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What can literature do? An analysis of the power of literature and literary language
Cheng, Chau Fung ; Maesschalck, Marc (advisor) ; Goddard, Jean-Christophe (referee) ; Lisse, Michel (referee)
This thesis aims to unpack the power and potential of literature, examining a historic 1964 debate between prominent figures in literature and philosophy (Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jorge Semprun, Jean Ricardou, Jean-Pierre Faye, and Yves Berger). The study subsequently explores the pivotal distinction between ordinary and literary language, engaging with the perspectives of Maurice Blanchot and Merleau-Ponty to reveal the inherently dynamic nature of language and the power of literary language in revealing truth. The final stage of the study applies these insights to the pressing issue of hermeneutical injustice, proposing that literature can serve as a remedy for this form of injustice. Ultimately, this study contends that literature is not an insignificant player but possesses considerable potential to address and resolve societal issues. Keywords: literature; power of literature; 1964 debate; literary language; ordinary language; hermeneutical injustice; Simone de Beauvoir; Jean-Paul Sartre; Jean Ricardou; Maurice Blanchot; Maurice Merleau-Ponty
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Matter and Decay: a Study of the Formlessness in George Bataille's Work
Rocha Tenorio, Laís ; Goddard, Jean-Christophe (advisor) ; Wolfe, Charles T. (referee)
MATTER AND DECAY: A STUDY OF THE FORMLESSNESS IN GEORGES BATAILLE'S WORK Abstract: The present work proposes a reflection on the entry «Formlessness» presented by Georges Bataille in the magazine Documents, to which the writer and thinker was part of from 1929 to 1930. The interest in this entry emerged because of the «Formlessness» have a certain similarity with a specific process in nature, namely, the rot. The «Formlessness», at first, appears as an entry in Bataille's critical dictionary, revealing itself more as a «tool» than an adjective. Whereas Bataille weaves a critique of modern anthropomorphism with it, we see that this entry later becomes a notion. Therefore, in order to understand it as a notion and a tool in this analysis, it will be necessary to go through the rot and through the texts that the author will dedicate to materialism. Thus, this proposal will show that the Bataillian conception of the matter, our hypothesis, has contributed for the reflection of the «Formlessness» and of its function. Keywords: Formlessness; Materialism; Decay; Georges Bataille
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The Community According to Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, and Jean-Luc Nancy: from The Politic to Art
Pourhosseini, Behrang ; Goddard, Jean-Christophe (advisor) ; Sibertin-Blanc, Guillaume (referee)
Given the difficulty of relying on the classical notions of political thought to refer to what is in common between human beings, we have seen from the 80s the emergence of a debate around the concept of « community » in the field of political philosophy. Out of all the philosophers who have talked about the question of community, three authors, Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot and Jean-Luc Nancy, have tried to analyze, in their own manner, the question of « the common » not only in the field of politics but also in the ontological field, as well as the aesthetic or literary field. For these authors, if the question of the community is primarily that of the relation, it's because « being » itself is defined as a relation or as a community. « Being » is always « being-with » or « being-together ». The community is based on the simple fact that one lives with others, and on the inclination of one to the other. What makes the common, which puts the beings in connection, is the fact that being tends to put itself out of itself, and that's what Bataille means by the notion of « ecstasy ». For our authors, love and literature are two decisive moments in the communal experience. Writing is the inherent element of community (communication). It is through writing that the exposure of individuals to the...
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Nicolas Berdiaev and the Theology of liberation: idea of a revolutionary Christianity.
Genieys, Hadrien ; Serban, Claudia (advisor) ; Goddard, Jean-Christophe (referee)
In this dissertation, the aim is to show the influence of Nicolas Berdiaev's philosophy on the Latin American movement of the Theology of Liberation. The goal is to clarify the meaning of what would mean a "revolutionary Christianity" from this theological movement. We try to show that they approach in an original way a certain number of phenomena. In the first chapter we try to characterize the notion of "structural sin". This allows us to show how sin becomes "institution" and "ideology". We try to provide a Christian analysis of the phenomenon of secularization and to show how the struggle against idolatry takes on the meaning, within this phenomenon, of fighting against the ideology of exclusion. In a second chapter we try to characterize the poor, victim of this ideology of exclusion as the "theological place" from which the Church must be established. This will lead us to reflect on what the "periphery" is and to think of a movement of "decentralization" of the Church. In the third and last part, we seek to clarify two historical dynamics that we call "teleological" and "eschatological" respectively. We then try to understand the Kingdom of God as the final object of the eschatological dynamic that we are trying to characterize, and we characterize the teleological dynamics as a cause and consequence...
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Spiral in art
Lucas, Nathalie ; Sepp, Hans Rainer (advisor) ; Goddard, Jean-Christophe (referee)
Title : The spiral in art. Aesthetic, ethical and political aspects. Abstract : In this work, we built up a collection of the different works of art in which the spiral form appears, in order to seize the symbolic meaning associated to this form particularly recurrent in Occidental art. We analysed its metamorphoses in different arts -architecture, painting, music, film, etc. - and its different roles, from its apparently ornamental role in the Ionic order, to its more immediately conceptually-loaded role in Renaissance painting or Baroque architecture: the comparison of these occurrences of the spiral in art led us to put into light a shift in the way men looked at nature, the Greek artists electing the spiral because of its sober regularity, the Renaissance painters or the Baroque architects putting emphasis on a power, characteristic of the logarithmic spiral, to evoke « nature's » prodigality in the display of forms - the spiral being only one among them - and the mysterious, to some men and artists even miraculous, character of the appearance of life and the growth of living beings. We therefore focused on the study of the motives that appeal on this symbolic in art. We were particularly interested in the motif of the shell, its many variations leading us from the cornucopia and the representations of...
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The feminine and the writing. From Nietzsche till Derrida and beyond
Jovanovic, Jasmina ; Francois, Arnaud (advisor) ; Goddard, Jean-Christophe (referee)
The feminine and the writing From Nietzsche till Derrida and beyond Abstract By means of the subtitle "From Nietzsche till Derrida and beyond" we allude allusion to the subtitle of Derrida's "The Post Card: From Socrates till Freud and beyond", but at the same time to what is at stake in the numerous "beyond" stated by every approach of a philosophical work. The writing experience itself is of great importance for us in that it is possible to distinguish a "personal dimension" (which we characterise using a neologism as "voicing" (voixante)) and a "professional dimension" (conceptual). Every work is in that sense a specific illustration of an internal singing, of a melody that can be brought in contact with life and not only turned towards life. It is precisely this voicing dimension of life the one who grants the longevity of a work as well as the trait of a method that differs from the one embodied in the written text (Socrates) or issued from an already constructed theoretical corpus (Freud). It is the mystery of the feminine that which draws the line that goes between Derrida, Nietzsche and Socrates: Socrates as the bearer of the feminine voice in his refusal of writing, Derrida as the seed-sower of the masculine voice in his writing. Nietzsche in-between. The sonority of silence in the writing...
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Demise in Perception. Walter Benjamin's dialectics of the Persona
Nolz, Philipp ; Goddard, Jean-Christophe (advisor) ; Klass, Tobias Nikolaus (referee)
Title: Demise in Perception Walter Benjamin's dialectic of the Persona Abstract: The present study understands itself as a contribution to the concept of the person in the work of Walter Benjamin, accenting this term in his earlier writings until 1928. The person or persona, rarely noted in current research, thereby appears to be a key concept of a dialectic philosophy of history, which not only meets the requirements of collecting the singularities in history, but manages to mediate them with and through their transindividual totality. Such a reading takes the task seriously to read Walter Benjamin through the philosophy of Benjamin and, by doing so, creates new possible alliances with some contemporary philosophical works (e.g. Gilles Deleuze). Keywords: Walter Benjamin ; philosophy of history ; theory of the subject ; Frankfurt school ;
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