The Little Crystalline Seed: The Ontological Significance of Mise en Abyme in Post-Heideggerian Thought

Description

Mise en abyme is a term developed from literary theory denoting a work that doubles itself within itself—a story placed within a story or a play within a play. The term flourished in experimental fiction in midcentury France, having not only a strong impact on contemporary literary theory but also on post-structuralist philosophy. The Little Crystalline Seed focuses on how thinkers invoke the concept of mise en abyme in order to establish ontologies that deviate from that of Heidegger. Iddo Dickmann demonstrates how the concept served in modeling Jacques Derrida's logic of supplementarity; Maurice Blanchot's mechanism of désouvrement; Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of repetition; Emmanuel Levinas's concept of "proximity," and in further circuit: the philosophies of Bergson, Kant, Leibniz, Heidegger himself, and more. Exploring the interpretative and generative potential of the mise en abyme for continental thought, Dickmann reveals new points of resonance between various philosophical topics including, aesthetics, ethics, time, logic, mirroring, play, and signification. Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Literary Theory of Mise en abyme and its Philosophical Meaning Mise en abyme and mirroring The double-bind of the mise en abyme Strata and undercurrents in the typology of the mise en abyme Mise en abyme in the new New Novel: Reversing mimetologism “in one fell swoop” Mise en abyme in reader-response criticism Mise en abyme in analytic and possible-worlds semantics 2. Jacques Derrida: Mise en abyme and the logic of supplementarity Mise en abyme and the infrastructural difference Derrida’s denouncement of mise en abyme Iterability and the “lacunal” conception of mise en abyme Misconception of the mise en abyme and its consequences On second thoughts: Intentionality and the “invagination” of text 3. Maurice Blanchot: Heading Toward Death as Mise en abyme Death and “ambiguity” Mise en abyme and the “night itself ” “Worklessness” and Gide’s mechanism of retroaction Worklessness and Iser’s “acts of fictionalization” Mise en abyme and the “fatality of the day” 4. Gilles Deleuze: Repetition and Time as Mise en abyme Mise en abyme and the ground of difference Mise en abyme and the philosophy of affirmation The prospective mise en abyme and the synthesis of the present The retro-prospective mise en abyme and the synthesis of the past Mise en abyme and “schema” in Kant and Bergson The Klein-bottle and the synthesis of the future 5. Mise en abyme as a Paradigm Shift I: From Mirror to “Labyrinth of Mirrors” The “mirror of nature” and the principle of adequatio Three paradigms of imagination Deleuze on Bergson: Crystallines, convex mirrors and double mirrors Gasché on Derrida: The tain of the mirror Borges and the “monstrosity of mirrors” 6. Mise en abyme as a Paradigm Shift II: From Play to “Divine Play” The play of the world and the play of Being Gadamer: Play and the hermeneutic circle Eugen Fink: Play as the “symbol of world” Caillois and Levinas: Play and the other-than-Being Deleuze: The divine game and the ethics of becoming 7. The Rhizomatic Book and the Centrifugal Mise en abyme “Minor literature” and the semiotics of “expression” The rhizomatic book and its reader The rhizomatic book as mise en abyme An empirical example: The Jewish scripture as a rhizomatic book “Diagrammatical” reality and the “sheaf ” of transcodation Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index