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Sovereignties In Question: The Poetics Of Paul Celan (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
Sovereignties In Question The Poetics Of Paul Celan - Perspectives in Continental Philosophy Author:Jacques Derrida, Thomas Dutoit, Outi Pasanen This intense confrontation between the most famous philosopher of our time and the Jewish poet writing in German who, perhaps more powerfully than any other, has testified to the European experience of the twentieth century, brings together four powerful encounters between Jacques Derrida and the poetry of Paul Celan. Included in Sovereignties i... more »n Question are the 1984 text "Schibboleth;" a 2000 essay that engages Celan poems as witness or testimony; an interview from 2001; a discussion of Celans "Meridian" lecture from Derridas 2001-2002 Paris seminar; and "Rams," his 2003 memorial lecture for Hans-Georg Gadamer. Central themes include the date or signature and its singularity; the notion of the trace; temporal structures of futurity and the "to come"; the multiplicity of language and questions of translation; such speech acts as witness, promise, and testimony, but also lying and perjury; the possibility of the impossible; and, above all, the question of the poem as addressed and destined beyond knowledge, seeking to speak to and for the irreducible other. The memory of encounters with thinkers who have also engaged Celans work lace these writings, including a brilliant engagement between two interpretative modeshermeneutics and deconstruction. Derridas approach to a poem is a revelation on many levels, from the most concrete ways of readingfor example, his analysis of a sequence of personal pronounsto the most sweeping imperatives of human existence (and Derridas writings are always a study in how such distinctions break down). Above all, he voices the call to responsibility in the ultimate line of Celans poem: "The world is gone, I must carry you," which sounds throughout this final essay like a refrain.« less