From: "Thomas Taylor" <taylorth-AT-bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: Wildcard: Skin and Constitution
Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 09:41:41 -0400


Thanks for the Reference. In Toward the Postmodern there is a small essay
loosely about the body entitled "Prescription". And the way, this email
itself was unfinished, mailed by mistake. I will flesh it out today since,
at last, I've got some breathing room. I agree that the times are begging
for such a work regarding a body regarded from several prospectives. Picking
up where he left off is part of my project. Give me a minute and I will give
examples of the traces.

And before anyone jumps on my case about some author question: I am deluding
myself into thinking that I am writing Lyotard's book, just teasing out
those traces and speculating on their horizon,
 more later,
Promise.

Rod T.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Murphy and Eric Salstrand" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: Wildcard: Skin and Constitution


> Rod,
>
> I have an interview with Lyotard that was published in a special issue on
> Lyotard in Philosophy Today - Winter 92, Volume 36.4.  Reading your
remarks
> made me think about it. Here are some quotes from Lyotard:
>
> "I am currently working on a sequel to The Differend. What I would like to
> do in the sequel, based on the same philosophical principle is to try to
> define the question of the body! There are several aspects to this still
to
> be thought through. I will approach questions of time, of space, of sexual
> difference, of color and art in general.  I would be very surprised if the
> body itself can not be demonstrated to be an aggregation of different
> languages."
>
> "the body has already the capacity of producing certain phrases. For
> example, when it is very hot, the body "speaks" and its utterance is
> perspiration, a so-called normal utterance. There are body "languages,"
> codes, and we can describe them. But the body also has other capacities,
> and I will have to distinguish between the body as seen by the
> physiologist, the erotic body, the sportive body, in short, the body in
its
> environment, with its own limits, and surpassing those limits."
>
> "Much should be made of the body as the privileged "space" where the
> unconscious is described. That is what Freud said about hysteria."
>
> "The body has a specific way of working, as is justly said, but it is not
> at all the language of communication, it does not follow in any way the
> logic of a digital system. The body works by scanning, it doesn't care
> about objects, it sweeps, it traces possible routes."
>
> I remember reading these words such a long time ago now (10 years!) and
> remembering how excited I was then at the prospect of such a work. Alas,
it
> never came to fruition, as far as I know. I wonder whether Lyotard worked
> up any more extensive notes on this topic that will perhaps one day be
> published.  Who knows?
>
> I still find it somewhat strange that the end of Lyotard's life was spent
> writing on Malraux and Augustine instead of writing this great sequel to
> The Differend with its emphasis on the body.  Do the traces exist for
> someone else to pick up the trail and finally complete what Lyotard could
> not? I fear it would be quite another book, but certainly something like
> this needs to be done. What would a sequel to The Differend look like
today?
>
> eric
>
>
>