Saturday, September 22, 2007

Blanchot's two lives

Last Saturday I posted a web exclusive to mark the centenary of Blanchot's birth: Charlotte Mandell's translation of Jean-Luc Nancy's anniversary tribute. Perhaps you missed it. Most litbloggers did!

Anyway, today is the actual day 100 years on, and one or two have noticed. Pierre Joris has posted The space opened by Blanchot, his contribution to the 2004 memorial volume Nowhere Without No, while Spurious marks it with Common Presence: Blanchot at 100:
Communism and friendship are words Blanchot will often use in proximity to one another. Reviewing a book by his friend Dionys Mascolo in 1953, Blanchot argues that there is an alternative to the account of need and value as it is found in Marxism. Friendship, for Blanchot, suggests a way in which we might look to a future world that is not comprised of human beings who have become little more than things. We must live two lives, says Blanchot - one in which we struggle against the values that conceal the truth of our condition from us, and another wherein we live according to what we share, which Blanchot, from the late 1950s onward, will call speech.
UPDATE: And don't miss wood s lot.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous5:54 pm

    I've encountered Nancy only as an intriguing presence in the film The Ister (which is, coincidentally, also in part a journey to Heidegger's hut): http://www.theister.com/keyfigures.html

    ReplyDelete

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