This dissertation critically examines the ontological and epistemological significance of the concept of violence in French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s essay “Violence and Metaphysics” (Chapter 1), dialogues between Mennonite philosophical theologians who represent the Radical Reformation and John Milbank’s Radical Orthodoxy (Chapter 2), and the Death and the Displacement of Beauty trilogy by feminist philosopher of religion Grace Jantzen (Chapter 3). Although Derrida, Jantzen, and certain Mennonite philosophical theologians approach the problem of violence with very different concerns and frames of reference, each understand violence to have a distinctly ontological and epistemological character, while also suggesting that ontology and epistemology themselves are profoundly vulnerable to charges of violence. In Derrida’s essay “Violence and Metaphysics” language itself is imbricated in violence, and in their responses to John Milbank, Mennonite philosophical theologians Peter C. Blum and Chris K. Huebner situate their work both with and against Derrida’s supposed “ontology of violence” as they apply Christian pacifism to epistemology and seek to articulate an “ontology of peace.” In her late work in the Death and the Displacement of Beauty project, Grace Jantzen develops an epistemology that is similar to that of Blum and Huebner, while critiquing what she understands to be Derrida’s equivocation of linguistic with physical violence, all as part of her argument that the cultural habitus of the west is founded on an obsession with death that violently displaces natality with mortality. In bringing together these three sources, this dissertation uses “violence” as a diagnostic concept to assess the priorities and values of its users. Considering violence to be defined by the violation of value-laden boundaries, this study of three ontologies of violence interprets and critiques the values that Derrida’s deconstruction, philosophical Mennonite pacifism, and Jantzen’s critique of displacement seek to further and protect against violation. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation examines the early work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida (Chapter 1), debates between Mennonite philosophical theologians and John Milbank’s Radical Orthodoxy (Chapter 2), and the Death and the Displacement of Beauty trilogy by feminist philosopher of religion Grace M. Jantzen (Chapter 3). For Derrida, Jantzen, and certain Mennonite philosophical theologians the term “violence” is used to name ways of thinking, knowing, and speaking, rather than being restricted to the sphere of physical violations. This dissertation shows how these three sources each consider violence to be something that can inhere in ways of thinking about the world and our relation to it.

George MacDonald's novel Lilith relates the story of a young man inheriting his deceased father's estate and coming in contact with its remarkable library and mysterious librarian. The protagonist's subsequent adventures in a fantastical world prepare the young Mr. Vane to assume authority over his inherited archive and become an archon. Jacques Derrida's exposition of the responsibilities of the archon including archival authority, domiciliation, and consignation illuminate the mentoring role of the elusive librarian Mr. Raven in Vane's adventures. By using Derrida's deconstruction of archives to unpack the intricacies of knowledge transfer in MacDonald's novel, the lasting impact of the archon on the archive and the individuals in Lilith, as well as the importance of the archon in the transfer of knowledge between individuals facilitated through relationships, becomes apparent. The archon, acting as a gatherer, organizer, and shaper of texts, uses the materials within the archive to exercise power and to bequeath power upon other individuals, as seen in the character Mr. Raven's actions. Lilith illustrates the necessity of the archon as he shapes the archive's contents and governs the interactions between book and reader, ultimately allowing the archive to become a place where knowledge is heritable.

Svenska kyrkan har flera gånger offentligt engagerat sig i migrationsfrågan. I den här uppsatsen analyseras, utifrån en dekonstruktion av skriften ”Detta vill vi! Kyrkorna och migrationsfrågorna”, hur Svenska kyrkans nationella ledning använder kärleksbudskapet för att motivera sitt engagemang i migrationspolitiken. I dekonstruktionen identifieras tre temor som berör rörelse, inkludering respektive makt. Materialet från dekonstruktionen diskuteras även utifrån Reinhold Niebuhrs och Jacques Derridas etik. Ett resultat från dekonstruktionen är att begreppet kyrkan som något transcendent eller som en organisation har betydelse för hur kärleksbudskapet kommuniceras. Vidare föreslås utifrån arbetet i uppsatsen att även människans egenkärlek skulle behöva diskuteras i en skrift som ”Detta vill vi! Kyrkorna och migrationsfrågorna”. Ett annat resultat är att i kyrkornas budskap finns en inneboende maktkamp mellan kärleksbudskapet och de politiska lagarna, vilket skulle behöva belysas i skriften. / The church of Sweden has several times engaged in migration politics. In this study the use of the love commandment by national level of the church of Sweden to motivate its engagement in migration politics. The analysis is based on deconstruction of the leaflet “Detta vill vi! Kyrkorna och migrationsfrågorna”. Within the deconstruction three themes are identified that relate to movement, inclusion and power, respectively. Further, the material from the deconstruction is discussed from the ethics of Reinhold Niebuhr and Jacques Derrida. A result of the deconstruction is that the concept church as something transcendent or as an organization has an impact on the communication of the love commandment. Based on the results of the study, it is recommended that the self-love of the human being should be brought up in a leaflet as ”Detta vill vi! Kyrkorna och migrationsfrågorna”. Another result is that within the message of the church there is an inherent conflict between Jesus’ message of love and the political laws, and this conflict would need to be illustrated in the text.

Originated by Jacques Derrida, deconstruction analyzes the relationship between text and meaning. This thesis applies Derrida's theory of deconstruction to three early American Puritan figures: John Winthrop, Mary Rowlandson, and Anne Bradstreet. By questioning the conceptual distinctions known as oppositions in Puritan ideology through the works of these aforementioned individuals, this thesis questions and corrupts the binaries within each text used. The emergence of new meaning through a deconstruction of Puritan ideology establishes a valid site from which to explore radical, repressed, historical, cultural, and theological narratives of religious prosperity. By enforcing narratives from Derrida's Of Grammatology, post-structuralist ideology will presume no absolute truths within a text; therefore, ambiguity is pertinent in a deconstructive critical examination. The argument in this thesis is then—through a deconstructive critical examination of Puritan ideology, are similarities present though different mediums of linguistic discourse, and can this thesis formally decenter the transcendental signifiers present. The critical approach to deconstructing each medium of discourse analytically breaks down the systematic organization of language as a whole and overturns structuralist oppositions—as to displace the authority, and formally find new importance in a text.

“Doctor Moreau and The Hunt for The Ethical Figure. From unsuccessful man-making to respectful relations with Jacques Derrida, Donna Haraway and H. G. Wells” In H. G. Wells’ science fiction novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), a scientist on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean attempts to create humans from animals. Wells draws on Charles Darwin’s theories on the origins of species and the descent of man to create a horror story in which the uniqueness of the human is called into question. This study uses the novel to investigate the re-emergent interest in human-animal relations, within the natural sciences as well as the arts and humanities, in the past twenty years. In what is often termed “the Animal Turn,” theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway, who are at the centre of this study, have dedicated a significant amount of their work to the animal question and in particular to the ethics of inter-species relationships. Furthermore this essay stages the interaction of fiction and theoretical discourse in an analysis that probes challenges inherent to the relations of humans to other species, such as the practice of eating meat, the killing of animals, and animal rights. Moreover, it considers how the figure of the animal has been used to define the human, as well as to dehumanize people in the justification of abuse and persecution. However, human-animal ethics also has positive connotations, discussed through the figures of positivity and possibility in play, sharing, contact and responsive responsibility. Taking its inspiration from Karen Barad’s method of diffraction, this study foregrounds new pattern-making while exploring how Derrida’s and Haraway’s strategies for formulating a new ethics are present in their use of tropes and figures. / Science fiction-romanen The Island of Doctor Moreau skrevs 1896 och handlar om hur en vetenskapsman på en avlägsen ö i Stilla havet försöker skapa människor av djur. Författaren H. G. Wells inspirerades av Darwins teorier om arternas uppkomst till att skriva en skräckberättelse där mänsklighetens unikhet sätts ur spel. Den här studien använder Wells text i syfte att undersöka hur relationen mellan människor och andra arter har kommit att få ett nytt intresse inom en mängd olika vetenskapliga, praktiska och konstnärliga ämnen i slutet av 1900-talet och början av 2000-talet, något som har kommit att kallas ”The Animal Turn”.  I centrum för studien återfinns teorier formulerade av filosofen Jacques Derrida och den feministiska vetenskapsteoretikern och biologen Donna Haraway. Båda två har ägnat stor del av sina respektive arbeten åt djurfrågan, framför allt med enträget intresse för hur ett etiskt förhållande mellan arter kan se ut. Studien låter romanen och de teoretiska texterna samverka i en analys som diskuterar utmaningar i människa-djur-relationer – som köttätande, dödande och rättigheter. Människan har till exempel använt sig av djuret för att definiera sig som människa, men också för att dehumanisera andra människor, och därmed kunnat utnyttja eller våldföra sig på dessa människor. Men människa-djur-etiken har också positiva aspekter: kontakt över språkgränser, att tillsammans utgöra världsmedborgare som alla består av och är beroende av varandra, att dela lek och arbete, att se och upptäcka den andre.  Med inspiration från Karen Barads användning av metoden diffraktion vill den här uppsatsen utforska Derridas och Haraways strategier för att formulera en ny etik genom bruket av figurer och troper.

[pt] Esta tese de doutorado é um estudo sobre a política internacional de banimento, uma política internacional de criminalização e proscrição. A partir da leitura de alguns dos memorandos norte-americanos da Guerra contra o Terror, e influenciado pelo quase-conceito de rastro de Jacques Derrida, bem como pelo insight de Carl Schmitt sobre o dualismo exceção/regra, este trabalho segue certos rastros constitutivos daqueles documentos e, sobretudo, do status de combatente ilegal daqueles prisioneiros determinado ali. A partir destes rastros constitutivos da categoria de combatente ilegal, identificam-se os rastros da categoria de pirata na arquitetura político-jurídica da ordem internacional, e, a partir destes, os de uma alteridade excepcional que Schmitt identificou como a de um inimigo fora-da-lei, ou fora-da-lei da humanidade. Nesse sentido, destacam-se a alteridade e o espaço-tempo excepcionais do pirata, comentando-se seu ambíguo status político-jurídico – de fora-da-lei internacional e inimigo da humanidade (hostis humani generis) –, bem como seu banimento do espaço-tempo do sistema internacional moderno e da humanidade. A partir daí, e influenciado pelos estudos mais recentes de R. B. J. Walker sobre o fora constitutivo e as práticas soberanas de exclusão do sistema internacional moderno, identificam-se e comentam-se os rastros, sobretudo contemporâneos, da política internacional de criminalização e proscrição. E então, influenciado por aquele quase-conceito de rastro de Derrida, conclui-se este trabalho posicionando-o em relação a esta política internacional de banimento; ou seja, rastreando o Fora-da-lei da Humanidade. / [en] This PhD dissertation is a study on the international politics of outlawing, an international politics of criminalization and proscription. Starting from the reading of some of the US Memos on the War on Terror, and influenced by Jacques Derrida s quasi-concept of trace, as well as by Carl Schmitt s insight on the exception/rule dualism, this work follows certain traces which are constitutive of those documents and, most importantly, of the unlawful combatant status of those detainees as determined therein. Thus, from these constitutive traces of the category of unlawful combatant, this work identifies the traces of the category of the pirate within the political-legal architecture of the international order, and, from them, those of an exceptional alterity which Schmitt has identified as one of an outlaw enemy, or an outlaw of humanity. In this regard, it focuses on the exceptional alterity and space-time of the pirate, analyzing his ambiguous political-legal status – as both an international outlaw and an enemy of humankind (hostis humani generis) –, as well as his outlawry from the space-time of the modern international system and of humanity. From this analysis, then, and influenced by R. B. J. Walker s most recent studies on the constitutive outside and the exclusionary sovereign practices of the modern international system, it identifies and comments on the traces, most especially on the contemporary traces, of the international politics of criminalization and proscription. And then, influenced by that Derridian quasi-concept of trace, this PhD work concludes positioning itself in relation to this international politics of outlawing; that is, tracing the Outlaw of Humanity.

The aim of this essay is to show how the relationship between credit and critique is important for Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction of law. I will start from Force of Law, in which law, as well as justice, is deconstructed by Derrida. My purpose is further to show how the two concepts, credit and critique, are intertwined in the discourse of law and thereby crucial for Derrida’s deconstruction. As Derrida always states, the rational projects need to have a master concept, which the project revolves around, and this master concept needs at least one other subordinate concept to contrast itself against. In this context, I argue that critique can be that master concept. I base this argument upon the fact that critique in its ancient Greek sense, krinein, can be translated into the verb ‘to separate’, ‘to decide’ or ‘to judge’, which shows that there is an obvious link to the task of a judge. This puts critique in center of the discourse of law. Credit on the other hand is not rational, which makes it opposed to critique, but it is still important for law. It is a typical subordinated concept that just appears in the discourse without any further explanation but is present by its implicit importance to the discourse. I argue that credit is the subordinate concept that is needed for the concept of critique to be a master concept. Both concepts are important for the foundation of law, and this is why I believe that Derrida in the end states the importance to take responsibility for the law. In other words, one must take responsibility for both founding aspects of credit and critique when deconstructing the law.

Ce travail de recherche propose une étude de l’œuvre intégrale, en vers et en prose, de Fred D'Aguiar, à travers le prisme du mythe, de la métaphore et de la mémoire, et dans le cadre d'une définition large, inclusive et interculturelle de la littérature caraïbe. A partir de la mise en lumière de la relation hypomnésique de la métaphore à la mythologie et à la métaphysique occidentale, l'argumentation s'étend sur des questions telles que celle du lien entre référent et monde et élabore une vision à la fois interculturelle et géographique de la métaphore en tant que tropicalité. La tropicalité donne, à son tour, son élan à l'argumentation, en permettant, pour la première moitié de ce travail de recherche, la production d'une lecture singulière de la poésie de Fred D'Aguiar, qui s'avère aussi liée à un vaste corpus littéraire, s'étendant de l'Antiquité romaine au réalisme magique américain et caraïbe, du romantisme britannique à la philosophie de Jacques Derrida. La deuxième moitié de ce travail explore la prose de Fred D'Aguiar à travers le thème de l'orphelinat, car tous les protagonistes de ses romans sont des orphelins – et, qui plus est, parce-que le roman est aussi, par définition, le genre qui nie toute filiation. Divisée en deux chapitres, cette deuxième partie de l'étude commence par une problématisation des liens qui opèrent entre textualité et orphelinat ainsi qu'entre orphelinat et esclavage, mais aussi entre esclavage et illettrisme, afin d'étudier la représentation de l'esclavage dans les romans de Fred D'Aguiar. Cette deuxième moitié progresse ensuite vers une réflexion sur les qualités surnaturelles, voire orphiques des orphelins de la prose d'aguiarienne, ainsi que sur leur relation, tout autant orphique, à l'environnement. En conséquence, le présent travail de recherche se clôt sur deux questions : celle de la tradition orphique qui sous-tend l'histoire de la littérature, de l'antiquité jusqu'à présent, et celle de la dimension écocritique de la littérature contemporaine, que l'on proposera de défendre pour certains cas, en tant qu'environnementalisme vatique. / The present dissertation proposes a study of Fred D'Aguiar's complete verse and prose works, through the triple lens of myth, metaphor and memory, and from within a broad, inclusive, and cross-cultural understanding of Caribbean literature. Beginning with an exacerbation of metaphor's hypomnesic relationship to mythology and Western metaphysics, the argument expands to address issues such as that of the relationship between word and world, and elaborates a cross-cultural, and geographically-based understanding of metaphor as tropicality. Tropicality in turn gives the argument its thrust, as it allows, in the first half of the dissertation, for a singular reading of Fred D'Aguiar's entire verse corpus, which is also shown, in the process, to intersect with a vast body of literature, ranging from Roman antiquity to American-Caribbean magic(al) realism and from British romanticism to the philosophy of Jacques Derrida. The second half of this research work explores D'Aguiar's novels in terms of orphanhood, as all the protagonists of his six novels – itself a genre which, presenting itself as newness, denies filiation – are orphans. Divided in two chapters, the second half of this dissertation begins with a problematization of the links that relate textuality to orphanhood and orphanhood to slavery, but also slavery to literacy, in order to study Fred D'Aguiar's novelistic accounts of slavery. It then proposes a reflection on the supernatural, Orphic qualities of D'Aguiar's orphan characters, and of their relation to the environment, which leads, in turn, to reflections on the Orphic traditions pervading literary history, and opens up onto the ecocritical dimensions of contemporary literature, through the tentative coinage of the notion of vatic environmentalism.

The dissertation re-examines the philosophy of Georges Bataille within the context of post-Kantian aesthetics and argues for a re-evaluation of Bataille’s notion of expenditure [depenser] within this context. The dissertation argues further that the artistic practice of Robert Smithson is an exemplary case of an ‘aesthetics of expenditure.’ It is our contention that Bataille’s cosmic-energetic philosophy finds a complementary material expression in Smithson’s abstract geology and its confrontation with post-Kantian aesthetics. We will argue that this occurs through Smithson’s varying strategies, which are grouped conceptually according to the broader logic of their expression:seriality, sedimentality, monumentality, and meandering. While Smithson’s own references to Bataille in the early 1970s are discussed in detail, it is not our position that Smithson was enacting Bataille’s philosophy ‘aesthetically’; rather, by reading Bataille’s evaluation of Kant’s aesthetics and teleology in relation to Smithson’s artistic practice, we emphasize instead that the politics of disgust shared by both figures advance a radical decentring and repositioning of the human in relation to planetary and geological forces. If, as geologists now agree, our present age is that of the Anthropocene1, our argument is that Bataille and Smithson anticipate this precarious condition analytically, and, perhaps more importantly, that their analysis suggests further important diagnostic considerations at the level of social organization and political composition that might help defer, if not entirely prevent, the catastrophic end of this all-too-human period.

Rosa Bonheur, artiste animalière du 19e siècle se révèle, par ses représentations humaines/ équines, être pionnière dans l’avènement d’une éthique animale. Bien qu’ayant joui d’une popularité enviable de son vivant, les études posthumes faites à son sujet sont majoritairement biographiques et principalement intéressées à examiner son célèbre Marché aux chevaux (1853-1855), sous la loupe de sa sexualité. Cette approche limitée, en plus de ne pas rendre justice à la position artistique adoptée par Bonheur, asservit les sujets équins de ses œuvres. Ce mémoire propose un angle alternatif de lecture de ses tableaux, qui se veut plus en adéquation avec son éthique animale. Inspiré par les recherches récentes des animal studies, particulièrement celles influencées par la déconstruction, il sera démontré que les représentations des relations inter-espèces de Bonheur soulèvent d’importants questionnements éthiques. Dans ce contexte, Rocky Bear and Chief Red Shirt (1889), une œuvre indûment négligée par les études en histoire de l’art, s’avère essentielle, lorsque considérée aux côtés du Marché aux chevaux, comme moyen de saisir l’éthique équine de l’artiste. Par l’analyse de ses oeuvres, ce mémoire invite à une réévaluation de l’art de Bonheur comme étant l’expression de son engagement pour l’avènement d’une manière plus éthique d’être avec le cheval. De plus, il cherche à contribuer, de façon significative, à la compréhension des rôles que les pratiques de représentation, en général et spécifiquement dans l’art, peuvent jouer dans la transformation de nos perceptions de l’animal non-humain. / Through her depictions of the human/horse relationship, the animal painter Rosa Bonheur has shown herself to be a pioneer in the advent of animal ethics. In life she enjoyed an enviable popularity and posthumously her work has continued to attract attention with most studies focussing on her biography, reading her famous The Horse Fair (1853-1855) through the prism of her sexuality. Such approaches are too limited and fail to do justice to Bonheur’s artistic philosophy, overwriting the importance of the horse, a key subject in many of her works. This dissertation takes an alternative approach, one more in keeping with the artist’s animal ethics. Inspired by recent research in animal studies, particularly research informed by deconstruction, the thesis demonstrates how Bonheur’s representation of interspecies relations raises key ethical questions. In this context, Rocky Bear and Chief Red Shirt (1889), a painting which has been unduly neglected in existing art historical scholarship, forms a vital work, one which is considered alongside the celebrated The Horse Fair as a means to understand Bonheur’s equine ethics. Through an analysis of these paintings in particular, the thesis invites a reassessment of Bonheur’s art as an expression of her commitment to the ethical treatment of horses and also seeks to make a significant contribution to understanding the role practices of representation more generally, including art, can play in the transformation of our perception of non-human animals.