Date:    Fri, 17 Feb 95 15:10 EST
Subject: MB: face to face w/o blanchot



  - - The original note follows - -

Date:    Fri, 17 Feb 95 12:11 EST
From:    "jeffrey t. nealon" <JXN8-AT-PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Subject: face to face w/o blanchot
To:      blanchot.id.m0rfITa-00007OC.Thu-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu

while blanchot's seeming avoidance of the face to face might seem odd
given his sympathy for levinas, i wonder whether this "refusal" (a weak
negative if there ever was one) isn't precisely the essential question
that blanchot poses to levinas: in other words, why the privilege of the
anthropomorphic in ethical discourse?  the fascination with the image,
with the corpse, with the impersonal 'il', seems precisely an attempt to
interrupt what could be read as a revelatory moment in levinas.  perhpas
it's not so much the face to face that's to be worried over, but the
*epiphany* of the face to face?  an epiphany that we long after,
perhpas, when we want to see photos of blanchot.


jeff nealon