G. Richter, A. Smock (dir.), Give the Word. Responses to Werner Hamacher's "95 Theses on Philology"
Gerhard Richter, Ann Smock (dir.)
Give the Word. Responses to Werner Hamacher's "95 Theses on Philology"
University of Nebraska Press
ISBN : 978-1-4962-0652-7
432 p.
75,00 $
PRÉSENTATION
Werner Hamacher’s witty and elliptical 95 Theses on Philology challenges the humanities—and particularly academic philology—that assume language to be a given entity rather than an event. In Give the Word eleven scholars of literature and philosophy (Susan Bernstein, Michèle Cohen-Halimi, Peter Fenves, Sean Gurd, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Jan Plug, Gerhard Richter, Avital Ronell, Thomas Schestag, Ann Smock, and Vincent van Gerven Oei) take up the challenge presented by Hamacher’s theses. At the close Hamacher responds to them in a spirited text that elaborates on the context of his 95 Theses and its rich theoretical and philosophical ramifications.
The 95 Theses, included in this volume, makes this collection a rich resource for the study and practice of “radical philology.” Hamacher’s philology interrupts and transforms, parting with tradition precisely in order to remain faithful to its radical but increasingly occluded core.
The contributors test Hamacher’s break with philology in a variety of ways, attempting a philological practice that does not take language as an object of knowledge, study, or even love. Thus, in responding to Hamacher’s Theses, the authors approach language that, because it can never be an object of any kind, awakens an unfamiliar desire. Taken together these essays problematize philological ontology in a movement toward radical reconceptualizations of labor, action, and historical time.
Gerhard Richter is a professor of German studies and comparative literature at Brown University. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Inheriting Walter Benjamin and Afterness: Figures of Following in Modern Thought and Aesthetics. Ann Smock is a professor emerita of French at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of two books, including What Is There to Say? (Nebraska, 2003), and has translated several others. An influential theorist, philosopher, and literary critic, Werner Hamacher (1948–2017) was a professor at the University of Frankfurt and founder of its Institute of General and Comparative Literary Studies.
TABLE DES MATIÈRES
95 Theses on Philology / 95 Thesen zur Philologie
Werner Hamacher, translated by Catharine Diehl
Introduction
Gerhard Richter and Ann Smock
Part 1. Balances1. Was heißt Lesen?—What Is Called Reading?
Gerhard Richter
2. Language-Such-That-It’s-Spoken
Michèle Cohen-Halimi, translated by Ann Smock
3. 48: [this space intentionally left blank]
Jan Plug
4. Catch a Wave: Sound, Poetry, Philology
Sean Gurd
Part 2. Times
5. Einmal ist Keinmal: On the 76th of Werner Hamacher’s 95 Theses for Philology
Ann Smock
6. Rereading tempus fugit
Thomas Schestag
7. Language on Pause: Hamacher’s Seconds of Celan and Daive
Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei
Part 3. Categories
8. The Right Not to Complain: A Philology of Kinship
Avital “Irony” Ronell
9. The Category of Philology
Peter Fenves
10. The Philía of Philology
Susan Bernstein
11. Defining the Indefinite
Daniel Heller-Roazen
Part 4. Responding to Responses
12. What Remains to Be Said: On Twelve and More Ways of Looking at Philology
Werner Hamacher, translated by Kristina Mendicino
Contributors
Index