Sunday, February 12, 2006
Radio and nothingness
The BBC must be keen to keep up with developments in French philosophy and literature. With the influence of Blanchot and Levinas growing ever stronger, not to mention the presence of Bataille, Deleuze, Derrida, Paul Ricoeur, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, it devotes the full 45 minutes of Radio 3's Sunday Feature to ........ Jean-Paul bloody Sartre.
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Still, at least it's keen on something. Philosophy and literature for NPR translates as Garrison Keilor quoting Sartre.
ReplyDeleteAll this has to do with the domination of Oxbridge - for them Sartre is still the most radical and up-to-date French thinker. Eveything else is what they chatter about in those disgusting polys and new universities - really it is true, Sartre is the only thing you can write about in the final papers - there is nothing else after that.
ReplyDeleteIt's something to do with the way that you can grab on to a handle of his thought - we paint our own portraits, we must face it, bad conscience, image-atmospheres - and then dismiss it as a stance. You've got him & got over him in one move. (Maybe caused by Sartre's own skill in publicity? The lectures & literature etc?)
ReplyDeleteOther philosophers have similar hooks - nomads, connections, the primacy of saying, dwelling etc. - but the hook is invariably entangled in much else so you actually have to engage with the work.