do livro de Nancy, a compreensão da noção de hospitalidade e o redimensionamento da noção de subjetividade. / [en] This dissertation has, as its primary object of analysis, the book L Intrus (The intruder), by French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy (1940). This book blends poetic writing to proper philosophical reflection, and therefore poses the challenge of a comprehension that considers this double perspective. Based on this first approach to the nature of the book, the central research hypothesis is formulated: the topic of the intruder, implicit in Nancy s book, deals with the deconstructive nature of both the social and the private bodies. Both would work by articulating into a double injunction, which, in the first case, is present in an investigation of the contact between the terms intruder and foreigner, and in the second case, between intruder and strange. Also, the research takes place on a markedly contemporary register. It is the demands, problems and crises of today s world that guide the readings of Nancy s book, the understanding of the notion of hospitality and the redimensioning of the notion of subjectivity.