From Geschlecht to Sexistence: Sex, Body and Sexual Difference in Derrida and Nancy

seminaria monograficzne

w sali

Prof. Julia Ponzio:

The focus of the lectures will be Derrida’s Geschlect III. The forthcoming publication of this text (October 2018), entails a reconsideration of the question of sexual difference, as it is exposed in Geshlecht I, II and IV. The aim of the course will be to reflect about the relation between these four work, trying to show how Derrida connects in them the question of sexual difference with the question of the readability of the text.

Prof. Francesca R. Recchia Luciani:

The topic of the lessons is Jean-Luc Nancy’s Sexistence, and the relation that here he estab-lishes between singularity, body, love and sex. In his envision the concept of “partition”, more than difference, emphasizes that sexes never appear detached one from the other, one against the other, because “sex”, for the most of the living, is the place of disclosure, relationship, vulnerability.

Prof. Ponzio: The focus of my lectures will be Derrida’s Geschlect III. The forthcoming publi-cation of this work (October 2018) entails a reconsideration of the question of sexual differ-ence as it is exposed in Geshlecht I, II and IV. The aim of the course will be to reflect about the relation between these four work, trying to show how Derrida connects in them the ques-tion of sexual difference with the question of the readability of the text. The question of sex-ual difference, in Derrida, is in effect, as I’ll try to show, a question of readability. Readabil-ity is deeply linked with the question of ‘name’. Proper names are signifiers, as common names. But if you follow its traces, you don’t reach any concept, any meaning. What you reach following their traces, is a singular body, which is irreplaceable in its singularity and which lives interpreting its name: proper name is in this sense a vocative absolute. This relation between named and name, between ‘my’ name and me, is very far from Heidegger’s Eigent-lichkeit. This relation has to do with the structure of the gift, which, differently from the structure of Eigentlichkeit, individuates a moment in which the property is established, consti-tuted, written. This act of institution of a property (the donation of name, for example) is not something already written in the history of Being. This act of institution hasn't any justifica-tion in the past because gift is always gratuitous. For this reason, it has not to be read in a line of time in which present is justified by its past and promises the future. It has to be red as the unexpected and arbitrary event that breaks the linearity of time, so that from that moment on, nothing is the same. For these reasons, Derrida writes in Of grammatology that every society capable of producing proper names, practice writing. In this sense, I will try to show that the body that we find following the trace of proper names, according to Derrida, is not percepti-ble, but it is readable. Following the traces of proper names Derrida finds “interpreting bod-ies” which are not intended as biological bodies. These bodies are not a fact; they are rather texts, constituted by an act of writing. We will see how, for Derrida, the traces of the proper name conducts to a reference without referent, as Derrida says speaking about Khora. This reference without referent is the living body of a text. In this sense, the question of the reada-bility of sexual difference is, according to Derrida, a reconfiguration of the idea of text. We will dwell, in particular, on the processes by which Derrida converts, in his work, the ontolog-ical difference in sexual difference, showing how he intends sexual difference as a link, as a relation between elements that are reciprocally irreplaceable and untranslatable.

Prof. Recchia Luciani: The topic of the lessons will be some of the recent works of French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy about singularity, body, love and sex. In his envision the concept of “partition”, more than difference, emphasizes that sexes never appear detached one from each another, one against the other, because “sex”, for the most of the living, is the place of disclosure and relationship, it is the trace of being-with that is first enrolled into body earlier than any other inscription. Sex (as it appears in Nancy’s Sexistence), more radically of the discourse and the plurality of its voices (echoing The partition of voices, a well-known text by Jean-Luc Nancy), suggests itself as the logic of partage (French for division and/or sharing) that rules hermeneutics according to Nancy. The analogy is not surprising: in the Symposium Plato calls Eros hermeneut, for his standing firmly between two, in the infinite combinations of two, that also include the divines too. In his ground-breaking book Corpus, Nancy offers us an encyclopaedia as well as a polemical program, on the basis of classical takes on the “corpus” from Plato, Aristotle, and Saint Paul to Descartes, Hegel, Husserl, and Freud. Stat-ing from this tradition he pushes his analysis to demonstrate that the mutations (technological, biological and political) of our own culture have given rise to the need for a new understand-ing of the body, sex and their relations with the concept of singularity and plurality as well. On this ground we’ll shift to the Derrida’s consideration of the ideas about “body” and per-ception, giving an account of his theory of “touching”. In fact using the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy as an anchoring point, Jacques Derrida in the book dedicated to his friend-philosopher, conducts a profound review of the philosophy of the sense of touch and the phenomenological tradition about perception, from Plato and Aristotle to modernity and Jean-Luc Nancy, with who he engages a dialogue about the body and its pivotal role in human life and social world.

Derrida, J., Geschlecht. Différence sexuelle, différence ontologique, in Psyché. Inventions de l'autre, Galilée, Paris, 1987.

Derrida, J., Le main de Heidegger (Geschlecht II), in in Psyché. Inventions de l'autre, Galilée, Paris, 1987.

Derrida, J., L'oreille de Heidegger, in Politique de l'amitié. Galilée, Paris, 1994.

Derrida, J., Geschlect III. Sexe, race, nation, humanité, Seuil, Paris, 2018.

Nancy, J.-L., Le partage des voix, Galilée, Paris 1982.

Nancy, J.-L., Corpus, Métailié, Paris 1992.

Nancy, J.-L., Être singulier pluriel, Galilée, Paris 1996.

Nancy, J.-L., "L’il y a' du rapport sexuel", Galilée, Paris 2003.

Nancy, J.-L., Sexistence, Galilée, Paris 2003.

Knowledge:

1) The question of Geschlecht in Derrida

2) The question of Sexistence in Nancy

3) The question of sexual difference

Skills:

1) Ability to recognize and to understand the main concept related to the question of sexual difference in Nancy and Derrida.

2) Ability to connect the question of sexual difference with other main question of French contemporary philosophy as the question of writing, the question of body and the question of difference in general.

1) Presence.

2) Activity during the moments of discussion.

3) Capability to discuss the arguments exposed in the lectures.