Traversals of Affect: On Jean-François Lyotard

Description

The essays collected in this volume trace the topic of affect across Lyotard’s corpus and account for Lyotard’s crucial and original contribution to the thinking of affect. Highlighting the importance of affect in Lyotard’s philosophy, this volume offers a unique contribution to both affect theory and the reception of Lyotard. Affect indeed traverses Lyotard’s philosophical corpus in various ways and under various names: “figure” or “the figural” in Discourse, Figure, “unbound intensities” in his “libidinal” writings, “the feeling of the différend” in The Differend, “affect” and “infantia” in his later writings. Across the span of his work, Lyotard insisted on the intractability of affect, on what he would later call the “differend” between affect and articulation. The singular awakening of sensibility, affect both traverses and escapes articulation, discourse, and representation. Lyotard devoted much of his attention to the analysis of this traversal of affect in and through articulation, its transpositions, translations, and transfers. This volume explores Lyotard’s account of affect as it traverses the different fields encompassed by his writings (philosophy, the visual arts, the performing arts, literature, music, politics, psychoanalysis as well as technology and post-human studies). Highlighting the importance of affect in Lyotard’s philosophy, this volume offers a unique contribution to both the reflection on affect and the reception of Lyotard. Affect indeed traverses Lyotard’s philosophical corpus in various ways and under various names: “figure” or “the figural” in Discourse, Figure, “unbound intensities” in his “libidinal” writings, “the feeling of the differend” in The Differend, “affect” and “infantia” in his later writings. Across the span of his work, Lyotard insisted on the intractability of affect, on what he would later call the “differend” between affect and articulation. The singular awakening of sensibility, affect both traverses and escapes articulation, discourse, and representation. Lyotard devoted much of his attention to the analysis of this traversal of affect in and through articulation, its transpositions, translations, and transfers. This volume explores Lyotard’s account of affect as it traverses the different fields encompassed by his writings (philosophy, the visual arts, the performing arts, literature, music, politics, psychoanalysis as well as technology and post-human studies). How does affect “traverse” articulation while remaining in a state of radical conflict or “differend” with it? How does this traversal “work” in the visual arts (painting, drawing, cinema), the performing arts, literature, music but also in politics and psychoanalysis? And what does this imply for the very task of “thinking”? Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents List of Contributors Introduction Affect: an unarticulated phrase Affect in the work of art and commentary Affect as figure Affect and the sublime in the age of new technologies Affect in postmodern politics Affect and the task of thinking Notes Section I Affect: An Unarticulated Phrase 1 Apathēmata Notes 2 For “Emma” Notes Section II Affect in the Work of Art and in Commentary 3 Pragmatics and Affect in Art and Commentary Lyotard’s pragmatic turn The pragmatics of art The pragmatics of commentary Conclusion: pragmatics and affect Notes 4 Anamnesis Linkage—linking psychoanalysis and art through anamnesis Work—anamnesis as work; art as work Affect-phrase Time—the time of anamnesis; the time of art Notes 5 Lyotard’s Gesture Notes 6 No Place for Complacency Ending 1 Pause Ending 2 Notes Section III Affect as Figure 7 Introduction—Before Affect “From sight to vision, from the world to the phantasy”5 Reality opened by desire The work of the figural The matrix, the figural and the death drive From the figural to affect Notes 8 Following Lyotard’s Lines Engaging auditoria: Guillermo Kuitca’s Acoustic Mass VI and Mozart Da-Ponte VIII Lines, discourse, and the figural: Lyotard’s “The Line and the Letter” The seating plan: discursive lines and figural transgressions Affect, movement, and “as though directed somewhere else” Notes 9 Philip Guston’s Piles I II Notes Section IV Affect and the Sublime in the Age of New Technologies 10 Gods, Angels, and Puppets Musical sublime presence “Divine automatism” as pure perception (God/sound) + (puppets/humans) = music as divine automatism The god of sound Music and grace Listening as “obedience”: wrestling with the angels The sound-feeling Untitled Notes 11 Autoaffection and Lyotard’s Cinematic Sublime Notes Section V Affect in Postmodern Politics 12 A New Kind of Sublime I II Notes 13 Lyotard on Affect and Media A brief user’s guide to the postmodern 2.0 Winston’s journal and anamnesis: paralogy 2.0 The two minutes hate: or the affect-phrase 2.0 Big Brother and development: performativity 2.0 In media res : the differend itself-version 2.0 Notes Section VI Affect and the Task of Thinking 14 The Task of Thinking (in) The Postmodern Space of “The Zone” Nihilism and its perspectives The suburb and the après-coup (Nachträglichkeit, belatedness) “Cultural politics” The phrasophile philosopher Notes 15 Coups de Grâce Notes 16 Impious Thinking I. The turn to the affect-phrase II. Sexual difference III. Reflective judgment and politics IV. The subject of philosophy Notes Bibliography Works by Jean-François Lyotard General bibliography Index