paul-denicola-literature-pure-mediality

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Dissertation defended December 15, 2007 Awarded Magna Cum Laude Committee: Friedrich Ulfers (New York University) Sigrid Hackenberg (European Graduate School) Michael Anker (European Graduate School) ii
Abstract The utilization of an instrumental model that sees language itself as a means which is capable of bringing us towards what might be called fixed “meaning,” is one of the greatest limitations in the human attempt to establish an authentic understanding of the dynamics of communication. An acceptance of language from this perspective constricts our ability to have an adequate confrontation, or more accurately, experience of/with an aesthetic work. This text explores the impact of conceiving the <strong>literature</strong> of Franz Kafka in light of what will be referred to as “Pure Mediality” via an a-teleological approach that calls upon the thinking of Nietzsche, Deleuze, Guattari, Barthes, Adorno, and Derrida - among others. My reading of Kafka presents him as profoundly skeptical of instrumental language, very much influenced by the Vienna School language critics of the turn of the century. Kafka recognizes the inherent violence in any conceptual understanding of language, and therefore conceives of <strong>literature</strong>, or more precisely, literary or poetic language, as capable of an “un-judging” that deconstructs any previously “judged” version of the real. His literary work thus constitutes an embrace of infinite relation, suspension of judgment and radical undecidabilty. Pure Mediality is not to be confused with an aesthetics of the autonomy of l’art pour l’art; rather it is suffused with an inherent ethical aspect insofar as it constitutes freedom from truth as the tyranny of univocity and teleology towards the truth of an a-topical, endlessly de-territorializing and metamorphosing world. As such, this truth is always already other in relation with itself, and thus ethical in its irreducible self-less-ness, its inherent openness to, and interrelatedness with, the other. It is the ethical structure of the “given” - not the anthropomorphically instrumentalized world - in which its interpenetrating parts exist “poetically,” as metamorphic units. The text argues that Kafka’s art of Pure Mediality is an art of alterity, constituting a “wounding” or “opening” by alterity that demands a response. It is this character of responsiveness to the other that implies ethical potentialities. iii
Page 1: Literature as Pure Mediality: Kafka
Page 5 and 6: 3.7 Narrative Rupture 49 3.8 Death
Page 7 and 8: “Language is possible because it
Page 9 and 10: media as an authentic life-world th
Page 11 and 12: A functional explanation is one tha
Page 13 and 14: 1.3 From Benjamin to Deleuze and Gu
Page 15 and 16: function of impotence” (8). This
Page 17 and 18: We again find the instrumental or u
Page 19 and 20: communication is a teleologically o
Page 21 and 22: interconnectedness of the world, a
Page 23 and 24: series of events, which are somehow
Page 25 and 26: (480). Each of these concepts is co
Page 27 and 28: effective, it will not be so throug
Page 29 and 30: All communication of the contents o
Page 31 and 32: may still be an imperfect one. The
Page 33 and 34: and Difference 292). According to t
Page 35 and 36: 2.5 Kafka and the Language of Infin
Page 37 and 38: “To refrain from judgment is the
Page 39 and 40: well as the subsequent self-executi
Page 41 and 42: is approached, the issue resolves i
Page 43 and 44: Any attempt to reduce a text like
Page 45 and 46: would be the end of hermeneutics an
Page 47 and 48: Stupidity is…that which fails to
Page 49 and 50: over water. . . . How everything ca
Page 51 and 52: That is to say that the story’s s
Page 53 and 54:
as Frieda. By becoming tied to her
Page 55 and 56:
comprehension” (The Work of Fire,
Page 57 and 58:
undecidability, so does that of the
Page 59 and 60:
definition transitive) which would
Page 61 and 62:
“What is deferred forever till de
Page 63 and 64:
afforded an opportunity to rectify
Page 65 and 66:
4.3 The Figures of Law: In an analy
Page 67 and 68:
atelier” (150-151). Joseph K. fin
Page 69 and 70:
from the accused as well…for even
Page 71 and 72:
approached the picture as if he wan
Page 73 and 74:
to be acquitted; on the other hand
Page 75 and 76:
The first option, “actual acquitt
Page 77 and 78:
defendant granted a judgment in per
Page 79 and 80:
“We will never ask what a book me
Page 81 and 82:
imitation of the animal, or “bein
Page 83 and 84:
The rhizome is not reducible to a p
Page 85 and 86:
animal” Gregor experiences a prof
Page 87 and 88:
There were old half-rotten vegetabl
Page 89 and 90:
and to indicate to her in this way
Page 91 and 92:
for this uncontained state to freel
Page 93 and 94:
some compromise would be possible w
Page 95 and 96:
formulation of judgment. By its ver
Page 97 and 98:
to failure, even a correct one… G
Page 99 and 100:
Throughout my reading of Kafka’s
Page 101 and 102:
impossible. Except that its mediati
Page 103 and 104:
eference that seems to co-ordinate
Page 105 and 106:
To read/listen Kafka’s writing/mu
Page 107 and 108:
All right, people did not understan
Page 109 and 110:
the point at which his sister comme
Page 111 and 112:
“The Metamorphosis” presents a
Page 113 and 114:
Within the first paragraph of the t
Page 115 and 116:
community’s experience of Josephi
Page 117 and 118:
which one can no longer grasp onto
Page 119 and 120:
double-nature of existence, its und
Page 121 and 122:
I was in great difficulty. An urgen
Page 123 and 124:
the doctor now opens himself to the
Page 125 and 126:
country doctor’s anger and frustr
Page 127 and 128:
linguistic point of view. Although
Page 129 and 130:
and hardly hear the axe in the fore
Page 131 and 132:
“At that moment an unending strea
Page 133 and 134:
would not be justifiable to define
Page 135 and 136:
8.2 Kafka’s Reach: Let me conclud
Page 137 and 138:
elationship. That is, it cannot be
Page 139 and 140:
Bänden, 1084). It is this sense of
Page 141 and 142:
Bauman, Zygmunt. Postmodernity and
Page 143 and 144:
Derrida, Jacques. Politics of Frien
Page 145 and 146:
Holland, Eugene W. Deleuze and Guat
Page 147 and 148:
---. The Birth Of Tragedy. (Transla
Page 149 and 150:
Ulfers, Friedrich. “Kafka's Das U
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