Subject: RE: ethics - Levinas
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 07:25:38 -0500


This is actually a better explanation than I could have given, Steve. But
let me muddy up the mis-reading maybe a little more. In my posts on levinas,
i've been working mainly out of derrida's many readings of him and out of
levinas directly--but (big but) reading someone "directly" always means
reading him/her across a host of others whom you've already read and who
give you a hook to hang his/her words on. For me, that means reading
Levinas's words across the many works I've already consumed and
embraced--mainly by Ronell, Nancy, Blanchot, Nietzsche, Heidegger,
Lacoue-Labarthe, Cixous, even Irigaray, and certainly Derrida. All of whom,
of course, I approached in much the same way, across other texts and at
another time. And of course, I also read each of these texts from where I
am, from my own "lifeworld" context. So...so much for reading directly. ;)

best, ddd



-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
[mailto:owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu] On Behalf Of
steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com
Sent:	Sunday, July 15, 2001 7:00 AM
To:	lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject:	Re: ethics - Levinas

Glen

The Thomas Carl Wall book is 'Radical Passivity' ISBN 0-7914-4048-6 SUNY
new
york 1999.

The (mis)-reading was a 'joke' encouraging Eric to rite something on
Lyotard's
ethics - though actually Lyotard is not really a philosopher who writes on
Ethics, directly unlike Levinas or Singer. In my use of the term I'm
actually
refering back to textual and cinematic theory/criticism where there has been
a
movement towards the relativisation of the relations of writer, reader and
observer (critic). Traditionally, and in the common sense reading of texts
and
objects which still obviously enough dominates, the concept of a 'work' is
considered as being almost in a way related to the Newtonian conception of
the
universe a 'real' singular object. By referring to a (mis)-reading I am
assuming
something more relativistic and intertextual, referring to something more
open
and appropriable. For example Eric has been reading Levinas through Lyotard,
Diane through Wall, perhaps Critchley and of course directly, I've been
reading
though my distrust of the use of theology and the critique of Levinas in
Irigaray as well as Critchley. Each reading is inevitably a (mis)-reading
and
appropriation of the body of work which could be referred to as the Levinas
Text.

Is that clearer?

Diane could give a clearer and more concise definition - it's a long time
since
I worked at SEFT...

regards

sdv




Glen Fuller wrote:

> G'day Steve and All,
>
> >(I also like the Wall book but haven't read the Levinas section - >bought
> >it because of the Agamben section. I very much like Agamben's >work.)
>
> Which book are you referring to?
>
> And one other question... What do you guys mean by a "(mis)reading" (like
of
> a particular text, I know it does not necessarily mean an aberrant
reading,
> or is that exactly what you mean)?
>
> I thought I had better get hip with the lingo...
>
> Thanks,
> Glen.
>
> PS You are all very interesting and I enjoy reading the the different
> streams as they progress.
> _________________________________________________________________________
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