On the Brink
Описание книги
This collection of essays by one of the foremost figures in contemporary theory takes as its theme the edge or limit between language, time, history, and politics. These are essays that are all on the brink, the very extreme at which one can no longer define where one is located, neither on the cliff, say, nor over the edge. To be on the brink is to take up that extreme limit, the point of contamination or indetermination where language, time, history, and politics all converge upon one another. On the Brink begins with a consideration of Kant’s treatment of time as representation and of Hegel’s treatment of the writing of history and the end of art, all while taking up other key figures in the history of philosophy. The book then moves to an exploration of language in a variety of manifestations, from translation to complaint and greeting. It concludes by analyzing political and social questions that continue to haunt us today—the conception of work, not least in National Socialism, and our relationship to democracy. Taken together, Werner Hamacher’s essays offer trenchant historical, political, and rhetorical interventions into the history of philosophy, literature, and our contemporary political situation.
Оглавление
Werner Hamacher. On the Brink
Editor’s Foreword
Notes
Time, History, Art: Kant and Hegel
Ex Tempore
Notes
On Some Differences between the History of Literary and the History of Phenomenal Events
Notes
(The End of Art with the Mask)
Notes
Gestures of Language
Contraductions
Notes
Notes on Greeting
Notes
Remarks on Complaint. 1) Complaining
2) Expression
3) Complaint Not a Negation
4) Complaint and Answer
Notes
Sketches: Work, Democracy
Uncalled
Notes
Working Through Working
Notes
Sketches toward a Lecture on Democracy. 1
2. Notes toward the Clarification and Continuation of “Sketches toward a Lecture on Democracy”
Notes
Afterword
Amphora
Notes
Index
Отрывок из книги
In the fall of 2015, I approached Werner Hamacher about the possibility of pulling some of his essays together into a book-length manuscript. He suggested a group of texts—all previously published, some already having appeared in English translation—that I would translate or edit under the tentative title Brinks: Time, History, Language, Politics. As we discussed the volume, its table of contents changed a good deal: one essay was substituted for another, a new one was added, some were dropped. By the time of Hamacher’s death in 2017, the final list of titles seemed largely finalized, though much else was still in flux. We had promised each other to discuss the title—namely, the possibility of On the Brink—and the order in which the essays would appear, as well as their grouping into sections. And then there was the matter of the translation itself, the many questions I anticipated having about particular words, phrases—even punctuation—to say nothing of Hamacher’s always demanding thinking. In the process of working on the collection, still more has changed. One major essay has since been published in another volume and so has been omitted here.[1] Other pieces have also fallen out in the interest of the coherence of the volume, although they should without doubt appear elsewhere. It is my hope that they will.
What remains are ten essays on topics ranging from Kant’s thinking of time to a sketch for a theory of democracy, all marked by Hamacher’s remarkable and characteristic rigor. And what remains is the feeling of loss and absence left by Hamacher’s death. That absence registers not least in the fact that the volume is without a foreword or introduction by the author. It has become increasingly clear to me in working on the essays that a more recent word from Hamacher on his thinking of time, history, language, and politics would not only have offered an important note to the topic in the current historical and political context, but in so doing would also have shed light on the other essays and their situations.
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The essays collected here appeared in journals on various themes, were given as talks on various occasions, and have sometimes been reprinted, sometimes, as I have noted above, in translation. It has been my privilege to learn from those remarkable translations. I have edited them lightly for consistency while trying to respect the singularity of the essay’s language and occasion—as I have tried, similarly, to do in my own translation of the previously untranslated essays. To speak, once again, of the task of the translator would not be adequate here; it would be better, perhaps, to speak of the honor.
I am grateful to Werner Hamacher for the opportunity to work on the volume and for his example. To Andrew Benjamin, Frankie Mace, and Sarah Campbell for their steadfast support. To Tobias Nagl for an eye-opening suggestion. And to Pascal Michelberger for his many helpful clarifications.
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