engleski

Where Does a Body Begin? Derrida on Violence and Literature

Beginning with “Violence and Metaphysics” (1964), a landmark study on Levinas, violence regularly surfaces in Derrida’s work as a blanket term for suppression of alterity, instances where it is represented through the “restricted economy” of the proper or the “same”. Nevertheless, in the subsequent development of his thought, particularly in his texts on literature and translation (“Glas”, “Schibboleth”, “What is a Relevant Translation?” etc.), the violence of commentary is increasingly perceived as a physical trauma inflicted on the other (text). This paper will briefly examine Derrida’s notion of physical violence as an unavoidable facet of theoretical approach to literature, while posing the question of what precisely is the “body” that is being violated. Drawing on sources from Derrida’s earliest analyses of Husserl to his final interviews, we will attempt to show that corporeality is used as a synecdoche for areas irreducible to philosophical categories, and that the “secret” and “singularity” of literary texts, as well as their resistance to interpretation, rests on their material support.

literature, body, violence, singularity, Derrida

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