Concentric: Studies in English Literature and Linguistics
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://rportal.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/handle/20.500.12235/219
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Item Untitled(英語學系, 2015-05-??) Chien-heng WuThis paper discusses the modalities of emancipation in contemporary theoretical discourses and shows that the persistent critique of the figure of the Two is problematic because it relies on a faulty assumption that a dualistic structure is necessarily metaphysical and therefore unfitting for the discourse of emancipation. My analysis draws on the works of Alain Badiou and Frantz Fanon in hopes of demonstrating the possibility of a non-metaphysical framing of resistance in terms of the Two. Both Badiou and Fanon affirm the prescriptive function of politics and insist that genuine change or decolonization must be of the order of production. For both, the prescriptive function of politics is structured in binary terms, except that its binarism is figured as a subjective Two rather than an objective Two. In this newly configured space of prescriptive politics, political struggle is able to redetermine the initial determination, thereby changing the representational regime governing the world. In the final analysis, to avoid the political ineffectiveness intrinsic to the action/reaction model of resistance, their solution is not to invent a third term but to think the beyond from within theTwo, provided that this Two is radically reconceptualized as the subjective Two.Item Untitled(英語學系, 2015-05-??) Chien-heng WuThis paper discusses the modalities of emancipation in contemporary theoretical discourses and shows that the persistent critique of the figure of the Two is problematic because it relies on a faulty assumption that a dualistic structure is necessarily metaphysical and therefore unfitting for the discourse of emancipation. My analysis draws on the works of Alain Badiou and Frantz Fanon in hopes of demonstrating the possibility of a non-metaphysical framing of resistance in terms of the Two. Both Badiou and Fanon affirm the prescriptive function of politics and insist that genuine change or decolonization must be of the order of production. For both, the prescriptive function of politics is structured in binary terms, except that its binarism is figured as a subjective Two rather than an objective Two. In this newly configured space of prescriptive politics, political struggle is able to redetermine the initial determination, thereby changing the representational regime governing the world. In the final analysis, to avoid the political ineffectiveness intrinsic to the action/reaction model of resistance, their solution is not to invent a third term but to think the beyond from within theTwo, provided that this Two is radically reconceptualized as the subjective Two.Item Form-of-Life between the Messianic As Not and the Hypothetical As If(英語學系, 2015-03-??) Chien-heng WuThis paper takes Agamben’s conceptualization of form-of-life as its point of departure and situates this idea within the larger context of Agamben’s philosophy. Agamben diagnoses our contemporary political crisis and searches for a mode of existence where life would remain inseparable from its form: in this way he offers both a compelling analysis of sovereign power and a redemptive hope. However, it is not clear to what extent his notion of messianic redemption corresponds to that of political emancipation, for the register of change in Agamben’s political philosophy is framed exclusively in ontological terms, leaving the coming politics in a suspended sphere of pure mediality which subordinates questions concerning political contestation and material transformation. My contention is that an ontological politics modeled on potentiality proves a necessary yet insufficient ground for thinking political emancipation. It therefore behooves us to explore ways in which we can build on Agamben’s insight, but take it in a different direction and place it on a different level of analysis. The argument of this paper is that, rather than seeing the condition of possibility of change as being equivalent to change itself, we need to think the ethical exigency (in the form of the messianic as not) and the political dissensus (in the form of the hypothetical as if) together as forming a dialectic—such that ethics and politics are made in service of each other, not in place of each other.