tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post7910286635662275166..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Karl's Kzoo2013 Paper -- Feeding the Dogs / The Queer Prioress and Her PetsCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-71631155520216262192013-05-07T16:46:50.535-04:002013-05-07T16:46:50.535-04:00here's the thing Eileen -- I'd afraid by t...here's the thing Eileen -- I'd afraid by thinking with Derrida's GIFT OF DEATH towards the end, I've gone too TRAGIC. Your material in #2 especially is what I need not to be so PONDEROUSLY and TRAGICALLY ETHICAL, not because I don't think this stuff is worthwhile, but because I want to try out some new ways of thinking this material that doesn't keep taking me down the, uh, paths of death!! <br /><br />still madly prepping, so more in Kzoo.medievalkarlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12440542200843836794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-25529054641618450792013-05-07T14:23:28.619-04:002013-05-07T14:23:28.619-04:00wow, Eileen, this is just what I need. Thanks! Thi...wow, Eileen, this is just what I need. Thanks! This is just a kind of placeholder response, because today's a crazy day and tomorrow is travel day, but you can bet on me leaning on you about this in Kzoo this week. <br /><br />Unknown, whoever you are -- yes, track me down!medievalkarlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12440542200843836794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-35704116880876834222013-05-07T14:16:49.960-04:002013-05-07T14:16:49.960-04:00A couple of random thoughts:
1. is disinterested ...A couple of random thoughts:<br /><br />1. is disinterested charity [like Derrida's "gift"] ever possible? Rebecca Davis talked about charity [in its more positive valence] as a form of unselfing/"childishness" at the Critical/Liberal/Arts symposium in Irvine the other week--and perhaps talk to her about that at Kalamazoo? Some in the audience questioned whether charity could ever be anything other than an asymmetrical power relationship. But I [and I think Rebecca as well] would like to hold open the idea of charity as something like a disinterested love [as you say] for things-in-themselves, but then: why call this charity, which has a troubled semantic history [originates in a Greek word for love/affection, but then, in Latin Christian usage becomes associated with care/giving] -- it's the semantics of "giving" that gets us into trouble for all the reasons Derrida has outlined in his writings on the gift]. Maybe something like affection is a better word to tease out, since it rests with charity/caritas as an origin. To what/whom does one lend one's propulsive energies, as it were? Yes, Chaucer uses the term charity, so you have to work through that semantically, of course, within ME context.<br /><br />2. if love is directed at some objects while neglecting others, then it will always possess a monstrous dimension, and Peter Singer has probably been the most eloquent on the idea that we can't have ethics until we step outside of our most immediate/intimate family-love-friends circles [e.g., How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest], but isn't there another sort of violence also implicit in this? Because it requires flattening out one's attention/affective tendencies, such that some who really count on us can't get our proper attention. Maybe a better love/affection schema is one where you open up your affective field, such that you are willing/able to be "called" asymmetrically from the outside, at a moment's notice, while still tending to those who are more intimately "inside" with you [this is a bit Levinasian, I suppose]. This is a little bit like saying, we need communities [emphasis on the plural], but they need to remain open/porous and willing to be up-ended by strangers. Communities with fixed identities always lead to violence, as we know too well. But for me, as I've written here before, love/affection doesn't necessarily have to be understood as landing upon, or tending toward specific objects at the expense of others. It can be something like the conscientious manufacture of a force-field [Leo Bersani's similitude of forms, or Deleuze's becoming-phosphorescent] that wants nothing specific from the world other than contact with everything being-for-itself.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-43442389018442921662013-05-06T12:47:43.946-04:002013-05-06T12:47:43.946-04:00Oh I'm sorry that I'll be missing this tal...Oh I'm sorry that I'll be missing this talk, Karl! I've always loved the fressen/essen difference in German and am taken by your description of the foods softened and cooked (been thinking a lot about fire and cooked food and "what makes a human" in that sense) and the civilizing process of the hearth and eating cooked food. Are animals' love for humans absurd (or sentimental)? We certainly deem them authentic. Looking forward to talking to you _after_ your talk then.Anne F. Harrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09817277664812733936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-84327157466988967782013-05-06T12:44:16.390-04:002013-05-06T12:44:16.390-04:00thanks Steve, and I WILL have fun with this, proba...thanks Steve, and I WILL have fun with this, probably by looking at things like, oh, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1569272/Man-who-had-sex-with-bicycle-sentenced.html" rel="nofollow">this</a>.<br /><br />If I had time to rebuild this paper completely before Saturday (which I just don't), here's what I would do:<br /><br />one obvious problem with my piece -- the portrait never uses the word "love" - what we have are charity, pity, a 'tendre herte', all guided by 'conscience' (whose definition has troubled the critics for decades. so. must get ready to respond to that). So! I'm interested in CHARITY as a kind of disinterested love, or love for the thing-in-itself, but this will require A LOT of further unpacking. Clearly I've got enough for a plenary in here...medievalkarlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12440542200843836794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-923612920655194912013-05-06T12:06:22.506-04:002013-05-06T12:06:22.506-04:00I like this, & wonder if you might have fun en...I like this, & wonder if you might have fun engaging more with Cary Wolfe's new book as you start to at the end. Might Chaucer to figuring a split in discourse about love across an extended species boundary as Cary's talking about? <br /><br />I also think about the love scene with the sports car in Thomas Pynchons *V.*, which stil seems to me a go-to text about love between human and inanimate objects.Steve Mentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02927244468764583378noreply@blogger.com