Minima Philologica (Idiom: Inventing Writing Theory)

Synopsis

Minima Philologica brings together two essays by Werner Hamacher that are meant to revitalize philology as a practice beyond its restriction to the restoration of linguistic data and their meanings. In these two texts, “95 Theses on Philology” and “For—Philology,” Hamacher propounds a notion of generalized philology that is equivalent to the real production of linguistic utterances, and indeed utterances not limited to predicative or even discursive statements. Philology, in speaking for language where no clear and distinct language is given, exhibits and exposes the structure of language in general. The first text, “95 Theses on Philology,” challenges academic philology as well as other disciplines across the humanities and sciences that “use” language, assuming it to be a given entity and not an event. The theses develop what Hamacher calls the “idea of philology” by describing the constitution of its objects, its relation to knowledge, its suspension of consciousness, and its freedom for what remains always still to be said.In “For—Philology,” both speaking and writing, Hamacher argues, follow, discursively and non-discursively, the desire for language. Desire—philía—is the insatiable affect that drives the movement between utterances toward the next and the one after that. Desiring language—logos—means to respond to an alien utterance that precedes you, ignorant about where the path will lead, accepting loss and uncertainty, thinking in and through language and the lack of it, exceeding, returning, responding to others, cutting into and off what is to be said. In arguing this, Hamacher responds, directly or obliquely, to other philological thinkers such as Plato and Schlegel, Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Heidegger, as well as to poets such as Rene Char, Francis Ponge, Paul Celan, and Friedrich Holderlin. Taken together, the essays of Minima Philologica constitute a manifesto for a new understanding of linguistic existence that breaks new ways of attending to language and those who live by it.

Copyright:

2016

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

176 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780823265367

Related ISBNs:

9780823265350, 9780823265343

Publisher:

Fordham University Press

Date of Addition:

02/05/25

Copyrighted By:

Fordham University Press

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Literature and Fiction, Language Arts

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

Translator:

Catharine Diehl

Translator:

Jason Groves