TOPOLOGIES OF TRAUMA Essays on the Limit of Knowledge and Memory Edited by Linda Belau and Petar Ramadanovie OTHER PRESS New YorkIz¥9x01007 1oP—901ZS8919 1002 29 LLZSSOU S2u9g “11-1961 YEG SHovEpeUEY “IL epurpinepg “| -éydosopyg—vuouness1 —rumen a1y>%sq “| (oaded ype 494 2p) 226°944768-1 NEST x9put Sopa] uo-d iourpeurey seg pue nejpg epUrT Aq pape _/Ssowous pur aSpopxou jo may 299 Uo shess9: rumen yo suFoqodo eqeq onesyqnd-urSusBoperwy ssxFu0D Jo CEIqrT -uioorssaudsaqpo"avaian sousqpa sno SEN 2010001 AN HOA MON 'ZoBL 22INg “SNUDSY YUNG £O¢ ITT 24d N9 o1 nium uoneuuojut so, zaded 204}-pHve uo vaya Jo sarag porwr) 242 ut powulag, ase2peoig 10 ‘yadedsaou ‘ourzeeur ¥ Uy oIsnp>Ut Jo} sa821A22 UF suoREIOND Jatsq {Jo ase ayy ut adaoxa “9°77 8894 21 Wosy woIstULZad TN noYaIA “UHO} Aue ‘uy yoosoxp staed 40 “yooq stp 2onpo.dos on aysis aq) Suypnppur ‘paxsasos sySs [Ty IZTEHSOLEGO "1v ‘sqpasieaq jo uonssoduioy yoo rueqeyy Aq uoluesg ad [| UL 195 sea O09 SIH L SPeH “Cd 4>qoy OUP wonsnpoig Dixouepeurey se12q pur NEPA EPUET 2007 0 24sUAdoD) Toor 24 LL eS VEContributors Fadi Abou-Rihan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto and a candidate at the Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psycho- analysis. He is also coordinator of the Psychoanalytic Thought Program at Trinity College and the University of Toronto. His current research, clinical and theoretical, is on a book-length manuscript tentatively entitled Hammer- ing It Out: Between Nietescheans and Psychoanalsts, Linda Belau is Assistant Professor of English at George Washington Univer- sity. She is also Rockefeller Fellow at the Institute on Violence, Culture, and Survival for the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy She is currently completing a manuscript entitled Encountering Jouissance: Trauma, Psychosis, Psychoanalysis. Cathy Caruth, Professor of Comparative Literature and English, is director of the Program in Comparative Literature at Emory University. She is the author of Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) and editor of Trauma: Explorations in Memory (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995). Thomas Elsaesser, Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Amsterdam, is the author of, among others, Weimar Cinema and After (Routledge, 2000) and Fassbinder's Germany: History, Identity, Subject (Am- sterdam University Press, 1996). He has recently published on trauma in » Screen (Summer 2001).dip so} AD1Og ay re mOIpe ESE 24 So6I-LOI UT MYSdUIEHY MON, Jo Aussoatu of, w Ysyuy Jo sossyog wLIsHSSY st ssouRpeUTEY 19g, “(1661 °8p2pnoy) aSonSuery fo 120lqng 241 puv ue20”] 30 soUp9 2p. Ose St YS “(g61 ‘S824¢ Stour]] Jo AussoatUP) siKpouvoyatsa Jo Kydosopiyd 248 PUD UNI] sanboo| jo pur (c66| ‘28papnoy) yivac fo seunsvayg 242 uo skesss] Jo JOyANE 2st seqquinjog we nossiyy Jo AUssOAUE 9Yp 18 YsH|SUry Jo s0ssajoxq ‘pUEPTEY ATT “(1007 ‘ss24q Aussoarug proy -ueig) 20mdpayunyy pousqifooy ays ut ,wwoog., unrtiouay wiey ay :2unseianry fo Spy 24,1, pur (9661 'SS24¢ Auss9a1UF PUIG) suapopy Keypuorag yo son aut st 9fy “Gussaatup, vonueysiurg re ames] aanesedwoy jo woUnsedoq auf) ur soipmig a1enpess Jo 102911] PuE 1OSsa}OIg NEDSS st OSUIAT] NIG -susdquvoyasg 40f suonpuno,y arn pur A~] somburvuigygorg sskpouvoy req us ysoacy pun afr ‘242d np worssonb vy 19 UspapLOH Jo soypne ot pur siskpounoyaey fo aFemBurry 241 Jo ‘stew “q-{ YUM YO “neo st 9fY ‘atSojopedoypisg 19 asKyeuey>Asg] ud sayrsoys2q ap 2NUDD ap [yo soroos1C] st 94 239411 “]]A Stued Jo Aussoatup) yp we soypea) aypue|dey] weaf “(2661 ‘o3e1YD, Jo Aussatup) aFouy pun puoyy ut sous Yuomy s2yoseaary :unadounsy poo ZY, pur (QOOT ‘2g UUEG) spuorsog fo sein 24, SuIpHpaU ‘syooq aHUDPEDE snosumu jo sone ay st 9f{ “OSeOIYD UT AysioatuA) [Megeq] We 491099) sommeumpy atp jo spunoy pur ded jeoturyp Asnze poumouds & si saBunyg Ssaquaryory] Eyer, somnguauoy "yp 40) AHS oy 1 MOI E sem DY g6oT-LO6L UL “AYSAWEH MON Jo Aassoatup, 24,1 3 ysiplug Jo soss2yorg wEIISSY st AOUEpeUTEY TEI “(1661 28popnoy) aSoniu0r7 fo wolgns ays pun ueser] yo 30up2 24 OSE SYS “Cesol ‘Ssoiq stout] Jo Sussoanu) ss(pounoyattg Jo Xydosoyyg 241 pur weoe] sonbro[ yo pu (G66 8papnoy) y272¢. fo sounsnajq 242 wo sks] Jo 3ouNe YAS! Seqquunjog ie nossapy jo Angssoatu axp ae yoy Jo soss2yord| “PUEPTE 9H (1007 “s94q Auss9atup) pxoy ung) 2onpdiayenpy pouaqyooN 24H ut ,tuoogy, wrruauuy winery 24] :2unsmiairT fo Pee, 24.1, puE (966 *S8A3d Kusss9A1UN] [PUSPNA) sH2poNY LanpuOrS Jo sOLNE ayy st 9} “Asaatuy wowumeysug we aameso4r] aanesedwo’ Jo wounsedoq] dy ur soapmig ayenpess Jo 2012031(] puL 4ossayo4g SIEIDOSSY St UOSUIA| NOG, -sspouvoyateg sof suotypuno aN Pur A~] sonbuvuagygosg ‘sishyouvoyrtsg ts yavacy pun afr] ‘s4ad np uonsanb 72 Wi2PIOH josoypane axp pur sis(younoy sq fo Boner] 241, Jo s1ewod “| UM OP “nvoo st af] “siSojoypedoypdsel 19 asKpeucy>isg UD Say>oHPIY ap 202 amp jo so1v9s1c7 5124] 2294p T].\ 8148q Jo Syss9amu ype soypeos aypueyde | weaf “(2661 ‘OBLD1YD jo Aayss9aup) ao pur prog ws sug yout saysi2yn. :uradownsy poo D4J, UE (QQO? “TES Wag) spAEsNg fo ss2UNq 24], SexpmpUs ‘S409 NHPEIe snosouinu yo sompne 2p st Ff “OBeKYD) ut Aasssdaquy) ynegeql IW 41U9 soniueumpf2tp jo s9punoy pure kydosoysye 30 08s9JO4¢ St 431 TUE PAE -(@urmoa4103 Hpapnoy) Suiag fo woumatasuay yours oui pun Yao say :afry a1ydeuousog pure ‘urws0>xp0} Psojuers) 127HH10d yy aurSruuy (9661 “$8234. SussoatuA, proywers) SCT fo 2k] 248 us AupP!POS pun darouaosy :ynvacy S11, f0 Spog 241, JO s04INE ap St EY “AUSIOATUN] WOH “ueyffurg re amiesoirTaanereduog jo 10ss2j0{ 21e1DOsSY St DAHL WTENTTLAY -ssang Aunss9a up, nosouuypy wH03) SunHODKI0} S| YH 2ndeI2pu0g pun 2205 JmIXLAPH Jo soypne st 945 “(O02 2°Q20N) AN ‘21H Buwwescy aL we PUA “x9 Ayauaoo4 24964 pL (Lue) J0WaD MopEdwog puE (wiepsoaswy) wIAIsH]A ylyppaig se yans ue Gesodurawos jo suinasnur solew ur étjeuoneusorut Appatsuanxa paigiyxs wooq ancy sSunured Jop{ “Ayssowu spa] Ye 4919) AUEIV UL snaypsy pur sisAqeuroy>Asg Jo sossayosg Prrsy S1 OS “AAV Pp pu sueg ut Bury pur atay [a UE UIOq AsOOMp AsUNHDY pu “IsKTEUEOYP Hsd siBojoypasd feotuyp “Istise pounoun v st saBung Szaquowypyy] eye suoinguauo "Contributors vii Humanities, Cornell University. He is coeditor of a special issue of Diacrities on trauma and is author of Forgetting/Futures (Lexington Books, 2001). Herman Rapaport is Chair Professor at the University of Southampton (UK, and has most recently published The Theory Mess (Columbia Univer sity Press). He is also the author of Is There Truth in Art? (Cornell University Press), and Between the Sign and the Gaze (Cornell University Press). “Frag- ments” recently appeared in a special issue on Blanchot in Oxford Literary Review. Charles Shepherdson is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in En- glish at the University of Albany. He has published widely in contemporary continental philosophy and psychoanalysis, and is the author Vital Signs: Nature, Culture, Psychoanalysis (Routledge) and The Epoch of the Body (forth- coming, Stanford University Press). He has been a member in the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University and was the Joukowski Fellow at the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research for Women at Brown University. He is currently completing an- other book tentatively entitled Insinuations.Contents Acknowledgements xi Introduction: xiii Remembering, Repeating, and Working-Through: ‘Trauma and the Limit of Knowledge Linda Belau L Recollection 1 1. “Das Vergangene wird gewupt, das Gewubte aber wird ersiihlt": Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative in F, W.J. Schelling’s Die Weltalter 3 David Farrell Krell 2. Interminable AIDS 33 William Haver 3. Demarcations: Pathetic, Unfinished Thoughts on a Life by Default. 53 Fadi Abou-Rihan 4. One Train May Be Hiding Another: History, Memory, Identity, and the Visual Image 61 Thomas Elsaesser IL. Repetition B 5. The Psychical Nature of Traum: Homosexual Woman, and the Fort! Da! Paradigm 5 Ellie Ragland reud’s Dora, the YoungLz Is £€7 oL1 “1 Isl zit 101 xopuy Jo8umng Sagquayry oyooig umd&osuesy 2] uuododry uuiapy chor Ye aay peNsqy veuMeL, pur Lorstpy uonerudssiday “11 uosiazy 121g Auunur0y jo Aypiqyssog ap pur sonsntuy pesrpey :9[1yD ur Sumas aeuNsqO “OL naounpouiny 40324 aumesiry pueewnesy uo: °°» smng yp uj ySnosy]-SuppoM TIT npg opury siscpeuvoydsg Jo sonnausUAa}Y ap pue ‘voNNedey ‘eeunes], “g wospsaydays sap404.) dar] Jo [EL Supa, swrsisstoxey, jo aydonsewey oy, “Z ning kyr aypurpdey] uraf yatm marzo] uy “9 sumo, xAcknowledgments We would like to thank the following publishers and journals for allowing reprint of some of the essays appearing in this collection. An earlier version of Thomas Elsaesser’s “One Train May Be Hiding Another: History, Memory, Identity, and the Visual Image” was first published in Josef Deleu (ed.), The Low Countries: Arts and Society in Flanders and the Netherlands (Rekkem: Ons Erfieel, 1996). Charles Shepherdson’s “The Catastrophe of Narcissism: Tell- ing Tales of Love” appeared in Diacritics, Volume 30, Number 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 89-105 as “Telling Tales of Love: Philosophy, Literature and Psychoanalysis.” Another version of Brett Levinson’s “Obstinate Forgetting in Chile: Radical Injustice and the Possibility of Community” appeared in Revista de estudios hispdnicos, Number 34 (2000), pp. 289-307. And Petar Ramadanovie's “In the Future... : On Trauma and Literature” will be appearing in Forgetting/Futures by Lexington Books.Introduction Remembering, Repeating, and Working-Through: Trauma and the Limit of Knowledge Linda Belau Shortly after undergoing an illegal and traumatically successful abortion, Maria, the main character in Joan Didion’s cinematic novel Play It As It Lays, visits a hypnotist in Silverlake hoping for help during the onset of a nervous illness. After failing to put Maria in a mesmeric trance (a trance, by the way, that would return her to her mother's womb, allowing her to recollect the most primal origin of her problems), the hypnotist, in an overt attempt to displace his inadequacy, insinuates that the very failure to induce the required trance is due to Maria’s resistance. Although Didion’s point may be that all modern healers—especially those in Los Angeles—are charlatans, there is some truth to the hypnotist’s seemingly defensive diagnosis. Technically speaking, if hypnosis fails, there is a resistance. The patient has, in a sense, resisted giving his or her will entirely over to suggestion, and the recollection of certain events—traumatic events—remains out of reach. Freud, in fact, finds himself in a similar dilemma with the hysteric Miss Lucy R.' The 1, See Sigmund Freud, “Miss Lucy R.,” Standard Edition of the Complete Psycho- logical Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1955), Volume 2, pp. 144—164, (Hereafter abbreviated as SE.)saxo ouput aeadde jptae s90u9 -sayas aoyumg “¢ct -d'7 7S, ssts4[euUBoY>ése Jo nbruyDa |, 24 Uo suoNEPUDLAWODY soipung ySnory,|-Sunpo,y pue Sunvodoy ‘Suvoquowoy,,‘pnazy punuifig -7 stat Suryeads éjeonueup ‘Kaouiow ur sde ut [1y 01st [anbyeysaa jo wr ‘soma pnazg ,“Supyeods Sppandusssoq.,, parauuo jereumnut are u pure uonaa|jooox aouis ‘sures axp uooq sdeanpe sey sonbruypar was2yytp 2894p jo wie atp rep sume pros “(Zp1) Uorremus snXqeue ays UF .uasoad st 4989 -aeyas Suxpmas,, jo 2andead quosoud ou suresag “usm UL “yatyAS ,FoquiDurDs 0) paptey 24 wkYAr suoNeIDOsse da4y sauaHed 94 WO} SuLZDAdsIp,, UO sM20) pinoa ‘pnazg o1 Surpsoooe ‘onbruypor sty, Wuasosd sneumnen sup UL ased ur 10840] 241 Jo ‘st WeYp “UoREASapTUELU dx IPL ino Sunde ype W490 spas] on Sem aaeB Ajemuaaa styy ‘sissetpes nouddy saonaig sq pauyap seam onbruyoo ondqeue ased 94 Up “jpos anbruypar onAjeur Jo Lsorsty xp sozspeue Aqjeoiseq pros “Sunerounus stat weyar yaar ay 02 aded siy soazmonans 2y sy ‘wondsuuos sp yatat uonednoo0aud e se peas aq 01 spueLp essa s,pnasy pur ‘ioytuais ayp Jo aoua8sows oyp pur worssoadas uoa0q, onsouu0d extn v 2g 01 Ssavadde a1a1p ‘spsom Jo40 UJ ‘02 aYENbape AIO I0u st saytusis oxp reyp Surqpoutos st soueisisas vey IS93Bns 01 swI22s p24] 21h] -uonvssoo oreipoururt si ur qynsor ou pjno> auieu v soueisisas amp Surat yp UMo8s0y Ajps9u1 pry asKjeur ayz “uayeastan poroad skeasje Surpoqasoy Awoo3 sip “Aempeay, ou 93eur 01 poutoas wuounvan 94,1, s9A2 weYp 23n2sqo DI0WU sea YoREMS doy aip pure 4a8uons axp fpeouro29q pry sourastsas_94p ‘paapul SUE I2s pet, aBuey> ou ssajayzsaaou aeyp pur wuoned axp or souersisa4 sty ino porutod eq ay rep poureydwios so120p oy yoryar ut sosea uodn asiape or payse Uusoq uayo axey | Bom s1O4p Jo 2Joya tp SuAMAsHOD se dais Axo1oMpostUL au} Uo 400] 01 paurout ase 2on2esd sn jeur UL SsoUUHIg eA SUIIDS.1 MON asnoudy sno 0 2orape onstuosypeue se pros oq aystur pry uoneasasqo ue sox eur pnosy “euneN Jo doUaIsIsut pur amon Is 94 j0 ppour {isto ue siayjo sea] .e “Kpooarpur “ypryan ‘onbruysar anKpeuwoy>sd ay uo uonexpow sup uy ,-ysnosy|-Sunpoy pur Bupeadoy ‘Furoquouny,, Sesso sty ur soyeuut 94 210d [euatEpUTy ays aq 01 stud9s Ise] Ye SsTy,L “AUSUE -SUIAUOD 910UT g2ULISIS94 Joy 2UDLIAdxo IsMUU puRSKfeUR axp sMOUY pos] aoursisod Joy Wuoned 94) 02 Ino BunUtod kjas9UF Yims paysHes ou st JULIO} ayp aetp st 94e] 94 ]1g Woy presy 94p pur pnaig{ UaDa9q ‘9s4N0D Jo ‘29U252}1P VINAVUL AO SAIDOTOdOL, apeIntroduction xv to overcome resistances due to repression” (148). In his account of psychoana- Iytic technique, Freud fully realizes the originary importance of hypnosis. Even though it may now be a wholly outmoded technique, psychoanalysis could only have proceeded to the current analytic technique by dealing with hypnosis’s limited view of memory’s relation to the past. Under this limited view, the form of recollection that psychoanalysis attributed to the analysand took a very simple and direct form. Through hypnosis, the analysand re- turned to an earlier situation and gave an account of the mental processes belonging to it without ever confusing present thought processes with those of the earlier time. The point of hypnosis, of course, is to get the analysand to remember events, thoughts, and feelings pertaining to his past that were forgotten. In “Remembering, Repeating, and Working-Through,” however, Freud's account of analytic technique is built on a much more complex model of hypnosis and its relation to recollection, Under the new technique, accord- ing to Freud, “very litte, and often nothing, is left of this delightful smooth course of events” (149). What makes psychoanalysis less an idealism and more a praxis is that in an analytic situation —the current one Freud is outlining in his 1914 paper—the analysand “does not remember anything of what he has forgotten and repressed, but acts it out” (150). Memory —remembering some- thing of the past —is always caught in a signifying chain. And something can only be remembered if and when itis articulated into a chain of knowledge Simply giving the analysand’s past over to the signifier does not deal with what is structurally repressed by this signifier. As the initial technique of psychoanalysis displays its insufficiency in its very quest for knowledge, Freud comesto realize that remembering is itself a peculiar form of resistance Turning toward this very insufficiency, analytic technique must now interpret how this resistance—a resistance that takes the form of a knowl- edge—is woven around that repressed trauma which eludes the signifier’s grasp. Asitcomes to understand memory in terms of repression, psychoanaly- sis can no longer be satisfied with pointing out the analysand’s resistance, especially when the memory in question happens to be a particularly trau- Since this trauma cannot be remembered, since it is inconsistent eld of knowledge pertaining to memory, since it is that which is structurally excluded from the field, it shows up in analysis less in a symbolic sphere than asa physical manifestation. This, Freud tells us, is the persistence of repetition in recollection. The analysand, according to Freud, acts out the traumatic, forgotten memory: “He reproduces it not as a memory but as an action; he repeats it, without, of course, knowing that he repeats it” (150). And he does not know he is repeating it precisely because it is repressed. The“227d (1661 ‘0812, *vopuor]) so1>Ny promyog 0 s0 rustasolury og Koy] YAY ION nowy Ky], 404 PAZ, LONNIE 2S *E 24 01 ‘pasoquisuras 24 01 21qL1J0Y oon, ‘sasafEins 49217, foneyg se ‘st Cue IeYE aatjeas 0 au0 $200} ySnosyp-Burysom ‘o%pajmouy Jo py e out paoeydsip sey aansalqo ue se uad9 SneUINEN E AMASsUODas 1 sdwone SusquIdUIOs 24oYA\ ‘aLUIUT aSOU! st YeYAL s49A09 PUR sasodxo Pog I2uRISI54 134 30 sty Mol 49A00un 01 urfaq We ‘pazneunen suo ayp ‘purssfeur ayp ‘s22uKISIsO3 Jy 40 siy YSnorP-Zupom Aq “2]qNedwoou! ase Su1aq pur a%papmouy ‘olf aztfear 01 aySnosq 2g URD pursdyeue ay “(uasaid ax o1 passaysuEN Ajjesany st ased oyp) sprey Azourouu asneo9q aze[d sayjea aauasaysuen aautg “uon -esSoiut jo Aayiqissodut atp jjostt 9#p9]asouy Jo pjay ayp ut seus or adurone ue str ueqp‘uinias é|jenunuos 01 1 asne> Kuo pjnom yotya “play [rySurueout vou aourysisos ayes UIo1 Oo} dwone UE se pnas.y kq pamata sso] st ySNOspP -Sur320m ‘onbruyoar onkjeuvoypisd Jo sed uayodsun 494 se pur pap YT, _J)e 9Bpoymouy Jo play axp Jo Kounrsisuo.ut aup se spreauoye ajay ‘osuas v ur ‘sdeanye St rey DYE we st PUNE] “yZOALIU 2]qraSpeymouy v our quad amp FunesSovur jo Aarpeqyssodust ayp oy Surureysod ppayo Ue stay WEEP Jase UDA oP Jo Ioadse aUDs9YUF UE ssa] st IUAD UL on Suureniod eumen ayp 'sp1om soto tw] “aupu% suasaud v fo ussof 241 us puso ased sneumnen e yatAs jeap 01 sso00ad o114yeue ayp $9240} wade, 01 worsjnduws0D yp ieyp surewurew prog “HyA yeyp pia yeop 02 adwone uv se ‘vonnados seaioy ay “Aseiuey ut popunoss st ‘St aL se apap souy jo urey> op ur dn aysines “Bursquiousas yp 2s 01 noyytp 001 Au1od stip ae AOU StL ‘9Bpaynouy 4940 Suzaq Jo Surspauad v se woiduifs pur Su1oq 1990 a8 paymouy jo Suifapiaud e se sseruey mata 2M JT ‘uan080} Aquessaoou st po] mouy jo pppy axp or warstsuoour A|feamanas “pry weep Jo Sutzoquiouos aup se uonnados 921uH0993 01 pnas.y s92405 worduuks ayp ‘sed 243 Jo uanogz0y oy) Sunvaday “uonemus sn4jeue ayp Jo asne29q pue Surnp ano 1ySnosg axe suuoxdusss s,pueséyeur axp se.29s 02 sousoD poze WY SE SHLT, -vuinen Supoquiswos sj ABarens axp Jono Sunde senonsed v stat‘Appsiooud a4opy “wordurés ay Ut Jppsit swsoys U1 pue “oe Ue st snyp UoRNaday 22uRIsIs9 Jo Woy 2{p UL (amas sit sapaaid JaA9U Ht asN0D Jo pue) suIMIEs passosdos VNAVUL AO SAINOTOIOL, maxIntroduction xvii integrated into our symbolic universe.”* While repetition forces us to see that it is impossible to integrate trauma into remembrance, working-through forces us, in turn, to mark trauma as that which, in its devastating effect, is impossible to integrate. In the end, all three components of the analytic technique — remembering, repeating, and working-through—are themselves three modes of conceiving trauma. Remembering illustrates how trauma is inconsistent to the field of knowledge; repetition, through return, makes manifest that inconsistency in a form forcign to knowledge; and working-through resists the integration of trauma by maintaining itas that which itis impossible to make intoa “reality.” Alllthree are indispensable for any adequate understanding of trauma, Thus, we have decided, for the sake of explication, to follow Freud's formula for the psychoanalytic cure as we work through some topologies of trauma in this volume by separating the collection into three different, yet necessarily related concerns: the vicissitudes of traumatic recollection, the function of repetition in trauma, and the possibilities, beyond recollection and repetition, of working-through. Arranged in this manner, the essays offer a kind of progression without suggesting that this progression is necessarily linear. Pursuing an analysis of the nature of trauma,one simply is unable to consider the significance or function of recollection, repetition, or working-through without thinking through their intimate relation, While the vicissitudes of this relation insist that we think of these three categories together, we have imposed a kind of fictional separation for the purpose of organization though, given the structure and temporal nature of the psychoanalytic cure, this organizational strategy will not truly divide the essays into discrete, separate subjects. Recollection Pursuing the possibility that trauma studies might have something to learn from philosophy, David Farrell Krell begins the structural account of trauma through an examination of the ecstatic temporality of the past. In his essay entitled “‘Das Vergangene wird gewupt, das Gewufite aber wird ersdhlt' Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative in F. W. J.Schelling’s Die Weltalter,” Krell considers the significance of trauma theory for an understanding of Schell- 4. Ibid, p.reya ‘papuaasurn aq wer ‘sn syuasosd a yor pias sorsussix9 aep pur ‘sq TV, Jo rumen ay wey 2421]9q 02 ped] axe 9m se Ajpernadsa ‘pur esnED ueyp Joyres aIuosyp st arwapued ays reya auLseuN o payse axe aa se pardayJo st UEPIOAE sip Soavpy 0 Suipsos9y 1wOpurd SqTY ap Jo voIsuauNp snewNeN ap yosouepioae ue sdenaq sisua gq]Ty atp 01 asuodsas ut erSpeisou gardwapax 40 Burziouorsty Jo wos Cue qeyp sondse soaepy “IYSIS Ut st ¢qTY Jo pus ap aetp sn aoutauos 01 sidwane pazioyqnd Aqysty jo Jaquunu e o1 Suipuodsay ‘sxupued SCY 241 Jo 9yem 9¢p UF UOREUDSodo1 pur UONEZtLOWIOUT Jo AUpassodust dup jo sisdjeur aaneoososd & ssaygo Cessa ssonepy WHEHEAA ‘2snaNy ano Ur ased oneumnen stp jo 22uaystsiad ax) wo uoNENpaw Jo Pury JoyouE BuO oamny Azan ano sv ased aanjosge atp soiminsuos weep a8p2jmouy 10] 241 tpn odes be ypeq sn oatd pur uorssoudas oya jo stoayjo aep aseayas 1st rey aanesseU {Jo pury auf ansind 02 s9ps0 ur Hunayns pur ewnes Jo uoHEMUS pu ais Ese plow ayp yo aaejdyaaig atp sossaunis oyan Auutarp poznewmnen eyo uonsuny ay} ssapisuod [Jes “uorssosday peustd Jo d2uN0s posaaoostpun ayp Jo Isonb urgno Sumes fg “surmureur jjoryy Bum 10y su pue eumnen Jo uonsonb Asa a4p ‘uorssoudou yo 9{diuud o1seq ayp ueyp soY10 SuPoN za8papnouy ur von, -aipenuoo quanbasqns si: pue—ppom aup jo aun ayp auojoq sure yeyp uN, v sosoddnsasd yoryan ‘st ei ased v—ased oxp ut uoNIryMT axp Jo ‘Syse [Pry ‘sourayiuis axp st aeyyy sed aanjosqe ayp Jo uonou s,SurjpyDg Ur a¥p2jmouy, Jo 20ueoyj1UZis ayp Ssapisuo ay sv UIFi0 Iso] ayp1 1 UONE|aY SIF Pur euMeN Jo uonsanb sip soypeoudde ory ‘eynyayy 2iq Yo soiou wsorre9 sSur|]>Y>g jo qunosse ue ySnoryy ased wey ozypeLOWW 40 saquioutss oy WduoNe {uano sadeys pue ased ainjosqe axp 01 vor Jo uiBizouou Aaa aup stay ased ayp jo sours a]qissod 41949 suoisip pur savq yotyan ‘worssoadau jo 24nos axp st‘sondse [ory “euunes | ased ainjosqe ayy {Jo ufo 480] a4p jo w40j a4p Lays Umo sty SIaYNS OYA AaNUIAIp paznewnEN vo ‘Appioydxe zou ‘pur ewnesi uo uoneNpa HoHduMT we se 1x91 8 FuyPyIS, Joqwno298 Ue su9}0 Jory Ased xp Jo uorsUaUNp a[quSsODDeUL SHY 01 y>vosdde aienbape Ajuo ayi sdeqiod st Aanso{qns pur ssausnorsuos Jo voRreUIIO} ayp ur eames jo (soap ay weip Sumssy -o[qedeasour Aparnjosqe (asowye) pue 2] qesednoaau1 sjpanjosqe ynog st ep 22uat4adx9 ue “sed axp Jo ouaHIOdxa ads {]jeuowepuny umo sno rnoge sn on syeads AjrewN|N eID ‘suTEIUTEUE [LI ‘uonsonb owes sip str puy ased ainjosqe xp Jo Aayrqyssa22euy atp Jo uonsonb sip punose sour prog ays fo 8y ay, Bumps ‘ery 01 Suipsos9y supa] ‘uanofioj “yaeas Jo no Ayjearpes ased au soyeur YoHyR—sO1w919, ay) UL Lae so—urBu0 oy UL ayds & yun sofddesd Suypoysg sed om Jo umnorde sty 229]du09 Ajarenbape or a]quuy “sed anjosqe aya Jo UoNoU s, But [o1 sno souruLaep reIp suis VIAVUL JO SAIDOTOdO.L maxIntroduction xix AIDS essentially belongs to the past. In “Interminable AIDS,” Haver under- takes a reading of a number of thinkers—epidemiologists, virologist, activ- ists, and poets among them—who have argued that we cannot reasonably hope for any relief whatsoever in the foreseeable future from the inexorable, interminable trauma of AIDS. We can no longer be nostalgic for a time before AIDS, Haver says. We can only think “that there was” a time before AIDS; we can only be nostalgic for the possibility of nostalgia, for the lost origin that the interminability of AIDS evokes. Pursuing AIDS as an originary ontological incompletion—always already wounded, always already contaminated — Haver insists that, in the interminability of AIDS, being is nothing but that abject wounding, that contamination. In this traumatic time of AIDS, we are haunted by the ghosts of that contamination which recalls to us not a lost paradise or homeland, but the very impossibility of such a recollection, to the abjection of being itself. As the figure of what we can never quite forget altogether, the ghost also figures that which memory can never satisfactorily recover. Constituting the very residue of memory, this figure marks an irrecuperable gap in knowledge: it points to the impossibility of forgetting what we have forgotten. Through a rigorous analysis of the status of this impossibility, Haver elaborates the consequent necessity of the indeterminate nature of trauma and recollection as he calls for a thought—undertaken neither with despair nor with hope, but as the nonpositive affirmation of finitude—of the persistence of the traumatic, interminable past of AIDS both in and as our future. ‘Trauma is described as a persistent interminable event that not only lacks in phenomenal character but also somehow translates into the very discourse attempting to reveal it, to the point that a discourse on trauma appears, in some aspects, as if it has itself undergone trauma. Thus, any attempt to approach the question of trauma discursively will necessarily intersect the fragility of the question of traumatic memory, effectively revealing the resis- tance that traumatic contexts offer to objectification or interpretation. While this affect, perhaps, can be seen in any of the essays written for this volume— each of which offers an analysis of the relation between trauma and its representation—it emerges most markedly in the next essay by Fadi Abou- Rihan. Offeringa testimonial to the death of a friend, Abou-Rihan’s “Demar- cations: Pathetic, Unfinished Thoughts on a Life by Default” holds open the place of the traumatic in writing through the recollection of a radical inertia. Performing a different analysis of the relation between trauma and represen- tation as the unbearable immediacy of his object, Abou-Rihan presents a meditation on the status of the pathetic, figured in and through a thought of-wout9s,, 01 soatns affe eIpau ano apy AA “Sn S19Yo 11 satu03s pu soe 94. Jo aureay 2471 UPI J]2s 2AND9|Jo9 ano jo Burse|d stp soysydwoode w se AsowDUE eamjno sno Sururequrews pur Su1pying jo Aanp ayp sn. 40) suuz0Js9d woIstAap (-Saouiawu [esma]M9,, 1M []e9 1ysTU am Ym Jo VoLTeHD!]os ButoSuo sir sonsind. uoistAaja ‘ised oy Jo sofeu pur souois sneumeN or suumias AypenuTuOD ausy “Azorsty Jo Asarseus sno o1 ‘4jyeradsa ‘pu Ksoasty 01 uorrey21 180] v sasod -x0 pur siojdxa ypoq eipur 2 1eIp saearess ay Jo uHOs jo Supeas ¥ suoyjo sassovstq ‘Auosiy expaur onudyMeur ue UF Aujeax 19ps0-puodas ¥ se uoneiuasosdos uo uonenpau siy ySnosy | -oSeuy penst, ap pue‘AanUopy ‘oun ‘Gost soqouy Suipiy og key wer], uo, ur oFewr neue atpo2 ones sit pur WoIstA2|o1 Y>ING| Jo aud9s KavsoduraIuoD axp sauTUIEXD 9 sv sassoes]sj sewioy, | joaysisur 2anevosoud ayp st sty.p,ased oneuNeN soyouR [eaou09 01 vonsUNY Ue YoY sed ay Jo UNdadsad v saya UONDa1]0991 2i8jesou ‘Kowous InewneN Jo uoSUoUNp iuarsisiod oy Bukesog ‘osmany no owuy sed {quatro ue reload uorns>]]0295 Jo Sapmsst>ta yp NAA, ‘onpuinen ayp Jo sorauaSrx9 ay wo4y seo] 01 Sunpison2 savy Aayp weyp ‘ume yo ABojodor ayp Aq pazuaeseyD asourosoy pur way soapsswoyp ose souydiosip snows oyp rep sn spurts Sut “aims ueyny-noqy —28p2]couy ainjosqe Jo wSu10 neue ay1—onoyped ayy soyoaa at se ‘puy “ised ajqraauiust ue wi sourdiosip atp Sunesewrop jo Aujiqissodun yp qpum op on Sunypds949 sey —uonenys e 01 asuodsou s,penpia -1put ue—eumnen jo quaape eouoIsty ayp WYP sIsoBFns asord s,ueyPy-noqy ‘uatp ‘uonynanse iuen9 si up -sissyeue ArwuNdrostp aiasosip Jo pury sue sou ‘ganaesait ‘Azoxsty ‘Kydosopryd soypiou st winq—a suoddns wep Krorsty ennp9q IU Ue Jo 2ouDIsIsUT axp| prea SOISS2>H09 atHOS a{eUL S9op —rUDUEE -n3av sit sotpany soop Aesso sty ‘osuds stip UL SUE SqTY,, s|fe> 94 Iwyss 61 uouruos iygnowp axp Jo YonuE azuDIDEFeYD 01 aUI0D aAvy sadon asoyp se Ajjepadso ‘uonezyumnota pur ‘aus20uu ‘Kypeduuds jo sadn snstqeso ay Jo vuonzofos v jo Assa09u aip sove]NUsO} UeYRY-Noqy ‘Snaxped axp se azrveUTOKP 0 sowo) 9y ay de ax Surssaser] “uonesopueus say ospe st at ang “ewe yo nor" jeoiFoJousuiouayd v soimNsuod suo 0U 9804 s,ueyRY-Noqy ‘snip “naqped ayp Jo Zuutsop v pur premo Furpusy e Sumsod Ksoreurjdxo sir jo ands ut ‘osje st ang ‘snoqped ay inoge asnf rou st Suna sy ueyRy -nogy 01 Suipso29y “yuuy] ay9s9U09 v2, 2] qeUDIUN,, d4p SI[E9 UEyPA-NoGY WY ‘saypes ‘St ay "eyoysuEpur sou Uorssosdap s9ypIDU st “eUINeN Jo a1EPUI09 e se “Ssnoyped o4p ‘voseas pue asuaroad puofag ‘uoneiuasaadas yo saaop-o192 ay YWAVUL dO SAIDO10dO.L xxIntroduction xxi ber the past,” however, it effectively covers the traumatic pastas it substitutes 4 more titillating version which relies on a certain innocence or unity of the image. But, as Elsaesser argues, itis precisely through this covering over that something of the traumatic past might be exposed, since television under- scores our traumatized relation to our lost history through this very missed relation. Despite its compulsion to cover the traumatic past—to deny, in effect, the power of the uncanniness of the traumatic—television returns this uncanny sense of presence in its devotion to the titillating traumatic image. Unable to abandon the traumatic image, Elsaesser says, television begins to circle around another reality: that of obsession or trauma. Through his analysis of television’s relation to this other reality, Elsaesser shows how our contemporary media, despite its more overt intentions, corresponds to a different kind of action and placing of the self. And in this correspondence, Elsacsser tells us, television constantly betrays its own most obvious feature: the compulsion to repeat Repetition At the limit of recollection, the compulsion to repeat both inaugurates and exposes a gap in the field of knowledge: it indicates, that is, what representa- tion can never accommodate. It bears the real; that something beyond-the- signified which, in the scope of the drives, isa repressed, forgotten correlate of being rather than a knowable object of representation. This limit, however, is certainly not the end of the story, for the forgotten, repressed real returns ina displaced form in the symbolic—as dreams, symptoms, acting out. Accord- ing to Ellie Ragland, such displacements speak the unconscious Other at the surface of language. In her essay “The Psychical Nature of Trauma: Freud’s Dora, the Young Homosexual Woman, and the Fort! Da! Paradigm,” Rag- Jand examines the link between the Lacanian real—the traumatic void that appears in language —and anxiety. Through her reading of Freud's Dora case and the case of the Young Homosexual Woman, Ragland shows how cach woman's symptoms exemplify the catastrophe that bespeaks trauma. By working with catastrophe as revelatory of the limits of representation in memory, Ragland treats anxiety as an equivalence of trauma, arguing that representation and recollection end where the real cuts into imaginary con- sistencies, As Ragland links the relation of trauma to forgetting in terms of its speech, she offers a reading of the Fort! Da! paradigm in Freud’s Beyond the“ed (QZ61 S891 Aussontuy suEdo}y SUYO| ejd ur Apeasze o89 axp yam poossopun aq 01 a1e—siuana patsoasty pur [ess] —seuNeN Jaye] WEEP Os 319511 spliNq, 89 axp Kem atp si—uononpos se paquasep sf Jaupes anq wun IU St Y>Iy —euinen asay qa ‘sutefdxo aypuesdey se ‘smu, 's1U2A2 on atp UaoANI2q 1o9yJ9 avesaas Jo pury ¥ Turonposd wso9p Jo dejd ayp, syfe> aysueydery ays tut ing auope auaos s04p19 Ur 91qre>0] JoAdu St EUAN MOY ssnosip ay>uE|de'] pur yanseg ‘moraoiur oy Uy “euiNeN Jo uaLsadx9 jensUT 4p Jo I>" aU LIYE uonezyeuiawut aanzeonds v yo Auypqissod ayy to sivaq Aqtessaoou auatzadx> yns joaspajmouy pur ‘souatiadxa sneumen & aanaNstOD YA sou29s 0411 IED], ve seme ase ax2yp itp sisaS8ns UoNonpas Jo Supeos [esodwor sty *peoasuy aypssd axp or uonejes ut Aujeos [eussH Jo Zune20j ajduns v aptaosd r0U soop Ssoatp uononpas 24p ‘oysursdey aog ~Aupeas a1ypded Jo aumanans peuow -epuny e se sypes ing ‘2auauedxo a]qrre>o} & 40 aDe Ue se AqLsEss929U I0U ‘HOR, -onpas Jo 2180] 2tp uonexaprsuod orur ayfea snes — passosdau axp Jo usMI24 21p se—ewinen Jo uonsanb aup jo Aayjesoduin ayp a40]dx9 02 snuAUOD oY. 2804 yep danesadurt S131 9yIC) 942 Jo SSazppE axp1 Jo Aaypeos Dy YAU JJosar susIIU09 soqpes ing ‘2joya v se 28payouy yo L1ooup & 9JeIqUID I0U Soop EUAMLEN Jo sis - peur onkqeuvoypisd v‘aysuejde'] o1 Surpsoaze ‘ouRg “ee Yo YOM KE s,pnazg yo worsuredxa sty uo kyjeoupisods Buisna0y ‘Ksoatp1 woronpas pexouas ay pur ssouparejaq uo som saypurfde'y sussouo> aotasorut s,ypnaec “Kounr| 61 wonejar sit pur rumen jo vonsonb sp Suruado ‘sammsuos aouaLIedxo oneumen ryp [east ay Jo wnose ue YSnop VoRIqUIE sepUTS v sons -and aypurjder] uvof qpias solasoiur s,4pnse3 Aypeg ‘uornadas ur passoudos ay Jo umaaz aip se soyoas euMeN reUp a8papmouy UF asseduur aya Yeoudde 01 ur8oq 01 Kem v sn s194J0 MIKE pur Daye Jo sisK[euE s,purpsey sy “yeas atp yo AsoBare> sty Aq urepdxa 01 porn ueoe’] Yaya “cunen jo spaye ay nog mau Sunpoutos sn [ja eunesn ur a8papmouy pur ‘Azowow ‘uonriussosdas yo suusy] ay Moy sourumexa puepsey ‘sseduu sup 07 uonuane yBnouy,f “euuBius pur ossedwt jo siutod se {anusp! jo UorImMNst1o> syoquids pue GeurseUr ay pue ewNEN Jo [eas oxp us9.020q drysuoneps ayp saaeyd‘sn sys puepsey uy sty T “wone -uosoadas Ur un 40 assed uur urevs99 v se [Jom SE UDA [EDLsOISTY ‘[e4DIH] © POG se aydonseies snewnen fo ameu ay pasun or sops0 UE ydiouteg aensvrng VINAVUL JO SAINOTOIOL xxIntroduction x organizes the temporality of trauma, Laplanche insists, a temporality that constitutes what he calls the destructive character of sexuality. Although Laplanche suggests that Freud’s introduction of narcissism in Beyond the Pleasure Principle begins a forgetting of the destructive character of sexuality, and, thus, the temporality of trauma, Charles Shepherdson asks if narcissism can be seen to possess such an origin and with it, a history. According to Laplanche, sexuality was enrolled under the banner of totality and love after Freud’s introduction of narcissism. In narcissism, Laplanche tells us, Freud comes to see love as the totality of the object. The possibility for such a totality undermines the traumatic theory of sexuality insofar as it offers the possibility for an understanding of the subject beyond the fundamental split or difference which necessarily characterizes it. In “The Catastrophe of Narcissism: Telling Tales of Love,” Shepherdson posits this very differenceas the condition for narcissism ashe describes the event that is the temporality of narcissism, Shepherdson pursues his different account of narcissism through a reading of Julia Kristeva's Tales of Love, which itself offers a history of narcissism from neo-Platonism to the present. According to Shepherdson, narcissism amounts toa constitutive, uniquely human disaster that cannot be confined to a particular historical moment, even if that disaster is figured differently at different times. Through his analysis of Kristeva’s account of Plotinus and Ovid, Shepherdson shows that the history of narcissism cannot be maintained, Thisis not to say that Kristeva misses the point of narcissism or that a skeptical Shepherdson must direct his analysis beyond Kristeva’s text, for, as Shepherdson himself indicates, to doubt the story that is being told by Kristeva would already be to enter the arena of narcissism—of representa- tion, evidence, and suspended belief. Exploiting the logic of this double bind, Shepherdson argues, Kristeva’s text does not simply amount toa history, but rather touches on the structural catastrophe of narcissism itself. Beyond its particular specificities, this structure of narcissism elicits a catastrophic origin whose nonhistorical character repeats itself compulsively, according to the temporal structure of trauma. The time of narcissism, Shepherdson tells us,is the time of an event whose traumatic character repeats itself at every moment, beyond the recovery of histori narcissism resembles what Shepherdson calls an original trauma, an event that repeats itself compulsively because it was never experienced in the first place, never symbolized and made present as such to the subject. While Laplanche and Caruth focus on the significance of seduction and belatedness in Freud's theory of trauma, the following essay by Linda Belau, entitled “Trauma, Repetition, and the Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis,” | memory. In this sense, then, the event ofay uz, Sess9 siy Uf ZeMNEN Jo a8pamouy sno oO} UONEjas ULE soy Aarpqissod 2x soneys Aarss209u stp Soop MOBY gised ay Jo eUMEN yt yBnomp-Bunp10m Jo ysev oy o1 Asvssos9u ae —uonnedas—eanpeey su puE uonsajjo291 yioq wtp Avs or uEoU IE pjnom rey, ZUONHedas yo Surueau ns) oup (pun Jppsw use ayYStw wma Noy aspapmouy e awyp A st MOF ySnory.y-Burp09, -2ous}sodxo 2]qissodurr ue se “wimay mnoypEN ‘uaouy aq 1yStut oSpapsouy jo muy 2]qesaquN ay IY TUSUUDAOUT SHIP Jo sapmasst>1A dip uryim st ay 99uIs wonnadss ut euunen Jo Burress ons otp sasodxo sondue nepg ‘Sty “sis4peue ayp ns se suaLIedxo 10U pip puesspeur dy ‘souanadxo jeune aq ur etp Sunprowos se soBs9w! wow! InewNEN aip ‘souauedxo neuen xp jo uiBiu0 10 SuruesUs yp arepsues o—syrey Apuanbasqns pue—siduine sissjeur ays sy “uonnadas ut paamon.ns adipo -pnouy © purséjeue aip Suuayo ‘sispeuroypssd ut Suypurassspun jo spou qusunuaaid ax sotuoz9q vone|suen jo osNpey sip wey sanse nejag “UeDe] pur pnasg Jo yom a1p Surmoyjog “Uone|suEN jo aanprey [eorpes wv soves0d “ronut wetp aonpead aaneSnsoaut ue sosodunr siskpeuvoypisd ‘siskyeue Jo 9u295 quasaid ai ur eumnen aIp Jo ,auauoD,, aIqssodun a SunessEU Jo anDeId uado ue y8nosyy, ‘words onewnen ayy ,arejsueN, 01 sxoAvapua aséqeur aip se Aqjeedso ‘uonnedos jo uo!suoump aanexseu ayy saumutEXa nejag, ‘uoR, -nodos ur woidurds atp jo aouesytuais xp jo siskyeue ue ysnosy y onbruysar sit Jo sotpe ay se 01 2WOD []im sisdfeuvoypAsd rey ayIsuL pEvUTEpUNy yp st sty y JoyTUsts sup Aq passozdax C]pesmsnuns st weyar yptAs [kop 10U Soop. voneiosdaoqut ysnosyp sytusts axp 01 4940 sed s,puessqeue ou Suna dpduang -Surpurasiepun s,purséyeur axp out 942 sneuMEN 9Yp Jo UIBLI0 snor2suosuN aip aresuen o sidwone 1 se uonansisuoo Jo Bavens pasuenu 2s0u pur 3030] 4p 01 uonviasdaaqut jo sjppour pres wos) soxour sisKfeuvoy>asd ys st sty, -a]qeiunos2eun ax 40) 2unoD>e UED yeYA sanded aaneasEN v Or Kem 9a1g asNUE tpeoidde aanosdioiu! preauopysiens © sejnonsed uy Goursw neuen 01 pue ‘{zowour 01 80] sKeaspe st Sunpatuos oauig saytUFts a4 Jo Koenb> -peut a4p ur popunoal st wey son2esd SnauaKsay & 404 s|qe> auatudojarap aaa stip Moy saopisuos s>yzaNy nejag “"WsUO Bursstur e punoae papup skeaape sey vunen jo {s0aIp onsfeuroupésd v jo watudoasap aanvazeU oy soy sys 01 s9ps0 ut ‘AzxoaIp uRInpas siy Stupnppuy ‘onbyuy>ar s,pasy ssaprsu09 VNAVUL AO SAINOTOdOL aKIntroduction xxv Future . . . : On Trauma and Literature,” Petar Ramadanovie explores the possibility that there is something beyond a utilitarian appropriation of knowledge, which might allow for the remembering or reinvention of trauma. In his reading of Toni Morrison's Beloved, Ramadanovic considers the literary repetition of traumaas constituting a history thatis itself regarded as.a testimony to the interminable process of working-through. According to Ramadanovic, one need only glance at any literary history to see that literature has played an important part in the mourning of catastrophic events. Yet, the questign of trauma’s preseniation in the literary is not so obvious, he main- tains.{If trauma is constituted through repetitions, Ramadanovic asks, how does trauma become representable? How might one, for example,distinguish between the representation of trauma and compulsive repetition Exploring the possibility for a different understanding of trauma, Ramadanovic shows how the repetition of trauma repeats something that is other than the com- pulsion to repeat. In this sense, then, Ramadanovic’s question about the presence of trauma in literature—and particularly in Beloved —is asked as part of a general concern regarding the possibility for a future beyond trauma. Focusing on the juncture between Beloved’s haunting, Beloved's literariness, and historical trauma, Ramadanovic examines how the past is related to the present and how a crime is related to its haunting effect. This conjuring of the ghost, Ramadanovic says, is both the condition of the possibility for the remembering of the past as well asa repetition or acting out of the past, which forces other repetitions. And it is precisely this conjuring that provokes a movement beyond repetition to the process of working-through as the ghost makes way for an understanding that is not based on interpretation.(Here Ramadanovic introduces an approach to trauma that implicates the relation between what he calls the structural and historical forms of trauma. In this sense, Ramadanovic posits the work of mourning —the process of working- through, that is—between repetition and recollection, in the negotiation between the historical givens and the underlying and unconscious conse- quences of trauma In the process of working-through—between the historical adventand the structural topology of trauma—the possibility of community emerges in the wake of what Brett Levinson calls the “immeasurability of radical injustice.” Working through the trauma of dictatorship in Latin America, Levinson’s “Obstinate Forgetting in Chile: Radical Injustice and the Possibility of Community” examines the link between the injustices perpetrated by mil tary regimes and the transition to democracy. Pursuing more optimistic prospects, Levinson argues that neither of the strategies for addressing mili-xxvi TOPOLOGIES OF TRAUMA. tary crimes—vengeance or forgetting (amnesty)—leads to any real justice. According to Levinson, both forgetting—in which the traumatic past is ignored—and vengeance—through which the traumatic past becomes an obsession—block the flow of history and the possibility of transition. Through an analysis of radical injustice and its relation to melancholia, Levinson considers how the process of mourning—of overcoming the stagnation of melancholia—might be undertaken in a political arena where every act of restitution is inadequate to the demand for justice. Without access to repre- sentation or memory, Levinson tells us, the survivor of dictatorship fails to mourn: the survivor, that is, does not confront the absence of the trauma, but rather its interminable, living presence. Because a transitional government cannot break with its past, but rather inherits it, the impossibility of justice persists in the structure of the new community. But this is nothing new, Levinson maintains, since an unfathomable abyss is necessarily located at the foundation of the democratic process. And it is precisely this limit of democ- racy that figures the trauma of injustice since, Levinson tells us, the national disaster materializes only after the dictatorship, when the failure of justice collapses into an unrealizable demand for vengeance. Even in socicties that are notin historical denial, Herman Rapaport tellsus, the failure of justice persists, for the acknowledgment of traumatic sufferings is difficult to achieve. This, Rapaport maintains, is why works of art must carry the burden of remembering and working through the trauma of the past. If we are unable to adequately remember what has happened to the victims of historical trauma literally, then art makes a place for a more metaphorical memorialization. While cultural works can never take the place of legal justice, Rapaport tells us, he does consider how they might be enlisted as substitutes. In “Representation, History, and Trauma: Abstract Art after 1945,” Rapaport argues that, far from being a simple refusal or inability to engage historical trauma, the postwar flight into abstractionism unveiled the fundamental logic of this traumatic time. Exposing a temporality in which the subject must recollect a past that is sealed off by a historical break character- ized by a radical forgetting, the postwar artist’s response to this break was itself representational, historical, and traumatic. One sees this very exposure, Rapaport suggests, in the practice of naming a painting “Untitled.” Not only amark ofthe namelessness, ofthe loss of painting’s name, “untitled” indicates something that precedes all concepts, something that comes before the posit- ing or stating of the work as a representation. According to Rapaport, the act of painting itself constitutes the repetition of something prior. Through an unconscious acting out, the artists repeat a break in the history of visualIntroduction xxvii representation. And it is precisely this repetition, Rapaport says, that reflects a break in artistic consciousness that is analogous with trauma. Offering an analysis of the work of artists such as Jackson Pollock (who represents American Abstract Expressionism), Pierre Soulages (from the internation- alist school of abstractionism), and Anslem Kiefer (working in the New German Expressionism), Rapaport explores the capacity for abstract art asa medium for both remembering and repeating—and, thus, working- through—the trauma of the past. Exploring the aesthetic’s faculty for confronting the trauma of the Holo- caust, the final essay, by Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, offers an account of the redemptive capacities of artistic representation. In “Transcryptum,” Lichtenberg Ettinger examines the role that art plays in working-through, understood here as both an overcoming of the particular, historic traumas of the pastas well as an acknowledgment of the structural, psychic trauma of the Other. Arguing that any discussion of art is inseparable from the question of sexual difference, Lichtenberg Ettinger pursues a reading of the traumatic ‘Thing, whose painful encapsulation is partly recognized in the subterfuge of artwork, The unseen object of originary repression, the Freudian/Lacanii ‘Thing organizes Lichtenberg Ettinger’s rcading of the relation between beauty, repetition, and sexual difference as the locus of a non-place where the unexpected event—the work of art—might be born. Supplementing her analysis of the psychic trauma of the second generation of Shoah survivors with Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok’s notion of an intrapsychic crypt, Lichtenberg Ettinger considers the mechanisms that might account for the reappearance, rather than the secret burial, of traces of the trauma of the Other. Through this supplement, Lichtenberg Ettinger develops the relation of aesthetics to what she calls “wit(h)nessing” a trauma via artwork and the possibility of the passage of trauma between individuals. Such a passage, Lichtenberg Ettinger says, necessitates a joint unconscious process whereby partial-subjects and part-objects become witnesses without event. According hrenberg Ettinger, it is precisely this act of transmission, of reflection, that grounds the possbility for working-through.Part I Recollection[1] Laces “Das Vergangene wird gewufst, das Gewufste aber wird erzihlt”: Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative in F. W. J. Schelling’s Die Weltalter David Farrell Krell Here isthe primal source of bitterness intrinsic in all life. Indeed, there must be bitterness. It must irrupt immediately, as soon as life is no longer sweetened. For love itself is compelled toward hate. There the tranquil, gentle spirit can achieve no effects, butis oppressed by the enmity into which the exigency of life transposes all our forces. From this comes the deep despondency that lies concealed in all life, without which there can be no actuality — life's poison, which wants to be overcome, yet without which life would drift off into endless slumber: —F. W. J. Schelling, The Ages of the World Is there reason to believe that trauma studies have anything to learn from philosophy? The happenstance that philosophy today, whether of the analyti- cal or hermeneutical persuasions, is itself traumatized —having both run out of problems and bored even its most dedicated audiences to death—is no guarantee. It seems incredible that a never-completed work of romantic- idealist metaphysics, namely, Schelling’s The Ages of the World (1811-1815) could have much to tell the contemporary student of trauma, What could the omnipotent divinity of ontotheology have to say to victims of violence? What 3u39s ane [ep stusu -nuour Surzipetsowoumou Jo 9{qeyseU91 SoU S4p “uMasnY UHLIDg Mp 02 eMasNyy, ysimaf vo uonippe sty SOU] 2qp UDaMI>q, s,PUPYs9qr] [PIUNC 220}2q poonposd svar Yoog nys9puom s,FunoX yp aeuNyoyun staf ,-Csowayy Jo summy aU1L,, J] wed ssa *(¢661 ‘SS24q AQISIOAIUP) 9] A 2D “UDAEH] MON) Susunayy pun sporiowayy IsnD200H Kuowapy fo rmx 241, Bunox “| soure{ 295 ‘usno8 oj 9g 10u ap rey Surzt -Jeuownw pur Sursquiowas yo Qinsyytp 242 UE (Z66I ‘S524q AUSs9MUP) eIquIN|O> YOK aN) EMITS, Kanal “sen ssrn20p0F4 241 fo pomuacy ays uo shosszy :Cuowsyy fo sursspssy YonbeN-[epl 2449¢g 995 paesox srep uy -AavULAIp Jo s2UeY> 24p 40} |]! 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Indeed, if psychic trauma involves not only intense personal suffering but also “recognition of realities that most of us have not begun to face,” no God worthy of the Logos would want to be without it.’ No Creator worthy of the name would be willing to forgo testing his or her creative powers against radical loss —the terrible test of survival.” Finally, such a suffering God would also have to become His or Her own historian, exercising a craft in which both memory and narrative are cru- cial—and disenchantment inevitable.’ The suffering godhead would have to advance from trauma to melancholia, living a life “that is unlivable, heavy with daily sorrows, tears held back or shed, a total despair, scorching at times, then wan and empty,” under the dismal light of a black sun.* In the light and dark of ll these recent inquiries into traumatized memory, the question is not whether trauma studies have anything to learn from philosophy but whether philosophy is capable of thinking its traumas. Having spoken of narrative, trauma, forgetting, the past, and time in general, let me begin with an effort to situate Schelling in some recent philosophical discussions about the possibility of recuperating the past. Is the past essentially available for our recuperation and inspection, or is it ruined by radical passage? Is the past so absolutely past that we must say it was never 4. Michael Lambek and Paul Antze, “Introduction: Forecasting Memory,” Antze and Lambek, ed., Tense Past: Cultural Escays in Trauma and Memory (New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 5. Cathy Caruth, in Caruth,ed., Trauma: Explorations in Memory (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. vi. 6. David Aberbach, Surviving Trauma: Loss, Literature and Psychoanalysis (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989). See esp. chap. 6, “Loss and Philosophical Ideas,” although there is little in Schelling’s biography that would lend itself to a biographical reduction of his ideas concerning the difficulties of divinity. 7. Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory, trans. S. Rendall and E. Claman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992). On the return of narrative to the historian’s craft, see p. ix. On disenchantment, sce p. 215: “The crisis in the world of historians results from the limits and uncertainties of the new history, from people's disenchant- ment when confronted by the painful character of lived history. Every effort to rationalize history, to make it offera better purchase on its development, collides with the fragmentation and tragedy of events, situations, and apparent evolutions.” 8, Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, trans. Leon S. Roudiez. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), p. 4se “yuieg jo 14stu axp sv uewom 4sed 241 Jo 1UNoD." 5, SurPYDg Ut wPUON Jo saan$y je9a9s jo 20usHoura ayp on uoRUaNe sejnaHed Ked on auEA | spuor>g rxo1 4p jo Sunutad assy oxp ‘prog 241 fo 503 241 yo Suransd 1 1g1 24240 s1eq assy tf 02 UoneBAsoAU! uu DURSOX xOFDIO4p II! 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Third, 1 would like to pose some more general questions about the nature of the trauma that Schelling seems to espy in the life of the divine, along with the mechanism of repression that he finds at work both in our own present and in the divine consciousness that began to stir in the remote past. The Earliest Notes Toward The Ages of the World Karl Schelling, serving as the editor of his father’s never-completed magnum opus, identifies the first recorded plan of The Ages of the World as “The Thought of The Ages of the World [Gedanke der Weltalter].”” Of the three original Bogen, or fascicles, of the plan, that is, of the three folded sheets of foolscap, only two (A and C) are preserved. On the left side of the first page of, Fascicle A we find a margin extending over a third of the width of the page. In itare nine numbered notes and two unnumbered ones; these notes consist of. key words, many of them abbreviated and therefore difficult to decipher. Across from these notes, covering two-thirds of the page, appears the exposi- tion of the plan itself. Why bother with such a problematic sheet of notes, especially before the Schelling-Kommission has prepared it in its historical-critical form? The answer must lie in Schelling’s own preoccupation with the art of beginning and with all beginnings. Virtually all the Weltalter sketches, plans, and drafts thematize ina reflexive and reflective way the problem of beginning." More strictly, they deal with the impossibility of beginning at the beginning, since 9. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Die Weltalter Fragmente in den Urfassun- genvon 1811 und 1813, ed. Manfred Schriter (Munich: Biederstein Verlag and Leibniz Verlag, 1946), p. 187, cited henceforth by page number in the body of my text. Schrdter’s volume appeared as a Nachlapband of Schellings Werke Miinchner Jubi- léumsdruck. The new historical-critical edition of Schelling’s works has not yet released the volume on The Ages of the World and the unpublished notes related to it. 10. Slavo} Zizek, The Indivisible Remainder: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matters (London: Verso, 1996), p. 13. Zizek rightly recognizes the force of the unconscious in Schelling’s The Ages of the World, yet in his desire to develop a political philosophy based on the idea of freedom, he does not grant “the unconscious act” that cccurs “before the beginning” its full power. That said, Zizek’s is a stimulating interpretation, one that deserves a more careful reading than I can give here.‘doy dur Ajosour st exp autod stup ay “u2as 2 01 sureuras s2yoy,244 21730 Burpras [esoUa8 a10U v pL sn dppy [tas y>roys aso4se9 siup yo unilzeur ay uo smoj asuarut Yons 10U Jo JayaYA “~UEd UF ryas ,utsoq snmp J,, 28028 auf ploae o1 J9ps0 UW WO} an1ss94Hoxd stip 9s on ysia IySIU aug, Suruuiaq wre J, ‘wWa0y 2arssoaBoud ay UFO ,"UIB9q | ‘su s9qUINN,, “yypmia pum ‘pain igfnorad sayy -¢ Hay SYMON “be “naz auto rayofiuoun punyioa ~ > yay premeay p Bundiag suynm iq *¢ Bugg up soy -7 “auut3oq y2] "| ju arysuen o1—uonepiden yan —pasooad 2m seat uo stupuu09 jesmooluod fqusessa09u auios Supnponur puk ‘wyo} neu tUs sa [fe UL ‘spurs se axa sux Bunty ‘amgidezuor a1soypig ap jo SurwurBoq As9a oy YUM uIBoq a30;219y sn 1a] aanipupu e 30 aygofe 94] Bunppouros—r9sin0 9471 wWosj 1e9q 02 YENI 24, oraaey flim seme Suyjoysg¢—ased ,pareasja, 40 queIsIp si wosy Moy aamINy pur duasod umo sno wey auunsse Aqduus 1ouues ax0yo131p) 2Q4 “(gz °d) SurwutHag sou pur saypiou sey Suuuifog ax asuas v ul yey] —SuruanSoq poussys uv st Suruuoq aya ieyp Avs [pemmuaas yas ur] pypg Wasoud seas 19xau (wuasoad aya ‘Kpoureu) pyiom atp joose mssano 4p wt weyp oun e ‘Sun 910J9q aun eon suILIad osyeat ‘sed Suruungaq ayp st AJu0 ION '2u08Kg asuds [exper dUI0s ut st BuruUtBog ay YIAVUL dO SAIDOTOIOL 8Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative 9 the beginning of this earliest sketch is that its apparently straightforward, candid, self-referential, self-indexing “I begin” (look at me start, can you see me getting underway at this very instant?) can yield a number of different tenses —simple and continuous present, present perfect, and future, Itis perhaps important to notice that the simple past is ot among the tenses into which we can translate Ich beginne. The past seems to resist both Schell- ing’s beginning and our own. And yet everything hangs on the question of a possible access to the elevated past. “Number two. everything in the past [or: everything concerning the past].” Isthe sense here that all that is, all being, reverts and pertains to the past? Or is Schelling making a distinction, as he is wont to do, between things past —in the mundane sense of the history of our present world —and the past in itself, the past in some more lofty sense? “Number three. The true past. The primal state of the world... at hand, undeveloped, a time [or: an age] . . . " The past properly speaking is atime or an age unto itself. In that former time the world was at hand in its undeveloped state, whereas now, in the present time (the Age of the Present), the worlds of both nature and history are constantly unfolding. Yet could the elevated past—with which we stand in some sort of rapport —be truly unde- veloped? When and how could its developmental dynamism have been introduced? This is the very conundrum that had stymied Schelling’s philoso- phy of nature: his First Projection toward a System of Nature Philosophy (1799) was unable to imagine what might have initiated movement and life into a static universe. If dynamism and dualism pervade nature now, they must always have done so, and right from the start. For omnipresent life and ubiquitous animation are contagion."? “Number four. Philosophical-scientific past.” The past is the proper object of dialectic, which is the method best suited to speculative knowledge. How- ever, “Number five. Whatever is known is narrated.” If knowledge is the goal of philosophy as science, it is difficult to understand why the known must be recounted, narrated, told as a story. The suggestion is that even though the past, considered philosophically-scientifically, is the proper object of know|- 12. For a discussion of Schelling’s First Projection toward a System of Nature Philosophy and a listing of the sources, see my Contagion: Sexuality, Disease, and Death in German Idealism and Romanticism (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), Part Two.“WIN ‘psszuny way ur27 “p -Isky Panu * > > uuop “puasayy (p anu sgn sjjun ‘aun “p os ‘urjom “grays uvmusten “p “posoe) 22u08 oip 41a uum “mysox —Bunyaistog-usuayssy ‘yamwryi20 -yos00) ImUN—LoYyad Ay! nz saypD sO) “LuDAMUDToD) ap of BuvBixg “q“g “poi auyo sy2tu so pum os ‘uppuvyag nz Bigg savaip °° * p yang wassia wap ut s9B10n anu ata yo! vp“ yorpouun wniny “9 snBsew puey-yo] 9p) 01 urese amas aw 19] “Aaynoyytp axp aredionue 01 wi99s a>] ayp uo syreUNDs pasaquine. ayp “uonisodxa atp1 Jo sxapeas 10} dn ajtd 01 utoq suonsonb jo seas 3p ‘p]#Oa atp Jo sour wuspusdoput ing awn qwuasaad oyp Jo suoIs -uounIp jou aze aanyng pue Iuassid seq :29U219s [eorydosoysyd 105 sae ayp Jo uuoistarp amzedin ayp jo s9urrsodunt aun 1aasse Soop a1 19K “PALdy 23q 01 St 91] Plo 242 Moy 01 sv anpp ou sn S19 Yo UORISodxd s,FuN|Joy>g ‘seg w soouauddo po|[e> aq 01 a.4989p—aszouro4 anowpims nq ‘ioadsax yLM—T!9A axp YE] or azep Oya asoup A[u0 1eIp soxe|Dap steAoN 2pudH s10ur sy axp apy AUtds Jo aze Sunenauied ays s9pun asjosstp ssaup s,ssappo8 axp Jo way 2) uo VoRdisasut uous ayp sey oBOPy “Joa axp Yt] 02 sozep ay asne>9q peap sons st a19puEM suaqypg Jf “Ayeuou soumouios ‘Anpesouu sues8 sounowos [124 oY Sunjry ‘uoneusut uv se uoyer sowNaUIOs “Furuse v se psv9y seuNIUWIOS axe spiom sssoppo8 ayn ‘samieu jo Aydosopryd siy ut dur atp Jo wunod>" s,Jo8opy pur 9x01 asoad s,s1peaoyy “wd0d s,19]]149g 40} avy s[fe224 9UG “TeI0aInbo “un a1gey ayp Jo sod ayp st JON “UORIsodxa ayp suisoq—osuds s,dosay urqou jrs.sqPeAony UF 2]qey e—aanrareU euoMpen snp Kya seapsuN St ay seuapuea, aun 01 steg we ayduuoy axp ur a9uass9 euntad poreumut ap ayods ‘sis] Jo afeun 2p Jo [A ay spun wosy “[Sumypeey saFiuia yoou) soxuvaseu plo aos 01 #u1psoooe ‘our e uodn au ‘sny_L, [194 Ku pay] sey persoU OU f9q |[eys rey pur ‘st 1eyas ‘Sea uoIp ays Uwe J, axon sBupayag wi suon293I09 Aueur ap ‘1 20uas9494 MOY areysuEN ‘a4es sAaroy|dumts 405 ‘394 [144 | Y>!ysX—uoN -isodxa s Suyy2g dn 24e 02 s9ps0 Ur ‘Burwutiog puoves ay 01 0 FuruurF9q 2y2 01 ypeg *y ap>ra8rg Jo apts uosy a1p Jo doy au o2 sou UaTMDS UI 19°] -uontsodxs s Suyyjaypg Jo Buruodo ay ut 21] 0 stuiaas, sujeaoy 01 20ua2y24 uappry vase Aue UY ~uaStapiay{y uoa Y>LUUI2} 5 S1[EAON, jo ayer Aaey ayosBuyry axp ur jagn Jo any Surystuorse oyp jo Zuryunp stay sdequog 21489 24, 28 |]e9 UYO [Ta Suyoyag "vonestunLUHOD Jo wIOF Joyo DIOS Ing Uasosd 942 01 UIELIAd Y>HyaR Jo [Te “TeAwNI0d 40 “uonatdap ‘uoR -eiuasoid ou st ased ay Surusaou0> a%papmouy Jo wnipau sodoud 2p Spo VWAVYLAO !9OTOdOL, olTrauma, Forgetting, and Narrative n “Number six. Why [it—the narrative—is] impossible.” The exposition tells us that itis not enough to know the One. We must also know the three divisions of the One, namely, what was, what is, and what will be. And after we know these three, we must narrate them, even if something about such narrated knowledge is “impossible.” Yet the nature of this impossibility — which has to do with both the supremacy of narrative over dialectic and the repression of narrative in our time—is not clear to us. “Number seven. because I have proposed [reading vorges. as vorgeschen or corgestellt] to treat only what pertains to this past, it will not be without dialectic [Dial ].” It is not yet clear why dialectic is called for at all in our scientific-philosophical pursuit of the past; indeed, we can be rather more assured of Schelling’s troubled relation to dialectic. In the various plans and drafts of Die Weltalter Schelling employs dialectic —and yet almost always he expresses his worry that dialectic may be no more than manipulation of concepts without the requisite seriousness of purpose or thoughtfulness. Schelling often seems to trust images and fables more than he does dialectic, which he faults for being a kind of intellectual sleight of hand, a conceptual legerdemain. “The past” will be about that time before (the present) time when the intellect was unclear about all that was, when dialectic was more strife and suffering than controlled negation and confident synthesis. Perhaps the very fact that the first book of The Ages of the World will need dialectic is the mark ofa flaw or an impossibility? Thatis an interesting (im)possbility, if only because the editor of these early drafts, Manfred Schréter, himself consistently degrades the first half of the 1811 draft as being too “naive,” too suggestive, too full of images—in a word, as being insufficiently dialectical. We will have tocome back to the question of dialectic, because the narrative or recounting that Schelling has in mind can be understood only in (nondialec- tical) opposition to dialectic—only in some sort of distance and releasement with regard to dialectic. Number eight. The present follows the past. All that belongs to it nature, history, the world of spirits, knowledge-presentation—Necessary if we wished to write the entire history of the present, thus of the universe [reading so des universums}, but only in its essential aspects; for [this i] only the system of the times, not the entirety of all their natures.” Here the decoding is. particularly hazardous. It is clear that Schelling intends to provide no more than a “system of the times,” not a detailed inventory of everything in nature and history. What is entirely unclear is why and how the present canbe said to follow the past. For what has been emphasized so far is that the past isnot only essentially prior to or earlier than but also cutoff from the present time of thesy2 jo sBumtp o1p uo sourys Yoog PIO TEP Jo uns ays Iq “UNS ayp JopuN aru Sumpou st asayp weep axepap pur aiming pu ‘wosoad “sed aaenbo uv> Yoog PIO 2\p V2afiad ayp ut Burjeads Xq asnd ayp yo wiayqoad ayp sapeas at asne39q, pur ‘Buyjfayrg shes ‘oouasso atp Jo Zuryeads 10u stat asnea9g_ ,"a40Jaq U99q SPH ose wey Kpasiooug., ‘Sodas ayy, zsputasaaye 9q 01 otuo> I wey ESE YAN, suonsanb sayuny 242 01 puy ,spaemasaye aq 01 auH0> JEM YAW JpasDaaq.,, ‘sodas Suypypg ,2u99q sey TYP ALES! EYM,, UoRsanb sit 01 pur sse52p295 st 400g 24,], 100 PIO we, Jo asnevDq ‘skes 24 ‘os sop af{ NPY ,—Hoog PIO Uy [h] Puo;e—ppom sy—soun Jeme se poorsiopun 9g 01 ase Inq ‘oun Jo /uaSunssaugy = "wgy] suoIsUaUUIp piotth OU are UNFoq aaey aM IE YOM ay UF ax9y Y>ryA ‘samINq puE squasaig ‘ised 01 Burp soso" ‘syoog ¢ O1UE Paplatp aq I]! 2494 poruaserd yom, DUL °° + [Sunprayasogy se ‘Squrerso9un 4494 “yssq Zurpeas] ano suum pjios yp dems auf [uous o9 uayer Ajpensn] snup stay “sarang ayy “suIU JaquINN,,, ‘yong, Sony Mtey uae —P aupm -siga wang “fystm spo “puos 7 ‘p wag ayoyg sjo sy21U yiayy “329 121y pur °° sary ayzjanr "yng -n -amuaian “Biz, yoru ‘uses ysSqn spn ui pum yoy Bq sy qe nam pysey po Yunynz uo :afed aup jo apis puey-12] atp uo soiou euzeur s,Suypypg Jo ypuru ay 01 wind Mou sn I] Wo apao0e 01 Aare ,2u0.ue 40 s1y UL prey sno soveuyiqap ased ann axp Fussosdos ur wuasaad 4p Jo Aovayyo 2xp as0dx9 01 s2op Buypoysg wypy ZunpAsaas 1 piu aaey aysiu (owH09 01 pur uasoud sed ‘sSuroq weuny [Lest ep) wUDsasd a4 9AIT oy sn Jo as0yp weUp zaoddes a4p sowentA sms oUINUDS,, puE , InN, sion ased atp areas] 01 ssop Suyppypg wy Suryzds9A9 snewo|qosd Spaspua sureunas ‘ised ayp 01 qwasosd 94 syuy] [q!suaI0 IeY UONEp>y ayp ‘BunpAz999 soyeas SumTPYPS Yor uo zeoddes wip “poopuy ‘aanequegrs saut099q tH |qosd ayp sous 1QUNSIp 2954p se WOYp Jo YUN o2 san pur watp sare|stEN TG HOY ¢,se19,, 40 , oe, se ‘tong ayp ‘Kjoureu ‘127 Jo jeanyd ay sarejsuen a0 Uys pounyg st wo}goad ayy, ised ayp uodn aoyjoy pinoys awososd oyp veyp ype ae ava[> 104 Stat Ua4p “(gl “d) ses uoRIsodxa ayr se ,“sUoUR au WHOS} Wasa4yIP Aqjemoe axe rey sau dasyp,, sv ang “(uassrg oy ‘SjoureU) au ruasan9 atp Jo samnseou se uayei 2q 01 ou ase aumny pur duasoid ‘sed J] “p]sOm YWAVUL JO SAIDOTOOL aTrauma, Forgetting, and Narrative 13 world alone, the present world, says Schelling, so that Ecclesiastes is actually pointing in the direction of something else. “The time of this world is but one vast time, which in itself possesses neither true past nor genuine future; because the time of this world does not possess them, it must presuppose that these times belonging to the whole of time are outside itself” (p. 188), In Schelling’ view, the true or genuine past isclearly privileged. Atleast he will say throughout his work on The Ages of the World —which never gets out of the past precisely because it never gets into it—that as much soothsaying skill is needed to discern the past as to augur the future. Two final unnum- bered notes on the left-hand margin now try to distinguish past from present: Wenn es die Abs. ist die Syst. d. Zeit. 2u entw.s. steht d . .. doch Verg. w. Gegenw. nicht gleichs . .. D. Verg. gewupt. Woher nun Wis. d. Verg. in jenem hohen, |sic] Sinn philos. vrstanden? Wenn aber warum nicht ersahle? “IF the intention [of this work] is to develop this system of the times, then past and present are not posited as identical... The past is known. [{[] Now, whence our knowledge of the past, understood in that elevated philo- sophical sense? But if [itis known], why [is it] not narrated?” Here the left-hand margin comes toan end, but the exposition continues to claborate the questions posed. And the principal question seems to revolve about the apparent contradiction that what is known is narrated, but that the past, while indeed known, is not narrated—but then why not? Schelling argues that “the true past time is the one that came to be before the time of the world; the true future is the one that will be after the time of the world,” and the present time—with its own epiphenomenal past, present, and future—is but one “member” of time. Yet no one has as yet lifted the veil: what was, is, and will be—considered as three distinct times—remains concealed. Schelling’s exposition now finds the statement that will serve as the open- ing for the introduction to The Ages of the World in all its drafts: “The past is known, the present is cognized, the future is intimated. The known is nar- rated, the cognized is depicted, the intimated is foretold” (p. 189). Yet this refrain—both more and less than an assertion—only underscores the seve ity of the double question posed in the margin. If the past is known, where does that knowledge come from? Howean we in the present ime of the world know anything of the past? The second question is more confusing, and Schelling’s marginal formulation of itis quite condensed: “But if [the past is known], why [is it] not narrated?” Up to now Schelling has made use of anaydioud v nq Kyno0f wou St y>tyas “yopusy UeLNY 9p UNIpLM sosize ‘Ou {{ppom umo sno suop>q Sum axp ‘Sum JOYE SHIA YAM uFEISNs 948 suoddee atp ‘Burpy 40,1 ‘uonesaaasse s Suyjfoysg Jo (aamny pu ased) ayBt9m IJ tp) [99} 01 J9pso Ut atu27, pun Buiagy s s088apropy 01 amb pany saueyy wosy yintu29 pioas stp jo— Aaors xp) 4o—Auorsty 94p 3782 01 PIU PINOm ayy “yinuuen sop ,ssise>y Jo se>K, ueumny ap aun-ooad ax yo ajdiouud supp sype> Sumpoys (61-681 “dd) (:21asa8yonunz ayuncy sus) Ysep 2xp ovut ,¥9eq 198, 10 01 ,pareop>4,, moy>tU0s ‘(ayo2poInz yoop 12po aBunipioa) 1980 pa19A0d,, sea] Ye 10 possasdos,, u29q sey uonepuno} Jo xINeUL WIP 194 “aFeypuney 2p “wasod a4p Jo UONYpUno] 10 xunews jo puny eseso4.9s ised ax, “pjiom ayp jo ‘ouin-2ad 40‘oun [exprourd aip woy ,2[diouud, e ures Ins Kepor Sug uewny reIp si9ae Suypyg SQ ++ uonejaa Surry ur pueas Soup yorya ype reap duo SurztuBo yo aqede> aue sBuiag ueuny weyp 2[qeIuapun stay, pue ~~~ aUNT sed aya Jo sau -snorosuoo & sSutaq ueusNY Ut ssaquNys []AS 2594.1) s1zeIS as[ey Oa IYyW -po8 ypu jjpsr wrope or saysts 1e4p1 pur sueBs0 Jo st ey YsoY 2y “ysoy spray emp wresjeq v “tespeq sopnxo weyp UIs “UES Sto Ue sey AT yBNOWp se [aaj wip jeroUur 24p “Spero Jo asasuap axp1 24 01 aaosd [LM ay VapIOD exp Jo pjo8 ayy Asoxs wosy a]qeysinSunsipur—aq |r pue—sem Aainbur aya 9 oy “DaIsuaIXD09 a19m aIqL] PUE YANN YIM uF ‘By uaplop yeyp ‘oun IP Jo 2ou9uNoa4 v st saTesIAUD SuNpYDS wYM Jog .-AeUy,, ‘youpua ayp Jo asuas ap eq sploy ey SparesseU St MOU 9a as}> SunypQsoro yoryan yum Aoyduns pur sopue> oyp tpi poreseu ou MoUy ‘oa pian aeup st Ayan ang ‘sump jo sasne9 issyg ayp pue aaueuasoad ayp /usu -uaysa] 224080 01 SIALNS OYA DUOAIIAD “94 “Saz1ydosopyd Oya BUOKI9A> 01 yeads pinom ‘oun Apppiomozd ayp Jo 2ou919s v ‘éppureu red assy YL apalqo suse ased ayp sey at asne oq ‘[puazypzua] 2anesseu 9q 01 2AeY pjnom waoy su sased ap uo} aed 1s34 sno Jo aways ayp 2q snyA Pjnow a2UD!9g 40} 2UTTTAQIS 2a “parunos9s ‘ond4ao yons ut pawunosos 11 st Ayan mouy o1 stuem Suyy[ay uusoq pooput sey ased 241 Jo Buayzaos ss0jo194p ‘Apiuasedde ‘syoog, poor a4p jo ured 1364) Yoog PIO Ue pue—sIeAoN, ue 9]IKPS Aq parejmrdesas pur sops9p{ Aq souresoduroquos sty 01 parsodas ‘sieg yo sur a4y—yKuF aUD!OUE VINAVUL AO SAIDOTOIOL +Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative 6 ruling from the beginning. His genealogy of time(s), carried out in the second half of the 1811 printing,'* will be a genealogy of Gemiith—and here it is almost as though Schelling were quoting Being and Time, if one can quote from a future that can only be intimated. At all events, it will be a genealogy designed to sustain a rapport in the face of the most powerful repression. For even when the past is repressed or covered over in the present, there is something in the human heart of hearts that has the experience of déja ou; even when the past is “set back” into the dark, it preserves treasures. One is reminded —if one may take yet another leap into the future—of the way in which Husserl insists that even at the zero-point of internal time conscious- ness, where retention fades away into absolute nothingness, something of the past is preserved, For Husserl, such preservation will constitute the secret font of Evidens. It is perhaps not out of place for us to note here that Husserl is also involved in Schelling’s more dialectical deduction of the three times of the world, inasmuch as that deduction has to do with the problem of what Husserl calls die lebendige Gegenwart, the living present. Yet Schelling’s prob- lem, as we shall sec, is the obverse of Husserl’s: whereas Husser! needs the living present in order to explain our retention of the past, Schelling fears that the living present will expand excessively and thus block all passage to the genuine past. Those who live in the present age timeare all like the Greeks —as the sages of ancient Neith (at the temple of Sais) saw them, according the story in Plato's Timaeus: we are likechildren who have no memory, especially no memory for the beginnings of things. And if we have a vague premonition of an ancient memory, we cannot find the words to tell it. Thus Plato's Socrates will always 13. See the Urfassungen, pp. 7488. Schelling’s genealogy of time from eternity lies outside the purview of this paper, if only because of the complexity of the topic. ‘The birth of each moment of time occurs in the “polar holding-apart” of the entire mass of past and future (p. 75). These births are separations (Scheidungen) compelled by love as longing or languor (die Sehnsucht). They are always a matter of the father's contractive force and the son’s expansive force; they are also a matter of suppressing the past on behalf of a present perfect, “as absolute having-been” (p. 79), “that gentle constancy” (p. 80), which tends toward the future as toward the promise of love. On its way to the future, love ereates time, space, and the natural world, However, as we shall see, such creations alter the creator. On die Sehnsucht, “languor,” see Krell, “The Crisis of Reason in the Nineteenth Century: Schelling’s Treatise on Human Freedom (1809),” The Collegium Phaenomenologicum: The First Ten Years, ed. John Sallis et al. (The Hague, Netherlands: M. Nijhoff, 1989), pp. 13-32.‘001-66 "dd sSunurad [191 94240 J[ey puords 94p 29s “(TunSupypar) uorssoidos uo ow 304 “| Jo Kaos ayp “Kaors jeaRojorsuyo axp ut a2e]0s pur wosUtOD swHMUEY spuy 1X01 94 Jo JJEY PUODS ax se.9yA\ “FPS ONEW Jo [eLOVeU! ay SuEpNpsUt —syeiareus entozesos asour ayp 01 eq sossoud reyp ,aseg ay,L,, Jo SunuLd TIS 242 Jo Jey Aszy app st Jog -passazdax asour pu ‘>qeowWU aout ‘ajqeayseuios isu suzaas rey 1X91 | [gy ayp Jored wsoypres oyp use sae Saou Aur uy “1xa1 Jo sofed 997 ouios—syeup asaup jo sized 1uas9yrp wySyysty ss0ve, -wourtui09 10242441 ‘F 19] UE UIeBe a9u0 uDyp “| [g] UEASrY “ao1MN sty PIP 2FY IE parsesias voyp uid out pio ays fo soBy ay.7 Jo 1x91 | 1g] ayp aves Burypoyps URIPTYD S240N j:ss9pumn se—pnaag puv Suspayps oq o1—saeadde ae wyp a10ur21 os ouin eur Uappry $91] 294N0s YL, “uoIssosdax feud Jo a2INOs po19A09 -stpun aqp Jo asanb ut ano Sumas 4q Ajasioa1d—Surjpypg pur sissjeueoy>isd tpog 40} 1padsox s91e938 aoys Sqo19\p1 Pjnom 2uO “UoIss9Dons [eaLEOISIY| pur _@oueanayut, Jo Sururour S494 24p (odo aav9] sea] 18 40) 2zneuID|qoxd Pjno> 9U0 J0— Ue2e-] 02 pndiz O1 soneYUddoyrg 01 SurT|YPg WHo1j—>>UeIOYUE Jeuoisty preauopysiens v sv jafjered oy puraszopun pjno> suo ‘sissqeue -oypisd ‘jo uonedinue 40 “pia ppypesed Surystuoase axp1 soztuBo991 2U goanany sno ypeq sn aa18 ‘ooueusaoxd umo sno tats gvoddeu sno y20q sn aatg puv uorssaidas aqp Jo s199]49 94p 98v>p>4 [[! aaneazeu Jo puny wey pry uorssosdas & Yans poonpur arey p[no9 404s to Aaue8unuos 10 EPH" YA Z]NeA JOUAIUT UE UT Keme paxpo] ISed I {yosoansran ayp ase Ay ay {uorssaidas ypns yo aanou ay u99q oxeY Pne> eH, “umaugtut sof un Jo ssauyLep sUUL a4 01 1 pouLapUOD Ssed ay possoudas aaey 01 suid2s quasod ay, wed arowas axp Jo souos ay, Supuerssapun pue Suproy woyy sueay Jo wesy sno siuaaaad Sunpausos reyp ase> xp 889], -oysoaau stat Sno9peIp pure Sumoseas jeomydosopryd josomasts axp ase (4pefursy pun noypoiy) &yoduns pur sopurs J] -229[e1p 01 pig 2x1 or ua? pur {uan0330} sey] 1 IeYA 10} Yoseas o1 [Je Jo Iss Aydosopyd sayqeua rey1—Inos pu 3[9s Jo anoperp ay1—ssnoosip sousorut Jo use ay star pue ‘asvasq sno Ut |Jompsinos oan asneg 294 [Eze aA4 ‘UONOBIOJ 2Aey [Tea YA JoquIDUIDS 01 afSans uv> ay ‘souOs pjo atp jo sissqeue pur uondosstp hq ‘uorsiap pue uon20/J0> Aq reyp os “yd e ut poruasosdas somod soy auos uodn j]e9 VINAVUL AO SAIDOTOIOL, onTrauma, Forgetting, and Narrative v7 loving solar Father and his mirror image Son, the first half finds itself forced to introduce the themes of darkness, wrath, and the mother. Whereas the second half expresses confidence in the divine will of expansive love, the first half cannot escape the lineage of love that is longing, languor, and languishing (die Sehnsucht), as wellas craving and tumult (Begierde, Taumel). Whereas the second half of the 1811 printing is happy to fall back on the reiterated story of the spiritualization of all matter, the first half tarries with the matter and the materials —gold, oil, balsam, and flesh—that seem themselves to invite divinity.” The posthumously published text of the 181] printing is marked by many revisions and corrections, and is therefore difficult to read and cite. The narrative always seems to be fighting against a strong current, or against two strong currents, one of which wants to sweep it up and away into the remote past, the other threatening shipwreck on the familiar shores of Christological consolation and salvationist delights. These crosscurrents make the going rough, both for the reader and (presumably) for the writer; the waters are choppy, the interruptions irregular but quite frequent. The text is filled with what the trained logician will gleefully expose as blatant contradictions: the first words of “The Past” tell us “how sweet is the tone of the narratives that come from the holy dawn of the world,” whereas seven lines later we hear, “No saying reverberates to us from that time” (p. 10). Among the many topics pursued by Schelling in the first half of the 1811 printing (pp. 10-53), let me single out three: first, the problem of the living present and the negative deduction of the times of the world; second, the problem of the basis or birthplace of the world; third, the wrath, strength, and tenderness of God. All three topics should contribute to the overriding methodological question that haunts The Ages ofthe World and reappears in every draft in virtually the same words, words we have already heard from the “earliest conception,” but here taken from the introduction tothe 181 | printing: “Why cannot what is known to supreme science also be narrated like everything else that is Anown, namely with candor [or straightforwardly, mit der Geradheit] and simplicity [Einfalt]? What holds back the Golden Age that we anticipate [Was halt sie suriick die geahndete goldne Zeit], in which truth again becomes fable, and fable truth?" (p.4). 15. Oddly it isin the second half ofthe 181 printing that Sehnsticht—the languot and languishing of God—is most discussed (see pp. 57, 77, and 85), even though the mother seems to have disappeared altogether from the Father-Son axis.yey Ksouuaor axp owt wiod-o492 241 puosaq 32eq afessed st 10j usw aK or stID9s Surfjoyg rey, “tunnunuos Jo wiajqosd ayp Jo TWoUAIEISOE E Inq st HORNS s,}98sn fF] 1e4p os Suasaud (xp Jo) |]Hs st sed ayp JE pasop st sed a4 01 SS92V_ -ujqord vse aun o suorsuoumtp aip Jo AunBauo> axp s99s Oporstzy 93H ‘But -jJeqpg ‘2ouaptna qe 40j xe otp 9ptrosd 01 st ssousno!osuOs-sUN [EUSAUE Ji Aavssooou st ey uonuaaasd & Auiod-o192.24p puosog Surystues wos} aman jue ased auaazad 03 sops0 ur suonuaioad pue suonuay21 jo aeuuaiue a4p koydap Ta P9ssnpy seosoy q4 s,sporsury 01 s9s0p sdeysad st pues, yassnpy joousoddo atp st wioiqoad s Surpjaypg “(11 ¢) ,awasaad ayn woay parexedas ‘st weyp sed 124 ou Apisayrucar st jyasu ypryss pue auersur wetp YBnostp Afastooud ‘Ppeyquasny tapuagayfian wapol ui] yaersut Buoy Az2a2 ut spuedx y>rya 2u0 94 404 wdooxo sed ayp Jo fea" Sunpou mouy, on ws9s sButoq veUINY Io, “WUAsoud oip Aq paseajas Ajnan s9a9u oye suoisuouttp oA 2soqp EUR Yons “ised aaLUYUE dip ou premypuq pue ormany aTuYyUE a4 OWU! pavatsoy adojpaud sit Yy>IONs pue arejip or suroos wip auasoad v Suasaad Surat] w UE 9A4y 9a Joy "YN IU;EP aiour st Sunpor, ga2uo!9s ueMp soyLEs IUIIIs Jo Walqo uv se ar yovosddee 9m [Ie oy —aq Key sosneszeu sit yo au02 xp AMS MOY JoNEUE OU—It WOAy sf101 satuo> SurKes ou wtp os ‘ssauT[Ns pur aDudpIs Jo wT est sed 94 J] “| -yxo1 s Suyppaypg Ut aururunDy atp pue ayeturay atp yo soansy im op or axey (psrep pur puor?s a4p AyquioU sous ANd) sordon asatp jo aaatp |pe'29s [Joys 2m sy *Aatutatp Jo suon>ipention pue santyenb Aspuns atp (g) pue Zuyoyjns pue eumen jo uoneMMs pue ous Est yrs ‘prom axp yo aaeydypnig aup () Auasasd Surat 4p Jo ewsrUD oyp wos pjs0 aup Jo sown ay Jo vononpap aanesou ays ([) moge yse OF sn samAUT Tey st—uorssasdas Jo 2930} auf asisa4 J949 UD 9m ANOY PUL Ja{PIYyAX 01 se LOSI 211 —uonsonb peorfojoporpour ay, ,’uueIuN,, axp Jo uorIULp s,Sury|>4> asn_ Asnorsuos auinb jpias 9y YsnoypE ‘pos sSurpoyss stax rey Surmouy ou sdeysod SunSupiping paom s Suyfayps sn [pM pnazy{ “pating pur 1240 paxaaoo so passaedo12q 01 ised yp Sufsne |jnsst Tuyza]Ns Jo euMeEN ssopouseEU 1ak se auiog ‘By Uapjos aya jo 2auddsNI03 ay2 Yang Tuspyoy st Bunpouos ey uoprdsns axp jadsip 20u jp1a4 Sour Op [Je UE Mbstp axp nb 20U |L98 11 489} 5 SuMpayDG YstuE OU [IL a]NOAPLE aTpHIAA “3PeIq aye SOD Te YAY un ystuaeyp yar uoneurssey s1r40j 1f 9[No‘pHs [TEA spudyy su! osfe Inq sare sit Suo 10yj “sitounS ze 02 se [Jom se saNNEIzEU 01 UDA] O1 DAUH [[Em ‘2ONPap se [[m se sotsoas par or axey qp2a8 ‘Aydosoyryd [ean29]eup ‘Aes O1 st YHA ‘999125 -wuasoad atp jo tpn atp 40] suojqosd sosod ‘osnany paxsoyyey ayase poredionue sed paiqey ay.z, ased press axp1 Jo ansind yeorydosoyyd-synusts sno {yo apalgo sadoad ayp stat 294 pur unouy werp os0ur poredionue so porewnut stat Ased oy Jo se sunany ayp Jo ysnus sv st By uapjoy amp ‘KUsva}D, VWAVULL AO SAINOTOdOL 8Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative 9 both he and Husserl will populate with figures of Night and Death, the funereal figures of the spirit world.'® Schelling has recourse to that Old Book, Ecclesiastes, which he reads in an admittedly bizarre way: if, as the Old Book avers, there is nothing new under the sun, then we must ascend beyond the solar system, or at least beyond the system of the present world, in order to encounter something new—a system of times or ages of an expanded world. Within such a system, “the genuine past, the past without qualification, is the pre-worldly past [die vorweltliche]” (ibid.). Schelling realizes that he is trying tosound the seas of time, and that abyss may bottom out upon abyss, in such a way that the appropriate response is horror (p. 13). Only the discovery of a “basis” or “true ground” of the past that sustains the present world will banish the sense of horror. 2. Schelling realizes that he is speaking in an all-too-human or anthropo- centric way when he asks about the basis. “Who can describe with precision the stirrings of a nature in its primal beginnings, who can unveil this secret birthplace of essence [diese geheime Geburtsstitte des Wesens]?” (p. 17). Schell- ing has already called The Ages of the World the companion science to Creation (Mitwissenschaft der Schipfung) (p. 4), and the search for pristine beginnings can be nothing less that that. If the essence of all essence is divine, if divinity is purest love and love infinite outflow and communicability (wnendliche Aus- ‘flieplichkeit und Mittheilsamkeit) (p. 19), we can expect the essence of essence to be the expansive force. Yet if divinity exists, if itis, then it must be on its own and as its own; to be is to be a precipitate that resists total outflow. Divinity must be what Walt Whitman in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” calls the human being, namely, “a float forever held in solution.” Divinity must havea ground (cinen Grund); otherwise it would dissolve, disintegrate, evaporate. However, sucha ground would be “what eternally closes itself off, the occluded [das ewig sich Verschliebende und Verschlossene]” (ibid). Such occlusion would be un- friendly to outsiders; it would spell the death—death by fire—of any crea- ture that sought love from it. Self-closing would be the very figure of @ wrathful God, the figure of eternal fury (ewiger Zorn), which, as we shall sce, is an unexpected figure of woman 16. For Husserl’s figures and metaphors, see Edmund Husserl, Analysen pasiiven Synthesis, Husserliana, vol. XI, edited by Margot Fleischer from lecture research manuscripts dating from 1918to 1926 (The Hague, Netherlands: M. Nijhoff, 1966), esp. pp. 172-222 and 364—385; se also my discussion in The Purest of Bastards: Works of Mourning, Art, and Affirmation in the Thought of Jacques Derrida (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), chap. 7.{yo saiySneys 2p sxoroud.91u1 ape oF Suypsooy “o17] HoYou! suLAN amp poypour pey aqo1n, Joye ‘oljody pue sturaury ‘suran urdu) axp 4q port} aia ssa1ygnep UDAVS puE SUOS U>Ars s.9qOIN ‘snasoY_L, UE Sapye9fY SUITE ayfinog Soxp sopneg Apooig 24 40y pasoquiouos axe pur ‘sory pur SIMI 01 pooaop aze suozeury 2Y “wpeap pur 22u9[014 ay0A9 9931p 4p Jo om ED AE 49K pod Jo Futoq 2xp spuargns reyp 2fiy Jo 99404 1easF reyp 2409 01 weIUE ose —suozewy ayy pue “uosppiyp saqor ‘speuue Suray]—soSeur snp |TV [12-07 dd] suozewy ‘up Jo sane aup siuasasdas ar 303 ‘2411 [NJ220} YL parvsod9p st [5270 sop jouiay2s] jeasopad s,po8 xp u9sa pue !UospItyD s,qoIN Jo Yreap 241 JO pater estsnaz, uerdurd]9 sty Jo 2u0s4p at Jo 1003 24 vo paxzeo:aiej ueuny yo Amwanxs {aan ay Jo she onstUa||PHY ay Mq UORsidap ays st purse ‘ss9] IN DUO ION “speuIUE Buray Jo samnBy 4q nq Sunpou arp uodn yu 2u10q aq 01 suvaddee peusoi ayn 41 paridap sey parydey se raydosd axp Jo Uuotsia atp UY sny,f, “Uao s1 Jo 3x1] EorN idsstAL Ep 22105 30 |Iny Os st BuIOq -ur-iou payfe> 2q isnt 2ouass9 ouasdns sty o7 UoRE[as UF YpIyas rey U9AD IA “[Jowayaning w1a5] joorsroo} sty st YseD ayp PUR VOID siy st VOALIEY :sM3z, jo amieys DastUD|IPF] & pur porydey 94 ‘uondeNUES pur vonE|P “punos8 pur a10] 01 sSuojpq weqpased ap o1ur y>eq soysnd Buy||ayDg sy ‘POM Jesmew ou jo a2npdiyasig aya se datos 01 jp 951E SE ey YAsTG 2yR “YANG 01 sped} uum ur wep uondasuos ip 01 speo|—Suraes> pur BurSu0| ‘ouisop 41 01 s0ud pue—Suryeursao] se ysnuiseut ‘axo] pue punos’ yoq “Butoq pur 9g-01 94 {nog 3s0y pjnom pom axp yo aoe[dyasiq axp “Ajqeumsozg ‘vorsuedxs pue wor -senuo> prog (apuakag sop) Buroq e pur siseq 4p se (uf) 2q-01 v yrog spuy duo por) Ut :sou2s24J1p [e>xSojoruo axp |Ie> 1yBIUI BuO ey ainrNsUOD $9905 ow asaup “Bunjpoypg 40g “purnoss jo |[1a0 axp Jo 29404 [e1adinuad ‘aanrenUoD ail pue ‘9x0 Jo |p1a% ayp Jo aar0y SuneyEp ‘aassuedxo oyp—aouasso ouratp dip aimmnsuoo wip $9210} pasoddo oss1 ayp aanpap 01 suif9q SumpjauDg “E YINAVUL dO SAIDOTOIO.L 07Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative 2 Niobe's children may in fact bea cryptic retelling of the battle of the Olympian godsagainst the seven Titans and Titanesses. In any case, Niobe’s children are images of anger and the night—joining an image of animated animality — which is precisely where Schelling himself will locate the birthplace of the natural world.!” Tobe sure, Schelling devotes himself to “the tender godhead, which in God himself is above God” (p. 21), and not to the God of wrath. This tender divinity he clearly associates with the expansive will of love, and he counter- poses it to the God of wrath who closesin on herself. I say “herself” because the age of wrath, the time of the night, will be identified with womankind and even with the mother. If God “herself” is shut off in such a night, closing in on “herself” and furious toward everything that might be external to her, wrath- ful toward every creature, she is alsoabgeschnitten, “cut off.” She hovers in the selfsame relation to her self that obtains between us and our own elevated past, which has been cut off from us. Matters of the divine birthplace are more complicated than castration and emasculation, however. Schelling refers to an “active occlusion, an engaged stepping back into the depths and into concealment,” a description that is reminiscent of the earth in Heidegger's Origin of the Work of Art. For Schelling such an occlusive force is also a force that suffers (Leiden). The foldingin upon itself or contraction of the essence is prelude to the expansiveness of love, yet it is unclear to Schelling whether love—the tender will—can ever leave behind its capacity for passion and passivity, pain and suffering. Everything about this “beginning” is obscure: “Darkness and occlusion make out the character of primal time. All life at first is night; it gives itself shape in the night. ‘Therefore the ancients called night the fecund mother of things; indeed, alongside Chaos, she wascalled the most ancient of essences” (p. 24). Iflight is taken to be superior to darkness, it is nonetheless true that the superior presupposes the inferior, rests on it and is upheld by it (trage snd emporhalte) (p. 25). Zeus’s pedestal, God’s footstool, on which Niobe and the Amazons 17. One should note here the importance of phrygian Niobe also for Friedrich Holderlin’s understanding of tragedy: in the Anmerkungen zur Antigond, Hélderlin identifies her as the “more aorgic realm,” the realm of savage, untamed nature, which (in the figure of Danaé in the fifth choral song of Antigone) counts or tic(k)s off the hours for the father of time, Zeus. Niobe, Melville would have said, stands where Una joins hands with Dua on the clock of “The Bell-Tower,” or, rather, where their loving clasp is severed. On Hilderlin’s Niobe, see Friedrich Hilderlin, Similiche Werke und Briefe, ed. Michael Knaupp (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1992), vol. 2, p. 372.“¢6 dae Sunuud | 1g1 sp jo {leq poss a4p ut (punsdu)) punosSuou x0 ssKqe axp 01 s49J>4 ospe Hun]PryPG wy HON, siaded auasosd aya ut paureauos sasayp ay2 40g punos3 Bunso1 wsoq aqp s19}j0—s9xom0y spauaumsop {juseiunjos—1xai edu pur jou {Jaaneps sip sdeyog “49 2x0upua Huo] axp ose 29g -9¢¢ "4 ‘g/1 (L98I “Sep, TNoy “5 :{:Fungssiny pueusefamg) dyu24 ayprouuupy wt “TENPOULG UOA UaYDYNoD ap 49qQ,, SuIPyPs “{ “A “A “SL Burp ds999 Jo aouasqe ayp ut, 1yBnoyp aq wouULs svapr yons :s|EeAaad Suyjqnop Jo pur Aypenbs jenuarstxa jo ajdioutad axp “snaps sije> uonIpen sno yor “ppm oup jo sofeun peustad ayp 01 sous a1 uay a4 “(67 “4) (uasamyaddogy 2) 20419889 a|qnop E198} UL st UDIStXD assy 9up1 Ased JoUDdns ‘poreaa|> axp UT ased souradns ‘payeaa]9 ‘on. ay Jo asu9s ou sey y>tys ‘98 qUaso4d sno Jo d>4pnfoud v dy!] 240u spunos wy UoNeIndusT Ue—s[eUNa} axp Jo ssouyeam oaneand au ueyp urEy9D $89] 9g WED Supou ‘Bunppseas st ay yoryan soy Zurwur9q oxp UL qwYp St T9AIMOY ‘ppo St IeY Ay JOY By} 01 Mog aun v Joy sNU DUO dy ‘os vosa ,‘9[eu axp) MEY J9>4em,, Kporndas st x9s apeunay ay YFnomppe pur “jog quON amp ueyp [jd onauiew syeam v su9xo aJog nog ay YsNowpye rey soou aff ,:Auenbo jenuarsira, ‘14421275 ajjanuatstea s1ayp 404 []e9 v ssanpUL soo10y 98941 INOGE UoISToput [eNUdSsa sFUM|FoYIS 29"P2~F GOR] 2yR UE 29 youondunsep uso siy pur ss9preg os zuesg sea ysnyas— Kuayduied oy o Ja1u99 a4p1 Woy pase|dstp utaq J0 940} Jo |].m aatsuedxa ayp 01 preardn uanesp Suraq st ay s9y.aya urEZa9 9g J9A9U MLD 2H] “29U!219s 40} [BO soUDdns Ou 2q ‘ur 21942 eM pasttauoD st ay asne9>q 2910] 2ANDeMIE SI! 02 JJPSUIY 289123 [44 ay pur Soqse9 axp yo wseaueyd ayp dq Aeawe adams [994 sKeaspe jpian SuUpoy>s :upns st | seo ayp,, Jo 2040) ayp st s94]se9 01 pasa9j94 J 1eY siUDLIN98s0I9 >Xp Joauo ‘poapuy soLradns sou st a2a{qo sat eip Avs 02 ppo sjaans st ased pazoaay> oy) UT at sypas pur oud oud pay SurwurBoq aup s¥90s wy roload v soy, (97—<7 dd) , Auouadns or uonepes asioaut ut spues Quon [ymusfurg] ssouspued uey saype> yaSuans ‘ssoupput ‘ueyp s94re9 softy ‘9a0] weyp so1se9 aq asnu Yer oor sNy.L,, :saUM 9y PLOAL 241 fo s08y 24,1 UJ , uoydassog Jo 21Seus yp or zy feutAd “]nyyesM Jo S108 yp parepps Kproqdxa ay “yang Jo ynsyytp os sea ypryan prog ay fo sa5yy 24, sty Jo (g[esepad zjoosi00)) unos Axa4 ay aptaosd pnom padoy Suyj]y>g IPIYAR , oesPOUES Jo saNIUTAI] aY_L,, PAPUA ‘C [gy ‘Z] 42qQo120 UO saIUIIg jo Auppery uvuearg ay o1 ssosppe sty uy ,"punosiuou, oyp ‘pursduy ay UE pales pey Suypyrg wopariy wownpy uo aueey 6ogl ya wt wp [essXqe 0s pur jeusnsou os punoss e—punosd axp surewios pur st ‘ears ploy VIWAVUL dO SAIDOTOdOL wTrauma, Forgetting, and Narrative 2B physical” (p. 31). The spiritual cannot be thought without its being bound up with “the first, most tender corporeality [mit der ersten, zartesten Leiblichkeit verbunden]”; the highest form of purity [Lauterkeit] takes on “the first qual ties of suffering /die ersten leidenden Bigenschafien]” (ibid.). “The spiritual and the corporeal find themselves to be the two sides of the same existence so early on that we may say that the present moment of their supreme intimacy [Innigkeit] is the communal birthplace of what later come to stand in decisive opposition to one another as matter and spirit” (p. 32). If these opposites were not twins, they could never partake of one another: “If there were no such point where the spiritual and the physical entirely interpenetrated, matter would not be capable of being elevated once again back into the spiritual, which is undeniably the case” (ibid.). Schelling begins to look for this “point of transfiguration” in which spirit and matter are one, and he believes he sees it in the very place where Novalis too, in his very last notes, saw it: spirit looms in the most dense and compact metals— gold, for example. For the density of, gold is soft to the touch: gold seems to have a skin, and its skin seems to have a smooth, almost oily texture. Gold has the sofiness, viscosity, and tenderness that is similar to flesh [die Weichheit und fleischihnliche Zartheit], which it combines with the greatest possible density and malleability [Gediegenheit] (p. 33). Not only Novalis but also Hegel praised the Gediegenheit of gold. Hegel too found it in the skin—specifically, in the skin of the black African.” The Golden Age is therefore an age in which matter and spirit—and presumably also female and male—are in perfect harmony. Schelling finds the principle at work in organic nature in particular. The ethereal oil that nourishes the green in plants, “the balsam of life, in which health has its origin,” makes the flesh and the eye of animals and human beings transpar- cently healthy. Health is a physical emanation (Schelling again uses the word Ausflu, which earlier described the expansive force of love) that irradiates everything pure, liberating, beneficent, and lovely. The most spiritual form of this radiance is what Schiller had identified as Anmuth, the grace, graceful- ness, and graciousness that transcend the merely charming. Yet no matter how transfigured or spiritualized the physical may seem to be in Anmuth, which may be related more than etymologically to Gemiith, the physical and corporeal is undeniably palpable in it: Anmuth astonishes us precisely because 19. See Krell, “The Bodies of Black Folk: Kant, Hegel, Du Bois, and Baldwin,” in Kevin Thomas Miles, ed., The Academy and Race: Toward a Philosophy of Political Action,Bop vayy (22102) sojquion Su1oq Suede pajjnd aq jpuav at ssv9j 2940) peiadunus> ay aeyp ‘paouatsodxa ose (2sun247, 698] $,Suyy]2y>s Jo psom Koy 94 sem y>ryan ‘Sunpioy2g poss 24p arrjsuen spsom (oq) suonesedas pur sasis9 Sueu Og ‘sed jeurtid 210u1|]ns e Aq paruney st—asuse (snoz, Jo) un uerdus4|Q atp pur (souos9 pue souvsng Aq poxeunuop) au stueH | ays Tpoq “umusoaryg s.O1e]q Jo PAu ax or Zurpsoose “ysrya Jo 1no—sovyy Jo oun jeourd ay udAg “(1p °d) Aayxue Jo Surppay axp st uonesuss Supuodsoss09 sy ~ * “92u9ss9 ‘uao si Jo $4019) 942 [fe SoouaTs2dxa 41 pry Ut sarseruEy ‘yy SoUUE SAE YBNOAYA ssed soiseauey pyiat ays Surxea axp Ut Uoos «ised axp Jo no Furu09} survasp aarssozddo uo ynoyp se spoosg 2ouDss9 uaIsIXo axp Dr yUo> Jo pousad snp Uy, -20u2sso ayp 1980q stuseIULYd pur suoIstA pyiar ‘auIN s1UISoD0103d ‘<[ppromaad snp Suunq. ,-sypuiq snonsuou,, jo ae ayy st sueny ay Jo aBe ayy, or) ome ine: Bayp sap] s0(8 01 yred ayn st 1—s01w91¢) ap O1 asata e Ydtan osfe Inq, ‘suing ueuuny oy aata © yas [UO Jou ‘Jes19ATUN St SULIAYNE, sOLEDID puL jumieai9 yioq—urous ysnuu sdeysad pue—uvous wes uasagy 2x04 ‘20U98s9 J[e Jo 20u98s9 ay, Zauasso you Ay “ured pur Buusoyns sv sJuo paouauisdxa dq, WED SOY) Y>Ns ‘oUDss9 ay Jo apt] 9UUT ay JO, “sy poxreu eq po|fodosd sjasuny spuy Suy]poyrs Ue A) (nayBuunmuapiyy 21sy29y ‘naug) wors|nass 40 AxwUD sWDIdns pure 2yuns Jo soypeas aze ased atp jo soyseas wsoyaey ay] “WOo|8 IEW UF aYedIoNIEd soappsuioyp aa0] pue aydry ‘p2apur—ano] pur Aysy Auids sure aamns 01 9829 20U s90p 1eIp WOO] Jo a]dioULAd v st 1941, “spuaistp uoIsuEdxa ‘sduses9 uonsenuoa :tpoq tam dn punog ase Suuayns pue ured ‘uonezsyemuds uoisuedxo puv ‘uounpoquia st uonsenuo? J] ‘Butsp Jo pury v se UdA2 pur “Sutsayns se dquo oxo] Jo 20405 2aneunsyye ‘peng uIU2> ayp s]a9y (uA2g) Zu19q Jeredinus. sog ‘umop Ava oyp uaa dn Avs ayy ysMoyp se st ay “aaneeU sty 0 JenUD> 210U! 49A9 owWoI>q AYLY pue FuUayns 4sed pareaa|> pur queastp 2xp 01 ‘sSuruuniog 241 01 ypeq adams st Suypyps sy ‘Buuayns su pur suorssed say “Aayperey six anoyLAs ou St 2y¥] NyO2I"AF pue ‘snore “nyraneoq 19K yse ainjosqy ayp pur ‘uorssasday ‘eure, -sBurog Suray] oo pue sagory pur suozewry or ueap ouv auratp auf wred so adjnos oyss sastue Kyas st aeya sdeysog “(-piqy 2198 arse ‘oqeys jeurtad sir ‘overs auIAEp su ur soko A498 ano a4ojoq new sBuLg,, a VWAVUL dO SAIDOTOIOL, tzTrauma, Forgetting, and Narrative 2B before the storm or a bomb before it explodes.”” The essence is anything but free. The lightning bolt of freedom, wielded by Zeus (or was it wielded by Prometheus the Titan? or by some essence earlier than both the Olympian and Titanic?), cannot be grasped. Spirit and consciousness suffer “a kind of madness,” and even ifitis the divine maniva described in Plato’s Phaedrus, the essence that suffers it does not fe! divine, Even if its tumult proves to be the origin of music and dance, the essence that suffers it feels like the helpless prey of voracious animals—perhaps the very animals Raphael painted as the sustaining ground of eternity. Among the most remarkable lines of the 181] printing, reminiscent here of Hegel’s remarks on “Bacchic tumult” in his analysis of “the religion of art” in the Phenomenology of Spirit" are the following: Not for nothing js it said that the chariot of Dionysos is drawn by lions, panthers, and tigers. For it was this wild tumult of inspiration, into which nature was plunged by the inner view into its essence, that was celebrated in the primeval cult of nature among intuitive peoples, with their drunken festivals of Bacchic orgies —as though thereby to lament the demise of the old and pure things of nature. Working against this tumult was the terrific pressure of the contractive force, that wheel turning crazily on itself in incipient birth, with the frightful forces of circular motion working from within, symbolized in that other terrifying display of primitive ritual custom, to wit, insensate, frenzied dancing, which accompanied the terri- fying procession of the mother of all things, seated on the chariot whose 20. In the second half of the 1811 printing (p. 61) Schelling concedes that Scheidung is never complete: there can never be an absolute rupture with the effects of the past. What the 1809 Treatise on Human Freedom had called die ewige giinaliche Scheidung is therefore still eternal but never total. Heidegger, of course, read the Treatise with considerable attention, What he apparently never read—even though Manfred Schroter was an admired colleague and friend —was The Ages of the World. (Lam grateful to Otto Poggeler for this last observation, In a personal communication, Poggeler asked me to speculate as to why Heidegger might have avoided Die Weltalter. Neither he nor Lame up with a telling answer, yet we suspected that there is something subversive about the latter text, subversive perhaps also of Heidegger's ‘own confidence in a Gewesenheit —a present perfect —that putatively enables him to appropriate the past for an “other” beginning.) 21. G.W.E, Hegel, Phinomenologie des Geistes, ed. Johannes Hofimeister, 6th ed (Hamburg: F. Meiner Verlag, 1952), p. 504.:ppoys aqp Jo atuos quosqe o1 S318 ay os pur auids yum Aujerpsounsdinbs on sonew jo uoneaap iazedde stip 6q p23P0ys 2q []!a1 szopead sty Jo AUEUE EY smoUy Fur|Jay>g “oNOUE UT ANeIq 10 ssoujnjooea jo20es8 y1—aaes3 yur porennouadsoqut sonew pur astds vaya SuruurSoq atp Jo Sururog aq wr uiod aanesnSysuen wep ys op 01 sey issy ay, suerdurs]o axp Jo uBtos 94 arMaNsur o1 sops0 UL SUE | s9"Po a4 pareazop Davy J9A0U pfnom sn9z, 1ySisas0y pur ssounyes> asoyss InOWPUAN WILL, 2qp —snoypauiosg ‘ s,Fuypayog wos, “umop sourtyouros ‘dn soumauios siurod —sn sjf>1 sipeoneqdwo vuping ouruiny jo Buos Suruado ay se—oaunio} Jo jaayan Suruurds sep reap st urens99 s1aey Ay “Y20q 40 “[eRNyLNIUaD 4o peradiniua9 st suasasdas at 29304 4p saxon anoge pasnyuo> a1v ss9peD3 sty pur Suyjaysg qog ‘suns at se Ssumaeu jo 20404 SuIU|yAI9A0 oy sqUdsosdos ‘(69-89 “dd) Sunuisd 11g] 241 Jo Jey puosds ay UL ospe possnosip ,“yAIIq Jo pays Suruurds ay,1,, (Cpiqy g1PSu Aq j]e ‘Quope areas snoryD styp Ysnosy Keay su aySiy asnur at ‘ssautfouo] BuLyusay sy ur 22uass9 jeurtsd ayp asisse ue Sunpou 2a4,, ‘spo op os pue “yung we syoue auo diay sSurq uewnFy “209859 JO YG yp 2e sIstsse DUO ON, “(g¢4 “d) , somes TULTEALNxD Jo JoquINU 21qip2s2u1_ue Jaye uod-Suruu1aq wp oy Suwmas pur au0y Supunoj v wiosj oanasedap sit SuP{e1 ‘91249 e Jo sisisuo9 aouass9 21NUD sit 40,4 “ORDO su pur aimveu jeaauunsd rey jo a8eunt ue apraoad ue ouoye o\snuut Jo ae ay sny_p ‘Aayeasodio pue Ayjemids uaaaiog 2f@Znzas wy Ut ffpjos a1eursts0 01 seaddv auo1 pur punos 104, :2Isnu 0} ysig ani eY 02 soLd “pia s4N> (teat 40) yaa15 Jo aBeaes sou ay paws y9015 01 YastG IAI JU ISN Soypszi9IN Joy ore] J] soya Burzs2p94 svar Fuyfoyrs y>yar o2 “ured pue Supaynss syp¥ autAtp ay noge s1yads oun Funpowos wso8ns *Kq sone 289 uozesq J9Y sv JOPOPY 0945 94p1 Jo onyeas ayp asurEe suLHIO posdArs sor mostp1 0} toyp asmnbos yatyan ‘sonts Surdyts499 s19y J “29u98s9 Joaytays s9UUT aU, 2ouep ‘suepuadsep iueasip ase soystasog Sunpry ay 241 Yrs Jo ‘aULGKJOyy 24, JS 22U2889 Jo UoIssN>sIp e Jo Ix91UO9 ay UE sINIDO UOISNITE aXp 2194 ‘cydosoptyd pur aouaros sarejanur mds spog-puru su yaias yoryan “Kydosoyryd uejsause3 us9pou soy [>ypesed v se Gog] UI FUrJoy>g paa.ds uoNE|NIseUID-J]98 JO SOUL OUP svasoy yy "wopI%4g UPuanp] UO ast4D24], 698] YA UL MOE UL PEY ay YY “Su2UEP onuEGQ&oY ay Jo Surunp aqnop ou st Suypysg “Suneiseagp ued ut ‘snouddy aed ut ‘orsnur pouyyasun ue jo asiou Suruayeap 242 yaL pepunosas spaym uozeaq, VANAVUL dO SAIDOTOdO.L 9Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative n By the bye, what isit about matter that most people consider an insult, such that they would grant it an inferior provenance? In the end it is only the humility [Demuth] of matter that so repels them. Yet precisely this release- ment (Gelassenheit] in the essence of matter shows that something of the primeval essence dwells init, something that inwardly is purest spirituality and yet outwardly is complete passionateness [Leidenheit]. As highly as we honor the capacity for action [Aktwositat], we nevertheless doubt that in itself itis supreme. For even though the essence out of which God himself emerges glistens with purity, such glistening can only stream outward, can achieve no effects. On all sides, gentle suffering and conceiving seem to be prior to the achieving and the active. For many reasons, I do not doubt that in organic nature the female sex is there before the male, and that in part at least this accounts for the presumed sexlessness of the lowest levels of plant and animal life. (pp. 46-47) Many will find Schelling’s association of women with suffering, passivity, and the lowest levels of life as troubling as they find women’s association with wrath reassuring —or at least refreshing. Yet I may be at fault for translating Leiden too quickly as “suffering”: it is the root of Leidenschaft, “passion,” so that the “passivity” of releasement (Gelassenheit) may be something quite animated and vital. Indeed, as we shall now see, Schelling wishes to upset the usual ways we think of activity and passivity. Let us not underestimate the impact of Schelling’s words: here the traditional metaphysical priority of activity over passivity falls away. For Schelling, Meister Eckhart’s release- ment prevails over the “actuosity” that our tradition has always preferred — and which it has always identified with the logos and with the masculine.” Schelling coins a new word or two here, the most telling one being Leidenheit, the quality of suffering, or the capacity to undergo passion. True, he celebrates passio and identifies it with the principle of matter. He does not break with the traditional association of materia with the mother, or the mother with woman, or woman with sensuality and sexuality, but he does break with the long- 22. Itisimportant to note, however, that Gelassenheitin Schelling’stext sometimes, has consequences that would pethaps have surprised Eckhart, or atleast driven him to his own most radical conclusions. For one of the things that Schelling eventually feels compelled to let go and release is God. Schelling concludes the second of two “preliminary projections” of the Weltalter by asserting that “to leave God is also Gelassenheit” (p. 200).“(e661 271 SUEG) MOLY Sepusog sonboe{ 99s ‘aoejd asiy o4p ur zo “hypeutg “(6661 ‘S824q Aussoatup) eURIPUL IN] ‘UorBuruoo|g) snaruty song ur Furuuiog uC :ASopouonyy ‘sypes WYyO{ ose 398 (Z661 54d ANAS AN ‘Sueqy) Apog uownpy 241 pun ‘ou ‘ands fo soisorsogy aumpanypiy Kui Jo zadetp asay ayp 92g ,Sunwios9q Jo asanu pu s9ypowW sup, ‘Pv0y ‘ep Jo a>uouttUD 4p Uo a>uaIsISUE arse §,>nkoperp axp Jo ayy axp ut 2rwo2 se swadde Aquo ura rey sour] ‘onSojeyp aup yo sour jeuy axp ur fJuo ,puosds sow0>, ULUIOM snap] Wi wey aux papurutas syjeg UYo{ “vontstuNUUCD ;euosiad v UY “EZ -ssassod su ‘{jaureu ‘unyp 2u0 ydooxo 21nqe939 94) 01 poreatunuuo> 2q WD Sunprdsaag “Ayjouraa sommeas9 wo4y Jpsusty sovesedas—uonuorut ap sem Appuns yprgas‘soameaso yuan Surxn Jo peaisu ‘pop ysryan &q ajdiouud ay sia sisisqns Aoretpaumur 20u9ss9 qoBiy]a1U! Ue Y>ryas sq Sousrod jeu a~P Jo be areUIN]N 9yp1 se paumTydxd st ANpeUOSIad eID Kydosopryd feuonIpeN Jjoasensuey yp uy ‘poo Jo Aarjeuosiod 9xp st [soamieaa9 sjadau aeep 9{dtoutsd aya 9"t] ajdiourad siya veep a8 payaouypoe on Asessaoau snp st ay “eas SuiBans aap da0ge SYED 2yp 01 SButog ueUIY soAo] OYA ‘SayouIOIE 49ND} OYA asoup se paoidap ase ‘sn9z, Jo stueasas ayp ‘22u2[01, pur 20404 ‘Aposen Jo ssousno19s ySty ay UI poo uF YpSuans sadoad axp st aeyp ajdioutad 2yp ‘époameaso aup sipdax veyp ajdiouuid & ose st ax9yp sny.y “uoreuosjuOD sisisou aeip Sumpowios “Gyemoe isay oy us peuoLesaT SuRpIWIOS st 2494, 1, sBursudins st omsue s Suypaypg creya 404 ey 01 VEYA 4q punog ‘punog snayroWOSg ‘snjAypsay Jo snaypwosg ayp si pur ur sey Suypysg wy) snayruiosg ay 1A samod pue “y84 “qpSuans sue ryAs Jo anAsIA Aq qwowraseajas v ‘osmeu areuorssed e ‘Aaraissed apuad x, s]asuuny,, 403 S2Aanype LOY, Udy f[UO SYP aratyse uRD ,9y,, PUY “saxo dAaIyDE UE ay [UN ued aya ut ysey vst ‘paXoyfeun pueaueipes ‘pop Surpjseds e uang ,, Supuusoq ayp Jo SuumBaq oxp se ‘BuruuiBaq ayy we ‘Burwurgq aya wi—asy soos x98 9]Pway ay IeYA sISAHENs oy uIyAR snapMA, s.ore]g Jo UORpEN Furpuers aSessed Aue se opruaiun se suraas yor “uvayauodg atp ‘asessed [euy 2 VIAVUL dO SAIDOTOdO.L 87Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative 29 ing in itself the immortal ground of life, that is, its being itself, that is, its being by and on the basis of itself. [p. 52] Would such incommunicability and lack of generosity be unworthy of God? Not atall, says Schelling, if it were essential to his being. Yet both Zeus and Yahweh turn to violence in order to repress that past in which they were the very woman they loved, or in which they were unable to make the distinction between themselves and Demeter. Whether the Christological story —which is always the story of fathers and sons—can help us toconfront the mother and mortality is to be doubted. The only rescue for us groundless, orphaned mortals, Schelling suggests, is pantheism—beyond both idealism and realism, and also beyond dualism. For pantheism, which is the oldest of the old stories, embraces every form of life, whether divine or creaturely. The problem is that the narratives of pantheism have been banished by more recent history, so that the all-encompassing unity of life that pantheism celebrates lies beyond our reach. Precisely this system of the primal time, writes Schelling (and here the first half of the 1811 printing ends), “comes to be increasingly repressed by subsequent ages [durch die folgende Zeit immer mehr verdrungen] and posited as past [und als Vergangenheit gesetst werden soll)” (p. 53). Why pursue the repressed past? In order to discover a living divinity who will not keep her distance from mortals, who will not accept violence, and who will embrace the mortals as the children to whom she gave birth. What would it take for such a God to embrace her children? She would have to overcome the trauma, the shock, and the suffering that initially caused her to cut herself off from her children, She would have to accept the full implic: tions of what Schelling in the second half of the 1811 printing calls Zew- gungslust, the desire to procreate, asthe only possible form of Creation and the only possible form of divine life. The castration and emasculation suffered by her male worshipers is therefore not an imitatio matris, inasmuch as her sex is not elaborated by a cut. It is elaborated as an unfolding and infolding— Entwicklung and Einwicklung being two of Schelling’s favorite words for the expansive and contractive forces at work in her. Yet neither will it do to cry Veni, veni creator spiritus and then dream endlessly of das ewige Weibliche— recapitulating from beginning to end and back again Mahler's glorious Eighth Symphony, the “Symphony of a Thousand.” For the sobering fate of the Amazons and of Niobe’s children—seven males, seven females—is portrayed on the pedestal of divinity. When God learns of his femininity as well as her masculinity, when God learns longing, he and she alike will learn‘spo ayp or jens aq 01 Hutatns puy ploquaao Susooycy ‘sped jeuow Suistdsaqq uatp Ajuo “uaavay Jo 21g tp p>xPopy souo jngouds ap 1p plo ULZPIOH ‘Poysinaury pur pouoy ay woyas 40y sper! 1940 ssapUNOD ayy pue ‘geurq ‘edosng ‘9jausag ‘eaxpy ‘oJ ‘aqoIN Woy auEastp sty do2% you pino> sn97, Ayan aroun UTsapIOH] Wed sty 104 “yaNo< s19xp Jo sep axp 991s soe Yons 0 poumne w22q pey “uIPoPIQF] PUDH sty PLN Suope “Buypyrs “uoW pur Ut [eOUE 0;—sjeLZOUL 01 spo8 ayp Aq uayeD ATE -rQunI 9p siunoIo1 UOREDs. “290 18 feTNyLUa> pur ferrdistus9 ‘oaness901d sf voneo45 “uonvos9 jsut st uonea:9 uno 2AneUEN ¢kfpanesou ue soypes Kjpaneursyye Ayssadau yeep nog pres aq wed wyad 9A “9]e2 axp oa dn 9q oy was 10u sop Kesoy jeonda]eIp uno Sux pue—sonoo[eIp [fe PUOxaq sfteAasd eyp Ausssaoau S12] “2]qRy 40 wes Jo Bununo294 10 2aneueU Jo algo UE Ase. UMouy 94p SoyeU UP AaIss929U 94p ‘KjauEU SsNosIp 01 Ino Y9s Jaded StI YOR -sanb aya inoge 2194 ples u29q sey—|[e 1e Sunpou ‘paopur—y8nous10N “uous 2p igup we Js st yaya SaneszeM e‘ 2A0] ey sUsLD] Pos UDy.A\ “UoISsed Jo ued v st BurysinBury yey VWAVUL dO SAIDOTOIO.L 0€Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative 31 But they have enough of their own Immortality, the gods, and if they need One thing, the celestial ones, Then it is heroes and human beings And whatever else is mortal. For if The most blessed ones of themselves feel nothing, Then it must be, if to say such a thing Isallowed, that in the name of the gods Another feels for them, takes their part; They need him.** One should remember, however, that the last words of this poem recall the feverish days and nights of the present time, to which our lives seem to be fettered. Weare chained toa hectic and forgetful time. Trauma and forgetting seem to accompany us every step of the way, and are the troubling themes of our very best narratives. The present in which we tell these stories to one another is itself a Chaos, linked by both its repressed memories of suffering and its longing for a caress to the remote past and a distant future. Ours is thus an inevitably traumatized present: when everything is mixed, Is without order, and all that recurs is Primeval confusion. 24. Holderlin, Sammiliche Werke und Briefe, vol. 1, pp. 342-348, lines 46-51, 96-114, and, for the lines appearing below, 219-2212 Interminable AIDS William Haver For the blinding sight ofthe deep flash when the living goes to dead—the very transformation of Sodom and Gomorrah into the past tense of total annihila- tion —was precisely “history,” now; her history-now; exactly her memory, and, as such, it set the boundary over which she could not possibly leap. —Sue Golding, “The Address Book” Undoubtedly there are innumerable forms the aspiration to “transcendence” can assume when itis a question of AIDS. Who among all those who are HIV positive or living with AIDS would be nothing but the fact of his or her seropositivity? Who would willingly de AIDS, nothing but AIDS? Who would not for an afternoon, an evening, a week, for all eternity, willingly be also something other than a victim or patient, something other than afflic- tion? Who does not resist the reduction to being nothing but AIDS? This resistance toa reductive identification as and with AIDS might be construed to manifest an aspiration to transcend the matter of AIDS. Yet this aspiration to transcendence, if “transcendence” it be, should not be conflated with other, more problematic, claims to having (nearly) overcome or (almost) passed beyond all that is precipitated in this acronym, “AIDS.” Itis with these other, more problematic, claims that this essay is concerned. The claim that we have DS, the claim that ours is soon to be no longer the time of AIDS (not only that the era of AIDSis drawing to a close, but that time itself is no longer “of AIDS,” that temporality (nearly) overcome or (almost) surpassed what is called 4 B4 TOPOLOGIES OF TRAUMA and finitude no longer belong to AIDS as its “ownmost”), has taken two principal forms in recent years. We are first of all asked to imagine the imminent possibility of a cure; second, we are invited to surrender to the seduction of believing that the pandemic has been, or is shortly to be, effec- tively contained. Both seductions offer the relief of a virtually soteriological transcendence; both depend upon the resolute conviction that AIDS is noth- ing but the virological object the terms “HIV” and “AIDS” are said to denominate. The apparent provisionally successful but nonetheless dramatic and en- couraging reduction in viral load in the bloodstream in some cases within certain protocols of combination antiretroviral therapies (including nucleo- side reverse transcriptase inhibitors [nucleoside analogues}, protease inhibi- tors, and nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors) have recently led some, less cautious than most scientists and medical practitioners, to speak in terms of a “cure”;indeed, of the “end of AIDS.”! Certainly there is ittle doubt that combination antiretroviral therapies hold out more promise than did AZT treatments, and may in fact herald something of what is called a breakthrough. Bur it is nonetheless precipitous, even scientifically irrespon- sible, to speak of a cure. Nevertheless, this talk of a cure has had a number of proximate effects, effects that only serve to reinforce and legitimate the exercise of what Catherine Waldby (following Michel Foucault, Donna Har- away, Linda Singer, and others) is among the most recent thinkers to analyze 1. See, for example, Andrew Sullivan, “When Plagues End: Notes on the Twi- light of an Epidemic,” New York Times Magazine, (10 November 1996), pp. 52-82, 16~77, 84; rpt. in The Independent, 16 February 1997. For more or less immediate responses to the positions Sullivan represents, see, for example, Dan Savage's sarcastic reply, “The AIDS Crisis Is Over —for Me: Why I Think It's Time for New Attitudes About Risk, Charity, and Letting Go,” The Village Voice 42, no. 8 (25 February 1997); pp. 34~39; Edward King, “A Cure for Over-Optimism,” Positive Nation 16 (March 1997): pp. 6-7. For an example of the far more cautious and circumspect position of medical scientific researchers, see Jon Cohen’s brief report on the fourth “Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections,” held 22-26 January 1997 in Washing- ton, D.C, in “Advances Painted in Shades of Gray at a D.C. Conference,” Science 275 G1 January 1997): pp. 615-616. The most pertinent consideration of discourses of the “cure,” although it dates from the period when AZT was the great white biochemical hope, is undoubtedly still John Nguyet Erni, Unstable Frontiers: Technomedicine and the Cultural Politics of “Curing” AIDS (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1994),Interminable AIDS 35 as “biopower” in the pandemic.’ Even at this early date, there is considerable anecdotal evidence to suggest that increasing numbers of physicians, formally or informally, willingly or regretfully, are excluding a certain number of potential candidates for combination antiretroviral therapies from the proto- cols. Because HIV is among the genetically volatile viruses,’ the medications for the protocols must be administered according toa strict schedule in order to prevent HIV from mutating to a strain resistant to the medications, and consequently to prevent the resistant strain from being transmitted to a new host; the danger is thus that the “cure” would in fact refire yet one more of multiple AIDS pandemics. The physician must decide who among various candidates is sufficiently “responsible” to sustain the medication timetable and sufficiently disciplined to prevent further transmission. Clearly, like it or not, we—physicians, candidates for treatment, and bystanders alike—are caught up in the exercise of biopower. What is important here is that all this renders the notion of a “cure,” even in the instances of the most efficacious treatment, essentially ambiguous. One might point to other, no less problem- atic, proximate effects ofthis talk ofa cure —for example the Labour proposal in the United Kingdom to cut off government support from people living AIDS whose viral load drops below a certain point; or the fear, expressed in the popular gay press and elsewhere, that the prospect of a cure will lull those at risk for HIV infection intoa false sense of security, a fear that leads in some instances to a thoroughly authoritarian moralism.' My pointin offering these disparate, even contradictory, examples of responses to the prospect of an imminent “cure,” is that whatever is being said to be (almost) cured here, it most assuredly is not “AIDS.” Were we not careful or suspicious, we might alternatively give in to the seduction of imagining the “end of AIDS” as an effective containment of the with 2. Catherine Waldby, AIDS and the Body Politi: Biomedicine and Sexual Difference (London: Routledge, 1996). 3. John Holland, “Replication Error, Quasispecies Populations, and Extreme Evolution Rates of RNA Viruses,” in Stephen S. Morse, ed., Emerging Viruses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 203. 4. A recentcover story in The Advocate entitled “The return of bad habits” warns on the front cover that “Sex, drugs, and bathhouses are back . . . A new bio of gay icon Brad Davis reminds us of the dead end we fae—Bad Brad.” See David Heitz, “Men Behaving Badly,” John Gallagher, “Slipping Up,” and Robert L. Pela, “Our Man Brad,” in The Advocate 737 (8 July 1997), pp. 26-29, 33-35, and 34-38, respec- tively0L-L6 8 71 puog 2y8 w SCV “spo ‘ejowuese |, pur wue, uy, tuppurg SCTV/ATH Suiajoag 94.1, “Ao|4zog reg pue stu, °D 2mGg *7 68-1 Peo 242 w SIV “p> “eporuesey, pur uueyy ut susoneg Supciyy penxag pur AIH Jo peauds ay 1, ‘uosspuy “Ww Soy “9 “S8I~ZL1 odd “(9661 ‘stg Autss9atug ps0xx( 240K MON) sasuodsay pu so0y poD0g ‘suonsuauecy 19019 IE PHO. 248 48 SCI “sp> “eoueIeL “WW “{ rue PuE UNEP, "Wy UEWPEUOL ut ‘stssustoyieg pue vorssiusuesy ur Anauasosmazy ATH,, ‘Aao] “y def 22g 6 aeyan weyp ponae sey ‘9[durexa sj ‘uosiopuy “Wy Soy “soaesn 1URSI U2] -nuta AjButseos2ur pue) Suussmar ur parsayruew st nwapued ap wey pondse. 2avy sistSojorwropido yo soquanu e reyp suoseas asaya soy used ULstatpuodag WSATY,, tuXu0338 ay Aq pareuisap Supdsoaa yo ann aq 10u paau ,uonejndod,, 2u0 ut 22uapiout posvasz9p & axt] Yoo] eur aya ‘aJoys aya Jo souass9 ayp ssosdxo 40 ‘40y puras 02 pres aq ue ed ou uayp ‘Arenun wey saypes adaynus sioodse permuass9 2so4p ase9] 18 UF s1 ey UoUDWIOUDYd v soIeUTISOp ,GCIV,, 22094 pur ,*ATH,, JL_soturapued opis 4q apis, (fe Sop 9g Tog pur soBIUD4 “5 2onIg Iey~N yl pase ore am aeyp ,ousodusos,, 1904 ut st orwopued SCY ayp Ip sueaut ogy ang (Kjjenuasse sdeqzod) autoea aansaye Aqpessaatun e dojsaop 01 su0y> soiworjduos 40 ‘1HG]}H8 A[parqnopun sase> auios ut ‘soues0UBt ue uodn spuadop 11 ‘ssoyd -vour Areuprus Suipeojstur AJasnus ut paysno> rou st jarjay sty wy udAzT “vous 2g uo 1eyp seat e St 9494 poafoauT SL eyA IEP UONLOIpUT Ue se aseaq Ie 40 ‘vom Sug st .SCTY Yo sean, 24 TEU Jays a1] Sumspowos yum poro94 ua9q avy Sururpop st (eouaWY YUON UF suoIs!9AtOI0I95 mau pariodas Jo 1aquinu ayp ase9|1t 40) sdnos8 auios Suoue gq] Jo 29u9pou! yp Ip susodas iUad03 ‘parstpasd usaq aouo pry se fpides se uorreyndod jesouo8,, po|pe>-os (auyan ‘y8tens) ayp o1uy suorsimout 9pew rou sey gC]TY 2sneD9q sdeysog ‘srwopued VINAVUL AO y1OdOL. ofInterminable AIDS 37 now looks like the declining phase of a classically conceived epidemic (such as bubonic plague or influenza) is not the “beginning of the end,” but a “trough” between successive “waves,” and that we must expect the overall duration of the epidemic (before it recedes into merely endemic status) to be “many decades.”* Thus, the Global AIDS Policy Coalition notes that we are in a brief respite between the first wave anda larger second wave. They estimate that by 1990 some 10 million people were infected worldwide; by January 1996, some 30.6 million were infected (of whom 28 million live in the “developing world”), and estimate that by 2000, between 60 and 70 million people will be infected (of whom fully half of all infected adults will be in Southeast Asia). And this, they argue, is but “the lull before the storm” They note, as have many other observers, that the pandemic will continue to exact its heaviest toll among the world’s dispossessed, becoming increasingly focused, as Ronald ved groups.""° Itisonly by regarding the dispossessed or the “socially marginalized” as utterly expendable that it is at all possible to imagine an imminent end of AIDS. Were weto ignore the empirical evidence that there is neither a cure nor an end to the pandemic and imagine that at some definite but unspecified point we shall have gotten beyond all that of which the heterogeneous strains of HIV and its multiple epidemics are the occasion, we would not have pre- sumed that nothing has changed, perhaps, but we would not yet have thought seriously and rigorously that everything has changed; we would have thought “AIDS” asa past, but not as our future, least of all as our present, not even as past present in our future and in our present. But insofar as “AIDS” signifies, and has always signified, far more than an empirically determinable “virus” and its effects, we can no more imagine a world after the end of AIDS than we can any longer recall a world before the advent of AIDS (for we can only imagine the fact that there wasa world before AIDS, not that world “itself"). This is not merely to say that AIDS might be construed as what is called an “event,” but that even as such it opens upon radically altered material condi- tions of possibility for the existence of our species. For “AIDS” is, among Bayer argues, on “socially marginal 8. Roy M. Anderson, “The Spread of HIV and Sexual Mixing Patterns,” in Mann and Taranté \s., AIDS in the World Ii, pp. 71-86. 9. The Global AIDS Policy Coalition, “Global Overview: A Powerful HIV/ AIDS Pandemic,” in Mann and Tarantola, eds., AIDS in the World IT, pp. 5-40. 10. Ronald Bayer, “Societal and Political Impact of HIV/AIDS,” in Mann and Tarantola, eds., AIDS in the World II, pp. 117-128.+d “PqL “EL gd scorn SuaBiowsy “po S810 py ut “wounaduioy Areuonnyoagy pur stsoiqundg sepnjpoenuy :puryueumpy pur sasnata,, “Broqsopo] enysof “z] “2-617 dd ,uonnjoag pidey ut synsoy une, snurronoy jo a1ey YIP aU, “UIWUD | "y preMOFY spe 298 ‘StuNJoA dures a4 UTZ |Z -d ‘cosmayy SurSaouigy “po ‘2810 vt,” * * 104g uoneDrdoy,, ‘puEl|oH] UYOL “| ayp soieas9 woarssooo atp ut uonezaype Aue ‘Kpuanbosuo> pue ‘puorg “(paysyduioose st stsorqusds 210j0q ‘0s Ajsvou 40 HoUNX? owHOI9q UeD sompads soy v IeYR st ‘seopp soyeun sista euIOXAU pur sugges UETEASNY o4p Jo 2[durexd snowy ayp se ‘twajqosd atp issoy sir ypia stsorquids o1wopua Ajareun]N pur uoR -njoazos sit a10j2:91p pur) SurSu09q-09 su yEN-Buroq sie Wosy UOHENUaNE sit ut ‘ovy ayp saye Afuo ware st yons se stata ayy, “Gatansalgo sir surene ar aa0yoq uonepps v [fe Jo assy st Zurep ayp weyp skes sata, sonaq cuone|ar v soop 11 se , Sump, & (quo .0U sea] 1e 40) Yau os OU souTeY star, WHI ax foxoydsorg atp jo ,Sueys, sno ured ut a1 asm ‘sasnata pi axoydsonq ap .aueys,, Sp2ur 10U Op 2A\ “J[PSI! HEWA|ZUEAUD I~ Dey UF xe, Koy ‘sisoy stotp Jo soayy 242 ur dn aysine> auu0>0q 01 (Kypeawaprode pur) spuanbesqns {quo *(ajdurexo 404 ‘Ksoresoge| ¥) Ausnd jeotojoauo [esta jo pury owos ut “aajoaa pure aaeordas |Je Jo ase] sIx9 10U op sasnat ¢,,,I80y [ve] Jo GouTy>eUL ayoqeisu pue snousH oy ypiat iuotHa|SuEIUD peUaUEPUNy si st snara [e] jo aotiassa (aaa ayp, ‘(20a8e plnow sisiBojosia yo Jaquinu Xue pur) surrvureur Braquap] se sity “suontUFO224 so14d om Uodn spuadap Aayjqyssod sty 1 zw Spiuanb -a4y aaa so Ajaunnos suoddey rey 01 pauyuoo Apuesso20U OU “Sy aU usea] 01 sasnstA 10} 2SIXO UONEUEA snouaT Jo so2snN0s UEpUNgY “WHesdOsd {ueuonnjoas pourepsoasd & you st sapads ueumny 21p Jo [earasns ayfa],, “(Aat -iqissod sitp punose paresoytjoxd sey ,uonoy 29u9!98, poyfeD st weya Jo 23098 aanuo ue pur) ses Ss9qs9p2"] enyso{ se ‘pospuy “eidomn ‘snoiqusds Kpp>2y30d ase] 18 40 ‘pareuruIeuodap v 9q pIno> aimany ay IBY AON ano 4BSt, SCT, ayEGeqosd wip s4es . SCY, 4; 22MIN 9yP UE sotuspued Bunerserap 240u! 40 éjpenb> {Jo orseao0 4p 9q FM sosnuta S18 z9Ww9 aip Huot ss9_po reyp (a|qeroxposdun 1nq) ayqeqosd st ar aeep soaejmaods “ojdurexo 404 ‘pueyopy yo "sep amp st Aes ov atst|je Jo 1sv2"] ‘vouswiousyd paruapazasdun djjesifojomna vst ATH wy sou ‘sosnata Sur8 s9w9 a4p Jo 1814 94p St ATH Weep supra Aes o7 st styLT,"S9snaTA SuiBsowa, pares {peanda|joo axe wy 40} AwKuoraus v “KpuREL—D asjo Yon VINAVUL JO SAINOTOOL 8EInterminable AIDS 39, possibility for the emergence of an apparently “new” virus.'" Speaking of hemorrhagic fevers rather than AIDS, Karl M. Johnson puts it succinctly: “[Mlost of the ‘new’ hemorrhagic fevers emerged only because of large and often still accelerating ecologic changes made by a burgeoning Homo sapiens. . . . {T]hese hemorrhagic fevers foretold that our earth is, in fact, a progressively immunocompromised ecosystem.” So this, too, is what “AIDS” says: that what we had taken to be a more or less stable ecosystem, biosphere, or even a “world,” is henceforth essentially —that is, irreparably — damaged; that we cannot anticipate a world after “AIDS,” a world restored perhaps not to a pristine luminescence, but at least to a sustainable, albeit negotiable, ontoecological coherence. Just as we cannot responsibly look forward to anything like a cure for AIDS or a vaccine against HIV, so too, having failed to vaccinate the world in an ecological prophylaxis against the emerging viruses, we cannot cure the world of its consequent viral instability. From this perspective, if we could still talk of perspective from within the disruption of perspective altogether, we might conceive the advent of AIDS and the other emerging viruses to be an event, epochal in the strong sense of the term, that exposes our ontoccological extremity. Yet at the same time we would have to think this extremity as also something other than historical, or even epochal event. In a meditation as remarkable for its modesty as for its insight, Jan Zita Grover demonstrates, first, that it would be but nostalgic fantasy to suppose that a time “before AIDS” was one of ontoecological coherence and stability, that there was once upon a time an ecosystem not always already immunocompromised, an undamaged biosphere; second, and concomitantly, that being is, precisely, damage as such.'° Being does not— somehow—precede the wounding that it in fact is. It is not that there are 14. Thomas E. Lovejoy discusses various ecological factors in the emergence of “new” viruses in “Global Change and Epidemiology: Nasty Synergies,” in Morse, ed., Emerging Viruses, pp. 261-268. There exists a considerable literature, rather less sober in its considerations than Lovejoy’s in that it tends to conceive outbreaks of hemor- thagic fevers (such as Ebola River virus) and AIDS as nature's revenge on the human species for ecological insults. See, for example, Frank Ryan, M.D., Virus X: Tracking the New Killer Plagues—Out of the Present and into the Future (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1997). 15. Karl M. Johnson, “Emerging Viruses in Context: An Overview of Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers,” in Morse, ed., Emerging Viruses, p.55. 16. Jan Zita Grover, North Enough: AIDS and Other Clear-Cuts (Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 1997).19661 ‘ANSIOAIUP) HOA :o1NOIOL “SaIpmag jeTaUTUOS “rau Ut sisatp suaiseyy ,'29nDe1g IyAUDHG [eoIpay, UE SULBLG Jo YoUsINg) axp puE SIV 2suodsay jo suza]qoug,, So1esoug PeyPHY wosz sow pauses} 2avy [ey a0 Aqduurs ows 19°] 2294 2Iqssod aq pfnom suorsuaunp Furw}>ys19A0 Jo aU Y “Z| aeqp 198 94 ‘oREIMeS ainjosqe Inq “(astMUeYLO 40 IHNBVULI>y) UozZLIOY Aforour u2ao sou ‘Butfpo so s9psoq & Aqasaur 1OU :puNoNNs ¥ soMmsUO snip SIV “WouUMo su st SCTY JO LYM 02 Suopq om wp ‘say 01 Suojaq om 2eyp ‘oannsed axp yo 2930} [Ing 2ep ep “SCT Jo axe 90 zetp sueous snp yo pe :2snsodxo 2yqerpauo.it we jo Aimaannxe atp se 1yBnoyp 9q YLz0}ou9y asnur Su1oq aeyp $St osfe ssopyoaau a wey AzorsTy ay Ing-SuRoU su4099q doaau ued ‘210]93911 ‘SIV 1p ‘orenbapeur sqpeAUasse st yons sv ads2u09 dup y>tyas 01 sos492 ajqeyNsolgoun we ospe anq ‘olqo [eo1FojouRrsid> ue {quo 104 sarousp sKeanye STV 2Yp (MoU SN aAe5 te pos e U9A2 104) HoRAyeS 40 uondurapas jo 20uasqe A494 ap stieyA Pom vO sn saresDasuOD STV Wey ‘ous0q 2Aey 20v0 1ytur a ‘sIedsap 40 adoy s>yp19 Jo asin oxp UE ‘suORE|osUOD sanareyjan Jo Sauanany Jo d22u09 Au94 oy parenseaa aus uo] sey SCV, pajqe2 st ey ‘ssoypua Suroq aeip ‘Suruwu1aq moypem soye 4949103 st ‘pos s9W> Suraey ‘pur pafsou ¢cqly “(cABojouonyp veya jo astias amp aq ayBtU ey Inq ‘paosSe ase sueuoisty sno of ssvak Aiuama Kppsou ‘snuopun Ajas9Uu si GTY ays UU F 01 pAeA40} yoo] 1ouue> am “yuo, ‘pur (passassodsip , poztfeurSseut sje10s,, 4p Suowre ino j[sit Gurung 21wapued ayp Uo 1uNoD OULD 246 ‘St WEA) Yons se IUIpUEd a4 01 oIsnjou0o e yse29J0 OUND aa ‘panyp ‘sixesd e IDauIp puE UDO Pjnom yoryas jo 1ySnowp ayp ommany v se 1uNoD 1YBHU J9AdIEYM UF IND e aIedDNUE youuvs 948 ‘puosas ,,otuapued axp jo ‘SurTUTHog v UDAd 10 “uIsLI0 UP AjUDpL Ajqisuodsos 1ouue> am ey aya or sso sze9q osMMEION] VAIssEWU e PUR. sity ‘sioadsox snoy asva] 0 Ut aqeurunaruT qo SCTTY YuHpsnypasnur 2,4 st 3utpunos reyp uruo-noYA-Burog weIp AypeRUass9 “UTS LIO anowpiar qjenurss9 st onuapurd gqTy ay ‘99e18 perxFojoos0 we wosy [ey t se panznsuo> 2q 1ouURD sosnata BurHyowND aup pur SITY Jo Wada jey>oda aya 1oJOD9 40 ssoUT|E Jo sopmaissiota axp JayJMs Apuanbosqns exp ‘Aypeoy LFOWOUE YpIYA IMP Jo Osfe Ing ‘soypoHoe 19840y aaNb s9aau ED 2m rey Jo aanSy ayp st soy ay, “Cuorsty anq-BurIpou 9uI099q a1Nb 49491 ue Yor EP o2 sBuojaq wsoy8 ayy ‘Aaypiqenesur su Uy “2q IU ab sasau uuv> 2eip Suraquou 40j Suraes9 v 40 ‘aq ab s9Aou UPD IY 2q-01-SunUEM & sandy soya soy? ayL “yPe| & Jo any oup seme se> Aue uF Ing ‘sonoreyas ‘uornjosas ‘(sead) aouapusosuen SBuaaz1 40)— AaSuny Iqedyed aunb 39K a0U fa]qIpneut kjasnus jou inq ‘2iqipne ounb 194 rou ‘9]q!StAUI AfosNUD IU Ing DIqQ'sIa aUINb 194 ou sseayy “2911 01 pur Yreop 01 tog ‘2}4] 01 OU Heap 01 soYpIDU BuopPq sisoys 24) Sypeop pur ag1] uaazq a2UIJaYJIP aInjosqe Ing [euNsoUYUT a1 Jo “uoIs -soufisuen atp jo aunSy ayp 40 ‘uorssassuen axp ase sIsOYs s,uLINYS ‘210p [05 8 yo wmdefMuNs oAA,, :pueUDP e sommansuoD emp sup stat Puy “SCTY Jom ULINYs se ULINYS saIEM SCTTY Jo so1uM ULINYS ‘SqTY IMEqe Suntim uy yy reyp st sox491 Kseruswia}ddns ajqepioavun stup :pausaou0s sf ULNYg 1ey “MoUy A|qissod UeD am |Je pauses] axcy om Jaye sueUIOS yeyas Jo Aaqeurassoqut otf Ssnydans step TpUM sta] “St osje SLY Wey ‘punosns Suneames oyp ‘soas01 snoydsoure xp st wey xopur yp st “mouy Kqqussod tue 40 “mouy 9a BumpAs9A9 yoy Jo 9ourrsip step stay (OT “A) 394 aanposqe pur Xpog dui uaaaniaq aoueastp ap, ‘oBpajwous, eI spa29x9 GI Jo ey sy eur Aaejnqe20a stip ‘98papaouy Jo uonnposd pur worssaidxo {94 eH ‘SE pur ‘ur 194 ‘a8paymouy sanpoud pure ssoudxo aouo we yeyp sdyseW Ido>U09 & spolqo we arwaurjap pue aquosop req? ,ssay seus, sv paojdap axe surs9a asayf, SIV pate? ‘ida2u09 & ‘a!qo ue simnsuoD Apand9]Jo> wy)—ajdurex> VINAVUL dO SAIN0TOdO.L aInterminable AIDS 4B satisfactorily recover: the figure of the impossibility of forgetting what we have forgotten. The ghost is the figure of what disrupts every attempt at historiographical pacification. If we are fascinated with the uncanny, with the ghost’s essential transgression of the infinitesimal, absolute boundary between life and death, itis that very fascination, that haunting, that makes historians of usall, for, as Jacques Ranciere has noted, itis the historian who claims “to cross and recross the river of the dead”:"” The difference proper to history is death; it is the power of death that attaches itself solely to the properties of the speaker, it is the disturbance that this power introduces into all positive knowledge. The historian can’t stop effacing the line of death, but also can’t stop tracing it anew. History has its own life in this alternative throbbing of death and knowledge. It is the science that becomes singular only by playing on its own condition of impossibility, by ceaselessly transforming it into a condition of possibility, butalso by marking anew, as furtively, as discreetly ascan be, the line of the impossible.” We must therefore acknowledge that AIDS is interminable in the sense that we never have done with the dead, that the dead never become nothing-but history; the work of mourning is never fully accomplished. Moreover, the work of mourning, a historiographical operation, enacts its own impossibility of accomplishment, the incompletion that it most essentially is, in the very work that would pacify the ghost and render the uncanny intelligible; the work of mourning wakens the dead in the very movement that would lay them to rest.”" And soShurin is haunted by both the fear of forgetting and the desire to forget (p. 16). Inexorably, AIDS is for Shurin that unavoidable, unthinkable, unsublatable contradiction, that nontranscendence—the inter- mi able as the surround: 19. Jacques Ranciere, The Names of History: On the Poetics of Knowledge, trans. Hassan Melehy (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), p. 63. 20. Ibid., pp. 74-75. 21, Commenting on my consideration of the work of mourning, Deborah P.Britzman has argued that even in Freud, the work of mourning always bespeaks its, essential incompletion, and that melancholia is therefore no simple “failure” of historiographical pacification; this current consideration owes much to her argu- mentJo sourjd Sussonen Aq saoey s1oy1 moys pur “pawesy os urvwos spuauy pasvoddess Sui—so[8nuns Kjopesu0s pue sossose> pasiueyoxo—Aaye -ninur [euondayge ut synpe se wog “s9aed ueya soyRES saypog wUNEY Kau, “eununuo> Suopuadapioiuy A[ppo sue sooueseadde s1oyp ang “Aquoppns seasn{ asi 4atp puy ‘sosinbas 1 sapo mno-paqqns a1p pur ‘spyoyze Asou1ou. uorspasd Sunaay wep yim —auzzzappw poddip v ur pasos pooyplry> Aue sv Ayprata se ase ase (4419 épsoys Aun) S41 Aus ur ypear Oya sisoys a4 :punog-aus 100 aze sisoys suzinyg ‘pany, “{arAndolqns ueuossmpLy oy Ajoxour 10u stat ‘payye> st uLNYS JI ‘STV Jo a1 02 10U a]Qissodut st ay asneo9q st at “gqTV Jo soma urunyg J] “(go “d) ,,;n04 sasooy> as0ys DY, 280049 J, Wop NOK, reY az1]e24 02 KyuO ‘SI9PUOM ULINYS ‘KueWI Os SuoUTE woys au0 KyAy “2Iqe>AXoU! AypeoFojousWOUDYA pur A{peorFojoy>Asd f>s3] autos ae st (fry weLsa839p1of axp jo Buruvaw yp 10U J1*99105 9]quza1 axp YAU pue 9291]09 ‘1Da/qns-e-ueyr-soIpo-Bunpawos 01 rsoys) |pe9 step Xpuanbastos sdeqsad pue ‘puosog (uo Surayj Jo yin aya ‘pduns ‘screysod) an yo uors -sayu09 & 40} [[e> wsoUwe AYBIU IeY Zunpoutos ‘sy Kaowsnade Furpou0s st a19y,[vonuane s,uLNYg UoseY puewiUo pur , juLNYs ose, e[fodaawut sisoy asotp ‘doo snowryur suassnypyy wey Suqumsip pue KuueDuN a:0ur seq °(99 4) ,ssoappe s19up 01 spuodsas Xpoq uoxeys ajoya Aww pur ‘oureu kur ouy Aoy, “ansund, sisoy8 asaip , 9]qissodury oyp Jo sv9y wet aua|NonN a10ur 304301 v, Jo ssaSurqsey Yssty Aseu!SeuN WYP Jo sudziuop A|pust4y-sousU0D ayp Woy 2241p sisoYF s,uENYg ‘sDadse [eNUDSs> feIDAVs UL Ng ,-24NA]ND sejndod,, {avsodusaiuoo jo uoneurseuu ay a1ejndod oy sisoys AuuLaUN ase>] ayp uae EM uoUTHOD Ut aAvy sisoYs s,uLMYg Iya SuoUrE st stp JO [TY -Asorsty pauruziarpun ing aie “fu s929p wHEIs—d & Jo sv2kJ9 94 SuoUUE “JeaLAins Jo juad jeRUass9 9xp st yang sidnustp ‘Ajped pinom rey som At99 oqp SuoneayDed v stay se uondnasip 2 yonus se st ‘st ased ut sonzed s,upinyg veip 9onoeid peorydexfouorsty 94,1 [p24] peop atp Jo wopSury ay yBnoup S908 weap inoquar yey snp st oy, ouax 0] Jad ea ousour ezu9s ay> IMIsO9 9949, “BuLvoddestp jposu Krorsty Jo worsso201d ayp se peas aq wep quo2sop aweiaeutunoaD sty AtuNUTUOD 48 ayp 04 ‘pjsom e Supunousns ‘suo punose ospe si spunos 2u0 2Asn> 94 -Jeotsorsiy 42 01 [euosiad ayp wos) SGTY Soz!]euOrsuouNp ospe ang ‘assed sunt peiodinuas s,aiuecy svaq Aeur ‘A49-uuvosp Buidaom v wosy pouryeme Buroq Jaye qutod syoasasos ay ve 9UI oF p9[eaAag GHou a4p ‘punos st 124 usd euou e] op VINAVUL AO SHI9010dOL, trInterminable AIDS 45 living faces: faces overlaying faces. Their anxious, drifting outlines cross and merge with passing strangers—strangers filled with similar resonat- ing passions, and hungers large enough to invite in, whole, another's presence. They flash and seize. (pp. 66-67) Letusextract from the complexity of this meditation thrce interrelated points Shurin’s ghosts are “oddly interdependent, communal”; and they are so insofar as they bespeak the essentially anonymous being-in-common of a shared affectivity,a literally polymorphous carnality, the pleasures of material bodies (rather than “the body” as the image of the ego); and, finally, there is an essential determinate indeterminacy (an “overlay”), an essential confusion of the categories of friend and stranger. Shurin’s ghosts command an attention to the presence of their present absence, charging Shurin with both a nonforget ting and a desire to forget. As survivor, guilty of his own survival, Shurin becomes, both willingly and unwillingly, a historian; as such, he accounts his first task, and his constant preoccupation, to be that of the witness who, like Lot's wife, testifies to “what I have seen that you must now know” (p. 14). What is at stake in this testimony? To what is Shurin to testify? What has he seen that we must now know? What is not to be forgotten; what is to be disclosed or exposed; of what aletheia would this testimony constitute surety? Isit merely a matter of the secrecy of the past guarded in its very revelation by the custodial historian? Or, a more interesting possibility, is the testimony with which Shurin is charged precisely an exposure of and to the essential indeterminacy of an essentially anonymous, essentially erotic-affective, essen- tially unobjectifiable being-in-common within which the confusion of friend and stranger, dead and living, is essential? Is this exposure not the exposure offo a certain extremity? On this reading, the necrological pleasures of the obituary (p. 15), the gossip surrounding HIV status with itsattendant histories and attention to the progression of AIDS (pp. 17~18); the “repeatable, unre- peatable necrology” of the Baron de Charlus or of Aaron Shurin (p. 84); and, indeed, the litany of the Names Project Quilt (p. 18) are not(or at least are only intermittently) stagings of scenes of intersubjective recognition. Insofar as obituary, necrology, gossip, and litany are all organized around the singular- ity of the proper names borne by Shurin’s ghosts, they name what absolutely refuses subsumption or sublation (that is, transcendence). They name the essential anonymity of the erotic-affective being-in-common of singulari- ties. What, after all, is so moving in the recitation of names at displays of the Quilt, or on the anniversary of Kristalnacht, or inscribed on the Vietnam memorial—or in Shurin’s Unbound? For any of us, such lists can only“(£661 ‘8eD OpUOT) Iuapdy STV OrsUDI ung 2p fo Kuorstey p09) uy :smopnys Supusrsy pun swySiy anyyy *pavdays wrap unuuelusg 998 ‘(aeynonzed ut ‘gq, LOW) usianse SITY Jo sep A40f8 pue sind Kwa aup 20} vifeasou v jo [durex uv Jo, “vafjersou siyp o1 suNUNUE Aypsey st games] 2oudtns [e1b0s a1uHOpeDe 3y,f, “wstNdXoA se exSersou jeorydesoro3sIy — aouy JoAou aunoD2e UMO 49H] UO JaNUUA op DUN e 403 exBersoU v sossaadyeo 11 eIp UT a]qeyzeUDZ (2661 ‘syoog arama 340K MIN) pus sAensuIy ays 10 spoOpY pud x28 :2sipoIng Ut 2y8iyy 1907 “styousno! jesmayno saydioy aney st soadsos |e ul aareu 240 Je} sdouy -y payty SH0K MN) 8240 YoUUL NEAL Eye ‘SHUPBIND UE] 298 SCV a10Joq an, v Jo KuowUE s18pEsou Aypenuassa uv Jo ajdurexe qUa204 v JO4 “ZZ -uosoada1 pur uonequososdas ua9aviag uonenbape Jo uone|as t Jo uonsanb {duis you star oany e“uoot ue ain Surpeop ase om se seyosuy (gz “d) ,jjem7e ayp sowor9q Uo! 242—21UOD ay1 WO} JeMIDe ay? sMOUY 1a3UO] OM DUO, 40 ‘uoneiuasoadas Jo ‘spnayjunstaa ayy sytsess920U Wane 30 “Couaredsuen ap (0) wep aareu ou st stp “os sang. “(6Z “d) SCV 240Jq at, JO, wonzUanA, w fuonaidap,, v st styL (Zz °d) ,wuayp saajossip x40m pauadaap ou ‘ssaumoyfout auy ou ‘uNeU oU S4zoUIa Jo xade ayp Ie “wUDTesNYD/ JeNIs9]>> [s,199NeYD] Jo SluaW]> 2¥!] S9A0y OdsiouELy UEg AYE Jo LAUsEITY [eDIpeX puL sore apeB> “ua4 ‘spmineog [eusowesy snosurwuods aula}, “(gz “d) , 80] and Jo asipesed v,, go ‘Aysnorasad — Anuyur peysods ue—sivad Kyuoma user ydesBoroyd v saved -uu9quo9 2Y YHA UT CGI Jo Avsso Ue UL “YNs se eITpeIsoOU sty soure ULNYS, 2 DUAWY YON weqan zaonb ur spZ6] 242 Jo ssloWDUE soMPo >}qusDuINUUT oxy s,urnyg 2ouEIsIp wtp suoneot|duio9 ‘9as9s91 21uOM! Jo suiordunds {ossU you aut ep suoneaduos ypu aogye S94 ]PAy ESI Jo AUpqeurwsoyUr op advoso— AyjeoiSeui—pynom rey, ST 240}9q um, v 409 eFBpeasoU SK Sy “(€1-z1 dd) gusnow am reyp ,28unyo 104 a42ey adap, , ‘S049 Jo 2910} >HOEYP,, ay ‘9Ua2sq0 24 U9AD ‘sonoue pozoSuepua ue soy sdeysod wy sy {so8uens ay aaa148 om UoyA WnoUL 2m IwY—2s0]—sonITIqIssod sax asoy? 405 ‘AypeNUDSSI pur ‘ose sdeysad 20U 115] gUOLLHO-UI-Butag Jo sontqssod sompo Aq paruney “wLNYS yt “OW 2a a4 Z49420 y>r201 saaafipad sno Husnssape uodn asisut oa op Ay AQ 2,89 -Suens, j[e> Aqoiaqp am Uorsnpxo A494 ye1p Jo ants fq WOYs Is0Ip SaPApIxI {yoryas jo eqdsip a4p ‘speruapaio a{qeadanse Jo worssassod 941 uodn puodap r0U pjnow qeyp uouroD-ur-BuIag & feodsaq sisoys s,uuNYs FLAY AA <¢,191208, soy sassed wyan jo (Cayjesmnonans {499 24p ‘9z0u1) sosmaNAys 4494 94 SuOpUN aavy aysiu rey Aupersos v jo xopur ayp st ‘Cuowsa1 ypns ‘suoNCURUON ypns jo GrwuAuoue 4394 ay wip sdeysod 1 sy ss198uens ‘se pur soy uNOW aM 2eyp “uayp “21 St Moy ‘9u99s uoNTUoD9s 9anda{qnssoIUT Ue asus KPUoTTUTDIT VWAVUL AO SHINOTOdOL oFInterminable AIDS 47 tamen; rather, it isa figure of loss as such. The present actuality of this past, its present pastness, and hence the past’s presence in the present, resides entirely in its iconicity, its figurality. Furthermore, “something has shifted: . . . the very nature of paradise has changed. Even while—eyes dewy—focused back on primal beauty, the unforeseen —HIV —transfigures sight, beholder and beheld. . . what did nor hold—infected—returns to alter the image of origin.” Here Shurin then cites Gertrude Stein parenthetically: “Let me recite what history teaches. History teaches” (p. 78). In Ranciere’s more general theoretical terms: ‘There is history because there is a past and a specific passion for the past. And there is history because there is an absence of things in words, of the denominated in names. The status of history depends on the treatment of this twofold absence of the “thing itself” that is no longer there —that is in the past; and that never was—because it never was such as it was told. Historical affect is bound to the personal absence of what the names name.* Aime before AIDS can only be remembered as “a time before AIDS,” and as such belongs to AIDS; the time before AIDS is of AIDS. Had the past had a different future —as if we were notthe past’s future —it would not be the past we remember. And the past exists nowhere outside of this remembering (“history” is possessed of no “in itself,” the past is irremediably altered by its fature). Insofar as the very memory of “a time before AIDS” is itself of “AIDS,” there is not, nor ever has been, a “time before AIDS.” The AIDS pandemic is interminable; it devours past and future in its present. Between Dante (“Who is this that without death goes through the king- dom of the dead?”) and Stein (“Let me recite what history teaches. History teaches.”), Shurin recognizes that it isata remove, asicon or figure of pastness as such (“pure loss”), that the past insists in the present; in this singular loss is figured loss as such. The figure of this past figures the past as such, and it is only as such a figure that it insists in the present; history teaches only that history teaches. Here, then, the memorial—whether physical monument, museum, historiography, or historical memory “itself” —is frequently taken to stand as guarantor of transcendence, bulwark against the ravages of time and the erosion of memory, prophylaxis against certain forgetfulness; on the 23. Jacques Ranciere, The Names of History, p. 63.v ‘suiBipered jo A8o]029 ue oz1uor01 1 st onaypso se a[SnAs pesDosI0 sty azuaeseyp o, (pZ A) uonvursewn Au paseus sey Aupeos Sqyy,, 8199459 Jo sooHuo9 & saeusisop ,ULINYS YOsLY,, YHA Jo UONUINE puE juaMaER -vo ey s—,ZunLM, e—vouruod-ul-Bu1g aansaxfe-ono19 a]qnpa.ut UE ‘oi uonuone ureu99 jo 2on2ead axp ‘Sq Yala Tuswissesue Suryunp urers99 bey Ing “STV IMoge savim uUNYg UOIeY IeYD I0U SE S9seaJ91 Yons Jo Aupqyssoduur ayp Jo 12ey 24 st ang ‘(ajdurexa soy ‘wropstas 10 98po]nowy orm) SCV wos uLNYg 2sv9[23 I0U ssop SuNLA4 “2| Bus sp ‘sona0d siys ‘soniv0d v'sonvod wsouumo s,2[83nuns & ing ‘9/8ns jo ino so sou19 ey sonv0d v JOU ‘oii jo suoneauasodos Ajduns soxptou are “uayp “sonsod s,uumnyg “(poppe siseydura ic¢ -d) ,seatups0ua ang ouspuzzsupu sou 11 usosf paBtof aa0y 233nus fo souzod ayy pur “ua18 uaaq 99, yey st ssoupesony s,4pea[p], Inq §,98enFuLy ui pajquuny ‘940 Su pomoasvu ‘18 sn90d Aun pasoaye sey STV Jo sse94 ua 3] stip Suipeosos ‘mou 29s j ouodos e wi, ep ann se at aye sn a9] Puy “(yee ,‘suevorsny,, ,s194dosoj1yd,) sdor peo1ojouroasida ‘sisa{qns aantuSo> sh Jo axeuL (Apx9Us 20U sop ‘40) 10U1 Soop ‘STV PUL ATH, moge Suryer sup ‘Auownsa sip ang (¢] “d) at noge yje1 su apeur seq snara yp, pue {(b1 “d) ,mouy mou anus nos yey uaas aavy J reyas,, 01 AuoWNSa st SUNN snp ‘ona, “1 soyonord aeyp qe Jo voneruasosdas e “Ayjenuass9 r0u Aqurers99 pur Sjas9w ou ase9] 18 40 OU st 4soBBns | ‘SqTy Jo Sunum suunys Ayo -uiossiy Ksorsty 211484 04 2\q¥880d 11 sf {(ttHONIg [e>1FOJo1U0 a4) 2291q0 (peap) oatssed Susur ue pur (dor jeoxSojoursida ayp) aalqns Suimouy ‘oanse ue usoatiog uonmuasosdas ul payst|qeiso uonea: e uedh J9\p0 ZuNIpowos 2q ospe aysiu Hunts ay Ay ¢4091295 01 sed 44909 soonpas Ip ADolod se AayMany Inq, aoload aanary 44949 Ayo 20U Urea siopuas rep nuOpued sip Jo AAMPqCUTULDL ul jeuoWoWUUL ay) oundy aySiur Surses wey z2ouEIoddesip sup ‘Surssed sup anoge Sour uewp soyres yo 9q Pinos Burdes wey, Z2ouspusdsueN Jo suonanpas aip [fe sosnjoa rey waworour stp ‘9Bessed stip >yseus Apsouoy aysiu 9eN wYyA ZA! AJnDo/Go pur ‘szxpiqers xy o1 duu Aa9.49 sode3s9 Ep, fe s9puas on 2]qyss0d at st oFeur0Y wy ouCY rey {UOUIOD-UL-BuI9q A401 surg Ayjenuesso we ‘Aypeid0s snownsuoue yeuowaur wy ay “(gg “d) 2880] 02 50] 19 & paosor Aoyp op soy pue—sreys Sutwanq ou ‘sanes3 ou—8 998 ,uop | sorpoq ap op assy My gOeS9} CfeHOULU esaMNsuOD EYL], “UOY,L “Wasaid oy UE ‘uoot 10 21ndy se sed 24p jo douarsisut so 2.uUEq!MISIp [RUDSs9 UE MUDLIDAOUT Goa ey) UF pur oun aes axp ae ang sed ay Jo UoNoYDeEd pur Fury e 2u0 28 ‘uonesado 2]qnop e sKeayze st jeLrOU9UE a1p “UdDs aAvy om Se KsEIIUOD VNAVUL AO SAIDNOTOdOL, 8hInterminable AIDS 49 streaming mutuality of influences artistic and social, and to pay attention — poetics —as if one’s life depended on it” (p. 75). As indeed it does. A visceral struggle, an aesthetics, an engagement with and attention to its provocation, this poetics is not essentially concerned with the production of what are called works of art, nor with judgments on or appreciation ofa “work of art” that is but the strangely immaterial remainder or residue of art’s work.”* That a work of art exists is simply one effect, not necessarily the most important, of the happening that is art's work. “Here, the procedures and vocabulary of art fuse with those of daily life . . . to dem- onstrate the impermissibility of such a separation under these aggressive circumstances” (p. 73). Art’s work becomes a fundamental existential com- portment, the micrological negotiation of being-in-the-world, a form of life. Butto say that art’s work is existential comportment is neither in the norma- tive sense to aestheticize suffering and death (the interior decoration of death’s beautiful souls), nor does art’s work substitute for an erotic-affective negotia- tion of the damage that being entirely is; art’s work is no transcendence, but the work of nontranscendence; no achievement of the beautiful, neither as sublation or sublimation, The one who in the performative practice of such a poetics is figured as a “poet” neither practices a profession in which he and/or she has faith, nor professes faith actualized in art's work. One mightas well call oneself a professional breather asa professional “poet.” (Critical reviews would be possible: “X’s inhalations possess all the finesse and subtlety we have come to expect of this most accomplished breather, but in his recent pneumatic oeuvre a certain too ready sophistication has crept into his exhalations . . .”) The point is this: that art's work, the performative aesthetic practice that is existential comportment, is not a surface that conceals the depth of being’s being, but the surface that is being’s most profound depth. As such, it is a matter of life and death, the disjunct simultaneity of life and death, the existential comportment of a sovereign being-alongside-death. Is it then a question of a Heideggerian resoluteness of dasein’s ownmost being-toward-death? Perhaps: [leave the question to others, But an affirma- 24, Pertinent to any larger discussion of what of art’s work would constitute its happening (or performance) and to which the work of art thereby produced is largely incidental would be Jean-Francois Lyotard, Postmodern Fables, trans. Georges Van Den Abbecle (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 217-249; Jean-Luc Nancy, The Muses, rans. Peggy Kamuf (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 1 John Greyson, Zero Patience (Cinevista Video, 1994); and an entire tradition of Zen-inflected “aesthetics” in classical Japan.reyp mou ‘2494 21 01 “[e>:ojouSUIOUDYA J9A9MoY “[e>tFojOy>Asd s>A2Mo4y 47 Aue Surg Buuoyns pue ued SBepuog pur ywoq. “sey UL AL wey 29u9p -uo2suenuou ay2 01 punog st Spog ay] “Aurpiqedeasaut say ueya syp0 Zunpou st kpog ayn :ipeap ‘of you ‘or punog st Xpog 94,1, “(AuuMINY Jo 1u9UIDUOdIsod anuyur ax UL yeep, SMES pjnom yrs) KuNsop so a1Ey se |] Jo Ise} ‘ yqeioad soqut you st aBepuog sty. ypeap 0 punog st Xpog axp rey asuds sup Ut sty usUMIPoquID JoI98y xp Inq ‘parpoquis you we 1, “Apoq wre , J, se seyosuE :AovMInUY ainjosqe Uv Jo uuiTX9 oy UL SjuO Yap pue ‘ured BuLayns smouy Spo 94, "24 [[!48 JO seas 11 se s9yptou ‘9aygo [eLioyeUT ayR Stat Y>TyAN Jo s0rsiy] a4 se ]oU—St 11 se [UO Inq ‘UONeIDUDHOp se Js soouaLadx9 Joaou sraneU rey? Apog aup ‘9]quswaqun st weyas sivoq Apog 2yp WY IDEy stp Jo siseq 2q)1 uo [uo sty] "ured —sr—sowoooq kpog aup “ured ur sured savoury 49430 spsu' jo Apog ayp reyp Buryeods épouns ‘Kes o1 st weyL “pom ayp o Suojoq “Sunpiou smouy yons sv Kpog axp yoy jo “Aaypiqustp pur ssauypt Jo sanjnoyytp Dy, “Aq S198 sheanye Apoq ayy, ‘punosd ayp yorar skeaape r90} anos :sws0U _[e4ny]N2,, pa|]P-0s Jo SuoNsensqe oy 02 UONE|Ds & Jo SUgWSpnt "] Jo Surypou smouy 240j91043 Apoq ai{1, “Aaauapt kq 40 Jpps Kq soup poyTY 9q 01 aUINJOA e ao" st AaNUDpI-g]>s su jo QueynBuis a1 Ut ]qIss9AENUN ue Smnjosqe ssopayLiaaau Steyr aouDTayIp a1qiFou wsoue ue ‘>us241p Auuesun ‘o]qedesun Sfavewnin ue st aoussa}Ip SHE, 2sds09 249 Jo 29uas2491pUt Jenussso ap toys 2ou9J9yIp Su WeYD 9420 Zunpou st Apog ayp “Uayp ‘831 ‘t {[penuass9 asow ‘punom se ‘Furoq rep prop you Sur9q qe UaUUYsIUOISE UFi21980s e TUDLUYsTUOISE ULELI99 Jo ‘psltp ‘pue ‘uoRe|a1u0U jo vonejss stp “Axsueynuns iounisip a]qeunusaut ur se yeop-aprssuope -Sutaq jo ‘puoras Yssaneur rep Spoq aya Jo ‘pa2put) Spoq oy yo zoneut ]fe Jo Asay Stat a204 SaMFapropy Ur ase ayp aq keur sDAdrEYAA “|]!a 10.94 vb Jo vonersoytuc je>1Zojousuouayd-oy>dsd ayp 2q pinoa wey Laxfenb so aingume ue yin ssauatnyosas asnyuo> 10U prp a10y>2941 Ley pur ‘snUTLUIa 40 sojai v01 vorsuaixo jesodtuia Jo uoNepps ese YpLap-preMor-Tupq 1osdaowut ou Pip aetp pur ‘yenpratpur ay woe 40 ‘o> Dalgns yu Ulasep are [JUOD 10U pp yey au, pun Suzg Jo Burpeas e vodn wea] ayp we puodap pjnoms s2msue 9An VWAVULL dO SaIDOTOOL osInterminable AIDS 51 escapes every psychology, every phenomenology. Here, now, the body is the extremity of being bound to death Thus, for the material body as such in the extremity of its exposure, death. is nota terminus ad quem or atelos, which would abstract the body both into its image and into the abstractions of temporal extension. The body, always in extremis (be it the extremity of pain or the extremity of pleasure), is the fact of being always already alongside death. This being-alongside-death is first of all a nonrelation, the absolute but infinitesimal difference between body and the corpse that it nevertheless always also is. This difference, this nonrelation, is absolute. What is called “life” is nota volume or space to be filled or not; one is never half-alive or half-dead. The living body never lacks: it is —abso- lutely—a plenum, with no “relation” whatsoever to the corpse (that it never- theless always already also is). Being-alongside-death, however, is the relation of that nonrelation (a relation of nonrelation) we might call “consciousness.” The relation of nonrelation is a disjunct simultancity, therefore the intermi- nable exposure of its extremity Now this being-alongside-death, the absolute contingency of the body's interminable difference from the corpse, is inescapable for the person living with AIDS. (Perhaps it will be said that this is the “human condition”; truc enough, but I would hurry to counter such abstractions, which are not withouta certain political convenience, by suggesting that in that case only the PLWA has become human.) But in any case, this being-alongside-death is not a state of being or of mind, a condition, or a ground. It is simply a—the— matter of fact: it is what is the case. As such, it is not merely an object of cognition, of recognition, or of enlightenment. Being-alongside-death is en- gaged not in the operatic tragedies of a work of art (do shut up, Tristan: go home and clean the toilet), but in the perversity of art’s work, in the perfor- mative existential comportments, the micrological negotiations by which we learn and unlearn, make and unmake a proliferation of worlds. The ghosts who populate Unbound—Jackson Allen, Charles Solomon, John Davis, Leland Moss—in their being-alongside-death were not in life half-dead, or merely undead; they did not merely subsist in some crepuscular limbo, with neither affect nor effect, between life and death (all of which are simply ways of reducing the living body of the PLWA to being nothing-but a victim, a proleptic corpse, a ghost). Rather, they engage their dying (“death's proximity,” or “death’s daily life” [p. 63}) in a nonpositive affirmative poetics as the affirmation of their living. Thus Shurin writes of PLWAs that “if anything besides rage is clear in these drowning surroundings [AIDS as surround}, it’s the clarity of those few who seem to quicken in their sickness‘UY 40J 2q 02 saMUNUOD 540m 4HOIpL suoNEOAoad 941 Jo} 970 1 pue UYO{ o RSI ure | Kussoatuy worureYsug re Kydosoyyd UF yrUER ze 1 pue o8earyy jo Aussoatug ay We Luorsty UE UE os>rY [NEG WYO! hq ssasZord ut suoneuassip wosy ,Tuueoddesip Jo sue, ays Jo Yona pousea, aavy | 97 {zed {661 *Snpuryy *¥ oneyD suopuorT] Yo 520077 ‘9S0y WeHILED) __datpenta paasouoy Aur ang “Aarpiquour Sun ot ‘Sur9q poremaus2.~ Ku nq “Lap 21quss0d Jo ssoujjt Aur iou st Saxoasip | ‘ou yal SunuNep aout Puy 2 woos sou >}doad rey 40g, ‘2:03 pt] JY MATES pjnom rey so9UED s4p Jo stoIduads ay posseay>s Survey ‘oy asoy weH|D st 2194 ng “9IqISsod aq pjnom sone soy Aue “¢Z elt “d] 2s02jae pup aouasoid ano fo udtsop xmduios ay1—saouy Busapossip uo—jsonjasino fo ssnp ays tu —asnp ays tt annip pea puna ays 22121 un2 2m ‘sos ay s25u2 ‘m1 so auuvt Ag s2ap2sino 1109 UD? a02 “uo s100q 4mO YstM 2Ip wD? 201 "uo sty Ano pitas ip uno ayy :2ins tan | mou ‘3 fo waded uo sdoup ax241 Suapoas spuaif Ay auapuars -ueUOU UBI9I9A0s UL UOSsa] & Seaddestp 01 Moy UL UOssay ‘evULsLoddesip Jo use op stat Somes Soepne oH YRSDe OU ‘ut Jo 30m OU soonposd ‘oon>ed onnadesorp © wey s9y10 AjamuUa SYoM sary “kBojoreyDs Jo suonejosuos dup Jo uoneapes ou pia ‘ured ee wo9par pjnow wtp asnany ou eptas ‘ured pur Suuayns Jo ads ur ueyp somes) «7 “GntaNx9 Jo Groueynuns 1oun|sip 4p) UL pant] apt St SHEL “sondeId sHoUpOE ferey ‘punog-yREDP esaAMNsuOD Sty | (ue Jo som Jo uononpoad 241 405 sfo2oi0ud Jo 195 & ueYP 2x0 ZuryroWHOs sonaod s,unnys josoyeur weyp Apiqns9auod styp Spostaud stat pur ‘2]qnus9Auo st quDUIOIEIS SHYT, A'N) YOM suze st ypeop-aprsBuoje-Buroq ajqeurwnsovut ay pias quowofeBua puy (-piqy) 21 Buts0] Jo sso202d atp wt asoxp Aq AyyFosoy. pat] aj! Jo suorsuaunp snojnonour a4p,, Jo*UoUp ‘pes9UI8 Ut t(/¢"d) stow 2p 2101, s,ayo{ Bunos yo*pooput (zg) 7201 4p 07 Burkes, pue|ar] J0.(¢7d) ,9909 -said qsiansafqo snonsny Ut pom peuaiew oyp,, SuPseBua ‘Apeanse ‘Ajaancas> sorp oys wosxae{ jo 07“) Say Jo Suzay, 214g jo sania uunyg “2ydurexo 40} ‘snijJ, ‘Sut9q jo ype] & ‘SHA [eUOWUU Sit UI JO YOReUTUIOUDP SIF UE AOKI Sou st SaTY :qeap—woyy aoueIsIp [euMSoUUUT 194 aMUEFUT Ue—apIsBuoe apmaruyd pea s,Apoq axp jo ing “yaeop-s[ey eyo rysHoy axp ONS IY L “(61 “d) __Aoureuat [ny UF SuONDIA9 Jano aay, oy asoUp1 Jo.auO se paxoiuNodua sing Sumas jo smaeas ayn 01 poonpas 20u st VATd 24 PH (IE a) ,Surdp pur VINAVUL dO SHINO TOdOL ws[3 Demarcations: Pathetic, Unfinished Thoughts ona Life by Default Fadi Abou-Rihan 411 was not that | feared to look upon things horrible, but I grew aghast lest there should be nothing to see. —E.A. Poe Pain is impossible to describe Pain is he impossibility of describing Describing what is impossible to describe Which must be a thing beyond description Beyond description not to be known Beyond knowing but not mystery ‘Not mystery but pain not plain but pain But pain beyond but here beyond —Latura (Riding) Jackson This essay was written in the months following Michael's death. It bears witness to my Identification with his gradual dis-investments, to the descent into inertia that was becoming mine. Its words are not only a phenomenologi- cal account of the trauma—if one can still speak of trauma in such in- stances—but also its manifestation. They are the words of an emotional numbing secure in its over-intellectualising retreat. Implicit in them is a rejection of the moralistic tropes of sympathy, innocence, and victimisation common to what I knew of the AIDS writing at the time. They are dedicated 53“(got “ssaig erosouurpy jo Ausioatuy 3NIW ‘sHodeouuypy) runs sey ueug ‘sue ‘nig pursnoys Y‘XIpA “MENLND PUL “S>|qID “22N2[C1 °Z “(ho6) ‘884g Aaisi9atUP] cURIpUy ;N] ‘worTurLOo}g) uowuoz us Supon anny oy 25041, fo Krunuuoz 24, ‘osuoydy ‘sifury “| soy saneut v sofuo] ou steqp ing -4jSunUoUTe] uN SII ANg “IEE Aes pom ueneng pue aznajaq se ‘uononposd suasoud ey sueSz0 InoypIM Spoq _p942204,,®S1a1‘984N09 JO) _"o4Is9p 40 BuyJ29} Jo tpdap ou jo supe rey) sue nota Kpoq [euoIsuaUTIp-omn v ‘Kes pjnom WeNEND puE rzna[aq se AysuONU yooraz 2asSap axp stay "2st D"po Jo “IsHTERUDASIXD “IstXIEYY—UOReUD|TE Aes OF ou st ypry ‘ssounduo st tustonoqeg “pour so y21ds v Jo asuasaud otp) sasod -dnsoad 001 weap. 404 ‘ssoupes 11 S| JON] “eHoUDUE] PUI JOU VOISsasdap soyRIOU st Ap-p]ioM feus2rx9 50 j]2s 94ND Jo woUaseqe aAnde UE INOge 104 St WISIHOWIeA, Surypou sfe24 1] 32 OU s[o9j a] way sanbuoD rou sop onatped oy], -sypuj anatped ayp Aupse ue pur Layquayfeus pavozp-s2s v sasoddnsoad uap 01 Ausedeo au, “sarvdissip ‘2409 Jour op jo ssoutsng 242 01 Sunvonras ays Ksoydesod oyp 09 axeBapo4 01 ‘Auap ov Gasede> DU “ssaua;NIIG pur onginey 10; hem ayfeur kjuO ED UIsAxored 9x UstuOUE snoqped ot uF AusWOU JoyrOUe UY -vonesAstydos puE d2UD;]15>3 po194e] Jo ssauysy aeuorsseduos ay 01 ‘JusWIOU SHstuNdo UE Ut ‘prs] Pjno> peop woUuTURUT s,so1p0 UE Jo 2dr} axp UE AuyJeLIOUE UALO s,940 EAL soIUNOD -up poreodo1 94,1, "pafeayes pur posoizias 9q 10uueD ,“uountuoD ut Surpou aavy oym asorp Jo AuunUUOD, ap Yo sxzads sur] osuoydiy Carunut -wod o4,1, “Anunxosd Aq poysnowun sures tpeap 02 [144 s,Hayed Oy,T, +peatasns 02 [eonoyanue st ssoupas{eu sip ‘aieno8au youue> 3] ‘21eNofoU you ssop 1] “wosea4 PuoKag 2>u24 pure ‘92UaI—.d puofaq sta] 21] :0uueD snayped axp 40,4 ~Cuues asdeyjoo rewp 2oudI!s pue eur] ayqisuayasduiosut ayp ut ursisop poseao sey weyp a4isap v Jo 2ouasexd pan -unuo9 ayy ut Ca]noygIp atp pu voIsuad 2tp SH] UIDs0y Pury “apnatfos v siD939 ae uonse s9p0]g snoyped yp fowaNXD sur UT Ing “Burkud aq at #1 U9A2 uonDde ue qe adwane ue sea] we Burjoaosd Aanasssed ¢ ‘uondvas soup ue Furyoa> Auatssed © {aoistpenuos NEC] A PEUPE OD VINAVUL AO SHINOTOdOL +5Demarcations 55 mourning or even concern. Failure implies intention, responsibility, and guilt all of which Nietzsche has taught us, time and again, are nothing but the aftereffects of a petrified and sterile reason. The pathetic needs nothing. As one type of body without organs, and contrary to the misleading title of one of Deleuze and Guattar’s plateaus (‘How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs”), the pathetic is not the culmination of a project or an agenda. For if one wills one’s death, it is only after one has already died a thousand tiny deaths. Stuck between Pathan—a courageous and fierce race in Afghanistan — and pathic—a catamite—the pathetic lends itself, but only mistakenly, to a reclaiming manoeuvre parallel to that undergone by the queer or the per- verse, a reclaiming that often takes on the responsibility of exposing the arbitrariness and—dare one say it?—the pathology of the norm. But it should be clear by now that, unlike the queer, the pathetic carries with it no hope, no future deferred condition motivating an active participation in the present moment. Its depleted energies allow for neither earnestness nor irony. Its depleted energies are taken up almost entirely with the task of remaining ¢ ina mechanical fashion. This is not a will to life but a life by default. Suicide, too, requires earnestness and irony. If the pathetic cannot speak the language of reason, of redemption or reparation, that is not because it has suffered the magnitude of a wrong that reduces it to silence. For if'a wrong has been perpetrated, that wrong is not only the cause of silence but also a “reasonable” response to it. The pathetic does not share a compulsion to speak, nor does it submit to the imperative to speak. It is nota victim either in the current liberal sense of political disen- franchisementor in the sense used by Lyotard as the party that suffers not only the damage but also the loss of the means to prove that damage. An aetiology of the pathetic would situate itata moment of saturation. [tis neither a breakdown nor an overload but the fullness of an inertia,an inverted ecstasy in which the mind and the body are absorbed in their own emptiness. It engages no relation. ing can travel its surface. And for that patheticism is mistaken for ali The body no longer moves. It knows no shiver. Anyt submissiveness. And for that its mind is seen as meck, slavish, not quite human. But the pathetic is neither weak nor indifferently proud, though it is indifferent to what traffics its skin, to what uses or abuses its capacities. In a moment of crisis, not only the body but the mind, too, is stricken by a numbness that does not register, and hence cannot respond to, an urgent need for action. But if the pathetic is not a programme, this does not foreclose on its“1-4 111 {gg61 unfuag sypuomspuowrsep) 2y2s2z21Q7 apgMnU0g ay.1 ul ‘uueunyney sore “Suen ‘easnyinung ayodg snyy, “Y>upaisg DyDSZI21N “p ‘se¢-697 “dd “Ge861 “uNBuaq syuomspuoueT) sistpouroyatig fo Kory, ayy, :ASojoyrsdonapy ug wi ‘Koypeng sou “Suen ‘gdiuiug aunsnyg ays puotog *punuitlig ‘pnasg “¢ ura ey Aueur Jo uo ‘HUN aras9UOD e st 2294 paquasap snayped oy “ajqeuaiun st ‘poapur Seq puy swaas Aeur veep ajqeunun saaomvoy snaqied axp jo Suutsop e pue premoy Suspuar e ‘oamsod Ksoreuejdxs si yo ads ur sdeyrod pur ‘ued ut ‘ose st Sunum styp 1 jo say ssoyane sit Jo wolssoadx9 ue u9Ad 40 4 sureBe 2ouDJop e ‘sHoyed dtp noqe snl 10H st unum snp soy “(ssousreawe-sJ9s UI Se [eHLED Jo aandoYo4 “UustYstay UL se But -oaesip “{arjeuossod adrjnuy ut se 2anersossip) 08 2xp or ay 190d sipds asoup uo ‘Spuewodurt wsour 10 —ro]jo1ut pue aye ‘Aupeas pue ainsvajd usoaioq —ayds snoypked ayp sotp1o uo suoneanusod snouea aya sorpoquia 40 sadeaso Sunum kur Buna sey soyiya seo] we 9UL oF ‘se9]> AposNUD YoU st ay -uorssouday Jo SBojoyped snounbiqn oy uo pastuissd st .uonezyrarp,, jo 1907 {494 ay ‘poueisut issyy ayp Ur ‘9snes0q {IuO sisosndU WAN pue INOge aa pjno> phos ‘ypsw asopueur Aewr 1 asop v afnosnuru s9Aa2MoY UL INDYIEd aIp Jo ssoudais -vasad ip yo uonwwo24 v st41 Sayzey “Aanuapr pa8ioLALsd v 01 10 d2uaUAdKa pong ejo Atsnuaypne ays o7 jeadde ue zou st sty.p, 1uarx9 SuN0s 02 puv Uorysey auuos ut‘2s9qp uodn poyanor s0"s194p ua9q Speosye aavy isu 3uG es pjnow oypsZidiN Se ,S218e, s19tp aseys on stay “yeads Komp soBenuy] aqp tpi ‘s>1¥op pur saup sop quan Anseyurey v sosoddnsosd swordurds yons peas of, -stuorduxés ‘ss9qp0 2e ‘pur suonesynsnl ‘sawn 1e ‘se uortouny doyp “ppeaat so ypdop Jo so1puL ueMp sOYAEY “uoRduINstIos pue uonrjnumose ae sidurone porzusay-sodiy sno ut wuspiad 230u1 9Xp [fe a4 suoR -ouu9 jo sisinqano wensueyy stp] “2ou2Is1x9 JnpAUDADUN puE a{quIDIpasd v jo douepeq auf S3f99s UeUE Ise] URDYPSZA9IN a4, “wHEsFoIpseD v Jo souroUOUL a4 01 ‘uorssosdap-21uew & saprostp rejodig e Jo sourszix9 ay 2onpax pur x42 01 sopso ut sauntBos feorwuyp sit sossousey uORMMANSUE TUIEKY>ésd 94,1 ‘punoge sje Suiqesisop yons Jo sooueisur isensge sar] uoRENDXD Jo ‘uonnUsUp pure uowurerues ayp Ista] 18 40 ‘uoness99 ayp Ing [eo Jo JuSWIUTENE ay) OU staanseaid snip 3pdouug aunsoajg 242 puodag ui pauipno ‘sinisifos wapeatquie S11 Jo suo uy “o4nseajd ueIpnasy ut ‘A]peDodso pu “uode pur uaso1d U9A> ang uado aup asnasqo affenFur] Jo Aapgstatp pue Aayjqista axp asne99q IpEsuO> puE VoISN;UOD -pul8 pauorsseduun pur pioa & Jo Qnwua9 ax “anu919 we ow! peBuojoad steys oHINposd-nue Jo wuaWOW & Ur aysnep peaisut st aanany puvased yo asdeyjoo axp ytAQ “snjnUINs on spuods -94 Ja8uo] ou suesi0 nowUN Apoq ap Jo KsuTyeUT aYLL “partposd uD>q, 2aey 1949 pjnioo pure soe 1yFiNos J949U 949M aseD SII UL aNsuD IEE LONa}ap, pur Suuaney ay rep uonsuasip sole ing ajduus ay yam yBnoyp aseapos p1uuses0 ue 09 urye si asdeyjoo sup ‘oanonposd 20 Surstysnaj saqpayan “ABoU9 {Jo souepunqesds0 uv ya iuatIOW ap SuBsey> Jo pearsuy -osmy pur ysed jo asdvqjoo ayp yas purmun wurespojsur pur euresp oy_p “sdoas sunt | ‘soneur on Aqpsey suuaas ,kep,, s89] 40 2100 9u0 “919m aa4p ft UDsa puy “IInd 02 snyd asow ou ase 2194], ‘SsDUNLM J9Y 40 Sty 04 aSe9] 1 UY UOSIad Burdp oxp oy y0U jt ‘ss9/SuruesU uo 9q s20p a4 ang ‘2IqIssod aq |]HIs Aew UONDY “2ouI2Z2J03 KuE Davy 01 2829 _ Aep peq,, pur , Avp pool, ‘uaa aarsinduioo “featueysour “uqey Jo ano ‘sassnu Surpuane aup wus suonesisauos pu susta soysoue asnl st yoy st wey ype az9yo sdays asayp Jo se] 24 Zuope poBFesp aq uaa so aye SuoaUOS YEA OV ANG, Sep peg ‘sep pod ep axp ‘mou s03 wun ayp s,rey—sax ‘sep poo8 ng 2svasip Su YIM SowODINO Pook ON UY Un, “UY Bg WL YPUNBpag aneq Sq pooype staySnoyp uses HL.” °° “EL J9A09SIp 0} PUD IY UE PUL UIA Jaro2sIp 02 au ‘Ip Or aWA sUMIA sit VWAVUL dO SH1DO10d0L 8sDemarcations 59 justification nor pretence, they beckon, in their openness, to be read, selec- tively, tobe used for comfort and validation. The confusion of emotions comes across, bitterly at times, and at others with a faint sigh of relief. No compen- sation here, and no repose. Simply undemanding presence. But what if that too ceases to carry resonance? It would seem as ifon some level, ifnot ultimately, to ask that the pathetic be accepted, or at least recognised, on its own inarticulate, unrepresentable, inconsistent, and, most significantly, irredeemable grounds is itself the mark of a pathetic abandon. Reason however cannot afford such luxuries. It can only surrender. And to abandon is not to surrender. The latter always gener- ates a yield, a security of sorts, though the return here might be difficult to grasp. A higher authority—ideological, economic, or military —a higher authority steps in and deploys its repressive mechanisms in order to appease ‘on's neurotic frustrations. Henceforth, the pathetic is either denied or pathologised. Equally dismissive, but perhaps more damaging, is the recuperating ges- ture that insists on locating and salvaging the pathetic from its pitiable mien. It becomes “food for thought.” It is chewed upon, digested, defecated. Its nutritional content is made to bolster a moral, aesthetic, or psychological formula. It is transformed into a tragic sacrifice or a learned helplessness. It becomes redeemable for some,and for others the very signpost of redemption. Monuments—texts—are erected in its name as one begins to follow the protocols. Its event and spectacle will henceforth carry a truth and an intensity that locate it in a specific social and political order. It will point to a meaning, and ciency, a purpose. Its sacrificial story will be registered in the history books—personal or institutional. Barometers of patheticism will be held by guardians of the faith adjudicating over quibbles between the various con- tenders to the throne. Who is the more pathetic? And is the pathetic “queer” enough, or “feminist” enough, or “coloured” enough? Schizophrenia has already met such a fate, if not at the hands of Deleuze and Guattari, then definitely at the hands of many of us, their readers. It is not that the pathetic is loftier than such mundane concerns for the learned and the professional. It lies not beyond them, but alongside. And traversing the gap, and at times inadvertently bridging it, are the infrequent, frail, shriveled, and irresolute thoughts that still want to say “Iam not alone,” thoughts that have been tainted by the pathetic but are not pathetic them- selves, or at least not yet.4 One Train May Be Hiding Another: History, Memory, Identity, and the Visual Image Thomas Elsaesser It has almost become a commonplace to say that our notion of history has entered a deep conceptual twilight zone, which seems to affect many of its traditional signposts and markers: our notion of temporality and causality, our notion of agency and veracity, our notion of absence and presence. Let's take an everyday example. I switch on the television to watch the evening news. A famous politician has just died, a terrible accident. But there he is, on the screen, making a speech, shaking hands, moving briskly to his waiting limousine. . . . Have I misheard, or is he speaking from beyond the grave? And ifso, what is his message? Maybe his words are merely the echo of acruel irony that escapes him, the better to strike me? This irony is directed at history. Where once it was something one read about, one inspected through stone monuments and written documents, one drew lessons from or tried to leave behind, it now appears to exist in sus- pended animation, neither exactly “behind” us, nor part of our present, but shadowing us rather like a parallel world, hyper-real and unreal at the same time. With it, the famous phrase of “mastering the past” has changed conno- , cinema and television will master the past for us, principally by digitally remastering some sound and image archive footage, as in Woody Allen's Zelig or Robert Zemeckis’s Forrest Gump. Neither distant nor near, history has become a kind of perpetual action replay, a Ghost Dance of the 6ang ‘ssousay0 saves9jor Jou sp9ou souptou Wt -ausoddo wexa a4 St WOIStAD]> -ssauuatpo Jo sso1s91 pur somnsea|d ay1—uonsy sua! 40 Yoss0Y ‘AseAUEy {jo wws0§ 4p uI—ouots9dx9 01 s9ps0 Ut ‘AuNUAp! 5,240 aso] 04 a2eyA e oUIYDEUI “A nuopt a]qeau2a v ovU! euroUTD axp Surpeus “erpou oar axp. UaoAviog WORE |Dy ap paueyd sey uorstaja Jo Aunbign ay ‘Moxy “pom ay Yo moputa ansunadoa ¥ so} eUIUID a4 02 OF 01 pasn DUG “OUI oUIES ay Ie HF TUHTEIY, pur asmadns ap Zunequooexs ‘Shem rorxopesed ut sasjasuioyy pasoduaiut pur pousasaiut aacy erpou atp jo 2ouaso1d aatsseus ayp ‘KaruMurUOD onsinSur] 40 jeorydeaioa8 v on Fursuojaq jo asuias poussyge axp sear 2240 AaNUDPE aua4jyy. Z20uNb9suoD 10 WBE sao so asneD “sR UL Sued ose expos ayy 9fos es dsea$ on 94 aAey 28 ‘sumNos19 Sunsos49 UF KUEUE Os se J94I0 Y>eD nim aredwios Aanuopr jeuoneu 40 ‘fema]N9 ‘Jeuossad a1aym Ajpepodse ‘Anu “spout jo spadse [ewustepuny & st aoeds pur aun uw saajas ano Jo UONeD0|-SIp aqp12]tt] 4 “uorsuarxo jerodwor-oneds apSuis & ur BuNsIxX9 sosnde9d9 Se soAp>ssn0 {Jo 98u9s 94p OWU! osje p22qq] 01 UNBoq sey O9pIA pUE VOIStAa|a1 Yuta aBeLAEUE ‘aroun Burz2soad pur yeas at Burpsosos Jo dean e se Sugg ovr sures ewous atp jt ing “Aaypeos Jo asonbuoo aiau e se paioai8 sea o8e s4ea4 gO] UoRUaAt asoyar Aaypenuta jo spay asoyp paruess soy Supper ‘swoos Furay sno ws Suuanos0 soyen 2]qnop pestskyderour asoyp ype Kiddy aunb dn and o2 awzv9} ney apy “Asorsty UF eIpaws aya Jo Ayfense> puoods o4p aq aystUH sty,f “CANUEpL ano ‘Yoys ut ‘su pur aveds ur a2e]d ano Shaye ospe ar {feos axp pue yan 61 uonejas s,4soxsty yaim k]uo 20U Op 02 sey or passayo4 | AuosT up ‘sn T, {uatp JoNeU [NS UORDUHSIp stp [pia “uayD ang ‘souopino jeuorew se expoun ayp Suraey “von sy wsosy wey [> 01 aIqu aq so,ou [pias ‘Kamqua> qpanuasn ayp jo Luoasty axp ae Suryoo] ‘sores suas aman “ewiespnoop ayp jo yeas Ajrerrurey op Aq paresiadwios pur power st jeuonessi DY, “SoUDSUNU s,spUOUE Ix9U puE epor Jo YseysMou sx Ud2aI2q dsesd pur 143s jo ano paddosp sey ‘suu199s 1 ‘Asorstp] ‘s4ay>ueaso1 pue ssortssIdu9s yo uear vind aaey sorueduro> wy 10 sy xo I2U UOISEAaZa? Y>HY Uo wed E ANq ‘ised ay asn{ you stuo29q faxp uetp sunating smou Aprysru axp wi04y seaddes squaaa asotp op 4200s OU :eIUSOG UL JEAN [LAD JO “wHsOIg 19saqq ‘suoneUsIs93 possoy s soyprey.y wore sePy 40 s,Aaqpeqioy [reysspY ‘adomg worse ut ston -njoa2a ,a2apor, auf YpeMy UIs" 2p JO [Te] HLL “tareap aq 01 spesous a}duuts pue ‘saxeun> pue soqyuo> ‘SUTe]IA pUE sso. YAY saanreTeU puE saLz0%s se Mo1sOWHO) WY 01 UMD 0} Sjuo ‘saSeIJo> Laxans AjBuLHHOq smoputa afeuaeo 1] Spysiug ysnomp sn Suse sBuroq way quia ‘uon2as1p ausoddo ayp ut Kyqussod ‘sano ssed o1 stua9s at ‘wren Suyvour v ay] ‘peapun YWAVULL dO SAIDOTOIO.L ooOne Train May Be Hiding Another 683 makes the strange familiar, remaking the world in the image of the sitcom family. It socializes the self into identity by offering companionship and help, by being the perfectly behaved guestin the living room, the amiable host at the village fete, the show-master at life's birthday parties. In short, it wants to be the mirror-image of our fantasies of domesticity. History and identity: these, then, may be two of the concepts around which toassess the impact of 100 years of cinema. Anda first conclusion would be to suggest that the ambivalence which in our culture still meets the media stems from not quite knowing how to defend or redefine one's sense of selfhood and temporal coherence, in the face of ever more identifications substituting for identity, and ever more histories substituting for a past. My purpose in this essay, then, is to look at some of the strategies which film- and television- makers in the Netherlands have recently pursued, in order to engage with what one might call these “identity politics” of the media age, where neither national cinema nor national television, neither national identity nor national culture can be assumed unproblematically, because none quite encompasses the knowledge of living in ever more multifaceted societies and participating in ever more discontinuous histories, while still clinging to our belief in the singular and the individual. ‘One of the battlefields of these new identity politics is “memory.” As history evaporates, becoming in the process the very signifier of the inauthen- tic, the false and the falsifiable, memory has gained in status, as the repository of genuine experience, the last refuge of what inalienably makes us who we are, What more appropriate instrument to record and preserve memory than sight and sound? “Let’s work on our memories” was the call to arms of German filmmaker Edgar Reitz, when he undertook his momentous epic of rural life between 1919 and 1979 with the television series Heimat (1979— 1984). In a remarkable piece of Alltagigeschichte (the history of everyday life), Reitz set out to show how one can use the cinema and television as a site of memory and commemoration, and an enthusiastic public all over the world confirmed the power of his project. But nowhere else in Europe, perhaps, has al the practice of using film as a medium of documentation for oral and testimony had such a long and fertile tradition as in the Netherlands. Kees Hin (Na de Jodenvervolging, 1985), Willy Lindwer (Terug naar mijn schtetl Delatyn, 1992), Frans Bromet (Buren, 1992), Marjoleine Boonstra (Our Man in Kazachstan, 1993), or Jos de Putter (Het is een schone dag gewest, 1994) are only some of the names that come to mind that have in recent years renewed traditions of documentary, drawing on history (especially that of the Jews in both the Netherlands and Eastern Europe), interviewing neighbours (expos-~so1s9,4 24 Jo ateUIUT 9[eUDY e ‘2F12u Jay SEA, PLOA PUODE >1p Jo safieurt wyy snowy ysow a1p yo au0 amoge suAng Aaz94Cy Aq AaeUDUINDOp UOIsIAI]>1 661 © PANY 9 pue‘siopulny Urlpres95 Sq ‘(HEI TaTI0y sono) waSu0.y 2png “wy eUIDULD v se paseajas Apunbasqns eUIeAP UONsIAD PX Ued-o234 & SeM pUlodas ay], 4YYOKG Ue{ pue yojroy saof Mq (7661 SPunpioyiaN ays Busiaquoway) punopayy uno uaSurouuriapy paywnUud ‘woIstAd|>1 Uo AypeutT 0 umoys WY e sem 2UQ “AsmuD9 e Jo pus 94p Ie eIpoU a4p Jo 29e]d ayp Anoqe ypsdu pasod | uonsanb penn ayp 01 papuodsas ‘Kjanbrgo s9xamoy yrs “soouauadxa worsisajoa pue WY parouuoun Apuasedde aasy Aq poyorosd 2494 SIYBNOY? asa", “VORIosIP Jaya UL passo1s UDIZo 001 [Ie BuIaq ‘U0 ump est Azoasty oyjqnd our sassed {soura peuossad soya aur ayp wey aq eur ay gsoaaiyse uNpy e suo reYp ,22u98a4d, Jo 9su9s AUUESUN oy LoYs Soup rey uo asodun pue ‘ows jo suey Bus9¥>14 a4 Jo ss9zeDq ayp Saajasuudyp 0 eipous atp age 294 “wIpauu aup Jo sosmyyna up Aq Ueap poxaid sseoseD ay se pur eN oY UL pamorjoy DALY Jop10I01 oder eafeyy e pur exoures © YN paue ‘sxasosqo wuedinued pur si9yd -vafouypo [ensta ‘sisuueusuM20p Jo Uone9UDS soyPOUe “wI>XpL YALA “snourey Spsnf ase ssayeumuy y>ang, y>rym soy nuayane ay pur yeas ay 01 UT quod Ypadsos Jo pur e pueUop wy aa1A CLUE aWIOD soDe]d pu sadvos -puvy ‘29108 ap Jo UresS ayp ‘sius2de ‘saumso8 pur soa" ‘voNIpUOD UEWINY, auf Jo pur soumn stax Jo sossoumta se Aupqupas> pourene ary soM “prom 2p uoaid usaq aary soya1oU pjnoas “erpaus 21U0.D9]9 942 Or sod ‘oyas ‘POM, soy 99s pue sony] s194p1 241] Ao avoy noge yeads o1 s9uEYD vajdoad aar8 sump oy jo Aue Ssuipy say ur OuvuBrod pue Snoumny “KausIp wou e uene kep ~hi9a9 atp Soop Avo ION “s[enpiatput (Azeurpso aunb pasput so) a]quyeUt9S Suowr {pog yo Aajesy 2111 pue purta jo wpuans amp FuLkensod s0“(aaxpo yar asurefe sofipna8 Suunoqsey uoyas sotsowrsuy Suo] pur suorssed syzep s194p Fur VIAVULL dO SAINOTOAOL, +9One Train May Be Hiding Another 6 bork transit camp, destined for the death camps, briefly glimpsed on film. What connected these three programmes was indeed the relation between representation and memory, but in ways that neither quite confirmed my pessimism about history, nor my optimism about memory. Herinneringen aan Nederland is a documentary about the village of Heiligerlee, site of a famous battle, where the Dutch defeated the Spanish and from which historians date the origins of Dutch national identity. In ts search for the historical sites and places of the nation’s memory, it was reminiscent of a French initiative, originally launched by the then minister of culture, but begun in earnest by the historian Pierre Nora, under the name of lietar de mémoire (places of memory). When the first volumes appeared in print, liewx de mémoire became the object of discussion among Dutch academics and writers, culminating in a series of articles in the NRC Handelsblad, asking whether a similar effort of gathering, inventorizing, and recording the cus- toms and costumes, the food recipes and memorials should not also be undertaken on behalf of the peoples of Dutch Republic, before the ravages or modernization had obliterated all physical traces, and the pressures of tourism had Madurodamned cach city and every last village. Herinneringen aan Ned- erland seemed almost to want to rise to this challenge. What Blokker's commentary notes is that the actual physical site bears few traces, if any, of this, “history,” but that, in another sense, Heiligerlee is so typically an average Dutch village of the 1990s that it can well stand as a symbol of the absence, today, of any specifically national memory. The film seems both glad and sad about what it finds. Glad that Heiligerlee has not been turned into the nation’s historical theme park. Sad that so little remains by which one could com- memorate the “birth of a nation.” Looking for “real” history and memory, a documentary film, if itis honest, can only record absence. Mindful perhaps of Jean-Luc Godard’s dictum (“the cinema creates memory, television is in the business of fabricating Forgetfulness”), Herinneringen aan Nederland seemed to hesitate between the two, not quite sure whether it was art cinema or a television documentary in the Dutch tradition: it may have wanted to be the former but did not have either quite the resources nor (happily) the necessary sense of self-importance. But it also seemed to take its distance from the documentary. Prominent were the stylistic marks of a certain idea of cinema: slow pans, static shots perfectly framed, empty vistas, long silences. One thought of Antonioni and L’Avvemtura or Deserto Rosso. By way of comparison tothe filmmakers mentioned above, who had tried to created a kind of folk memory by recording the speaking voice and focusing on weather-beaten faces set starkly against sea and sky, Herinneringen aan Nederland tried to-uiouros noge yeads oy, ¢auowgu ap xnayy 21HONDDI2 Yons Burwd9] sasypouuy sop 27029 sit axcy 4OIsIy EIU [LA “4Se YIU DUO “UDA “(HY EMM ‘op azsnyq, sposidsut 1 wood ,u9pny "H{ “My pur) s007 fo 77m 241, §,PRINIG yo squnp 2u0 329q papped axp fe Sanpea pue Suno9} ss>1pjos 4o ‘sSunyss aéuens 40 ‘sdozo ayp poXonsop ieIp sioUIA mnoge ‘UIT 942 Te 249qp UD9q aH, pet 493 401g plo acy aysrur 99]s034y!94 Jo siuesvad axp wey s wos} WOOP bs tou [pe aaye st uaWND0p ays KzOrsIY eIPaL JeUONEU e YRS YoryA Jo Aayiqesos joosuos yp sdeysog, -uoneuosoo v 10 Suppoyy pesoy v “(purpsazarmg ut drysuo -1dureyp ppsom 19900s pastaazan asiyj auf KEM paproutoo yar) sauutesBOxd uowstaosng kava axp “(asnoy s s>\pourpuTEad 18 43990 ‘stt1298:4 “UDYO) BLA ALOYS uuoistaafor assy sroyp anes fou OYss 40 “PoxoAtfap sear tos woIstAdan s!1p Aep 34 so ‘ofesoA09 UoReIMS-eIpsU Furs!o201 spurpayPEN ep Ut sasesip jesmaeu assy up ‘afdurexa 405 “§c61 JO Poy 81q aH], “CHOI UE Ae] UONLs>qN"] INOgE uuaxo uetp souo sodzeys ‘souotout aaey ryt s2p228y]9} Jo suENqeyuE aup ‘snp anogy “Aaypeos paxaquiausas uaro si Buneaa9 se UOIstAg|a1 O1 9u9 -s9F94 ng “uoIsLs9]>1 Uo pop0d94 KpusruDAUoD aq UaLP P|noD Yous “Ax0rs!y sip dn soxews wap auosojos [eotsorsty v 01 2oua0J94 2p aq ou AeuLEA“AsOIsTY e aymansuos snip pue s20en ys] 24vy IsNU “oor Keo] sty,L “UoIstAaj| jeuONeU arotp 01 [eo] AJuUeUIpIoesXa2—1no dUIOd suois}jod UOIUIdO pur ssoYDIeASs qospieus se—oue fou (uotuoss pur uoaudnumos sty s[je> a], touraU!wOHS ap jo suordureyp,) souerfoe jeuonous 2ansunsur Ue [22q Soup YU 01 AaNLAPL euonet & ancy rou op Soy yo}e Aq plor aze 2m se ‘a}doad ysncy ay J] ‘woneu sv uoneu axp 40} azrouugus ap xz 94 ssajaxpiouot KeU Y>tyas ang ‘40y Buryoo| 3q 01 wi99s 20U SOP pUPHaPAN, uM UaTuLsoUULIDFY S2EN POY 29]s98H] 9H] ui souorsiy 94am auatp aeyp pur ‘em TuDI9yIp E UL AY AOE DUO ary OsTe aySiur ssoxeuuryyy 2xp exp aU 01 pa1snd>0 38124 {8324 OOF 2tHOS eq TUNEP sqvono 40} p249A0291 9g pIno» s92I0A PUL sassouta YA Jo Jone IaLqns _potp 01 parejas Kpoouip sem ‘98309 Jo 94Yo}g UE sjopoy Jo Boxes ay, “ppperoads sv As0rstt pue ‘ axp Jo q[e sey ssopyROUU Yryar ‘ppom 2[EI-AsrEy pur adeosureaap e somaa> siopulry “(payfesos aq yea at “oalqns sepruns uo) Sypag war S91498 UOIsTADTON IND §, yous] pred o1 Suypnyy “suurwowed eyo uonesoSFexs o1wo> 9yp YL J9]]NKp }Spnq-mo] € Jo asus [eID9s pazajAos ap pauiquiod Y>ryss wy UoNDy e apew ing ‘AseUoLND0p v Z0j 10U pardo ssapulry ‘>q pey uospliy> 2yp aetp pasutauos seas ay ‘purpapay fig UL areyFe eI>¥2q =PNE, Sup AMoge Pedy IsJy ay USA ‘MatasDIUE UE UF sap sayeUI siopulrY se ng, stuored 1121p wos porous Kyq!2405 uaspyry> pey Oya ‘2>40d 94 UF po|feD S193 304 [CDOS 9]!YAs ‘SuorssassuEN a]qUUIAI Iso ay Jo IDadsns jenUDIed ¥ 2U04J9A9 SOLUTE YPLAN “Oyo Yea asuIeBe pontd 9q 01 aUNED santuNUTWO) ajo ‘so1fuuey aznu>‘passno202,ey 01 poznouuns 2498 10.1481] 01 9UTED 1949 asnqe pliye jo saseo yons 2294, Sontod ANuapr,, 9feuNDy UE sMYp puE UoLION Sursomoduts ur days soleun v asnqe penxas yo sauiowrouu passoudos Jo 419,003 ayn Supyeur ‘dn-sanoo jeypseined v se pafuayey> 2q 0 oure> ,Aseauey von -anpas,, p2|fe2-0s a4p jo uondumnsse penauaa s,pNazJ TUOUTDAOULS,uaUIOM ax Jo wpSuans ayp yay “AMeut [euoNowD pue Amnuept jenxas o1 [edipa0-aad wioay soseyd onewnen a~p ynosp ssed Aoyp se ouiseun u>sppy> yorum oureuars Ksevuey a18eq v SurzisaypodAy so ‘soany jewored Aq asnge 40 ysa9u1 Jo souowou yun siusned (2[ewoy éjurea) sty ZunIpos> uddsq vOREASY ap pure “Aaypenxas apnueyut yo , {s9A09sIp, s,pN94zf 4940 , 4240 aieqop axp :pyOM usDIs2y4 94 4X0 |e SBuyp99y possns sey sseO4 Uad—1 ur aeqp wojqoid v oa vonuane Suraverp ‘9pIs 19ypo si sMoYs KsoursUE 239f “popnyjoo Ajay 001 Ayuo pey eepour a4 Yorya yuan ‘eHsOIsKy sseuN aBeTIA Jo ase e EPL Fuyeop ‘sourour passoudas, VINAVUL AO SAINOTOdOL 89One Train May Be Hiding Another 0 scenes from childhood and images out of the television set, all of them fed by grucsomely realistic toys and the behaviour of grucsomely egotistical or sexually frustrated adults. To believe Rijnders’ film, electronic images are indeed in one way or another set to supersede our own memory as recollection and a test for truth. While I had argued above that television, by creating ‘memories we can share as a common culture, might be able to restore some- thing like a sense of identity at once “individual” and “national,” the media in Rijnders merely contribute to a generalized atmosphere of hysteria and fairy-tale horror. In the process, all manner of forces are “faking,” “stealing” or “colonizing” individual memory, to the point where the question of recov- ery no longer even poses itself. ‘One may recognize in Rijnders’ approach the theatre maker's delight in melodrama and Grand Guignol, and his correspondingly mixed feelings about television, But the dilemmas he raises in his treatment of both history and personal memory are nonetheless real enough, as one reflects on the fact that, given the proliferation of images as tokens of reality and as icons of history, our audio-visual culture has been brutally selective. Whether it is a matter of finding the image for a war like the shot of a row of emaciated men behind barbed wire that has come to signity the barbarity of “Bosnia,” or the face of a child covered with flies to signify a human disaster like the famine in Ethiopia, the media are always in need of visual shorthand, not caring what the “constructed” nature of such “representations” of the real suppresses, excludes, or simply keeps off-frame. Put more sharply and more concretely, it is not only a question of whether the single image or frame can stand for an entire event, but also whether, quite generally, the one can stand for the many, whether one human being can give uphis or her individuality to become a symbol, and whether one human being can represent a collective, can speak on behalf of others, in a medium where the single image and the individual voice have assumed a new power, often possessing the aura once bestowed only on the artist as the socially endorsed witness of society and the work of art as trans-individual, valid testimony. The urgency of what I've called electronic or audio-visual lietx de mémoire coming under the same kind of scrutiny as more solidly physical monuments “or documents was brought home to me by my third example, a detective film in the guise of documentary, which vividly illustrates how vital this struggle may be over collective images and individual identities. I am referring to Gesicht van het Verleden by Cherry Duyns. It isa film about het meisje, “The Girl,” who for many Dutch symbolizes what the Germans did to the Jews in the Netherlands when they herded them together in the Westerbork concen-uonmnsgns ajduns ap weyp soueuOsor pur LoReUIZOsUL yA poxped Aqasuap [1es9U] $e |Jm sv asuas TuOYdeIOW v UT 404 “uossa] 199(qo ue ospe ang ‘{2a0981p Burpuers y “uasfag uafiag or ysoquarsaay ut saisdds a4 Yor ry BuO a4 Aes 01 St yon ‘Keyy-prut 40g paps0s24 uo ayp Uoaq dary isn ng “senaqog, ur9u0 stp. 10U sea wodsuen atp 1eyp 9UIULADI9 pynoo ssoysseasa4 ay ‘paronars -uo> 949M sppued apis ay) YDTYa WO sprog {494 ay pur ‘suofem ay uO seu 9peyp aqp ‘saan ays uo sanva] ayp ae Fujoo] q ‘snyf “sossouiM9éo pue suoda1 qe] atp ‘spsozar uaa axp pur soatpse axp UI yzom Suryersured &q _ased oy joaoey,, sup dn uado 01 ajqe axa soyeunuTY e pur UELLOISIY Y “2910 9]Surs ayp wane 20 ‘afew opus ay 0 a]qepeAeyoU YN.I v 9As9s24d 01 “99UINb -asi09 pu aouonbos Jo ‘Csorsty Jo oly auf mur porsasuIDI 2oU0 “W]e LOY uoyea aout [Hs a1 Jo 19av0d oy 01 os[e Ing ‘SUH UALO JNO UE pu a1ayMas/9 appoual o aanisuas suo 10U sn ayeUr Pinoys Y>ryar 4101 paroarp aay siuep -u298ap pur SIOATAINS Jo sUONE:9UDH IUaNbasqns {soWOU Jo yom ax puE sne20]0}] Ysimof ay jo saBeun axp Jo 9940} 494 auf sta1 KzeNUOD a4 UO) “Aaasa{ ypang] Jo sangisuas ayp asd assy we AANUAPIS,ePUDg Jo {z9A09sIp a1p1 Yon J9A2s0Y ‘sata{ Ueodosng aq Jo rey (aus ,p1eduioo,, 1 eur 01 20U st ueMOY pur HUG Urodosney ax Jo SuLs2yyns ayp Jo Yn ay WNEPEY OF, “Apex saxPoue amasqo Keur 2240} s1HoquLAs safer 240 ‘ss94p10 sopty ‘1809 400 18 UsED] 01 9U109 aavy 244 SL ASNEDOIOF 3G “a|qiBy]Hou 20U st 2oua:2yIp aqV INg “zLAYPsHY UE IALY P[NOA ays se A[asns se Uaspog wo8s9g ut poystiad ays ‘qnop ON “usfag ua8s9g ing ‘zaumy>sny Jou a1ey 494 pur ‘HUI Jo IY ANUDp! 2UyPD Jy “fe Ie Ystare{ wu UIFLO soy "9 (661 “2Bpapnoy >y20K MON) R20] O1 Pau wots -ys0aq] fo sounsing 241 wo sKssrq ‘purfiey aT +z (F661 “Hn9g ssHIEg) 9] WHEY sanboe{ "po ‘palgo,p wotnjas 77 661-9661) AL 2401 ‘auounazs x7 ‘Ue>| “9 “HOE BT TS “(OZ6L) apdirunng aunsoaja 247 puotog ‘pros puntudig -¢ 71-96 21 AS “Oz61) uowoyy ut Kyyrmeaxouny fo 2909 0 fo ssourtoyrheg ayy ‘pray punuutiig, “4 (As se paiaarqqe s2yeo3914) ZC1—¢ :Z uomps purpunrg “(10611 S061) .e4>38444 Joase5 e Jo sissjeuy ue JoruowFey, ‘pna.g punuutig “¢ (shor “preanen sung) s22zduuo2 so1anag ‘gusel[eyy sueydog ‘o4~ 67 5 -0U ‘67 ‘mary ofPoIY) “UUD|D Sud “suEN uEIPHDI, 2yL, “WLI Neg “2 ayoquids oy uy ums |p}\—ajqssodun yp ‘apqeyeodsun “}qusesun oxp Jo “euimes Jo.s9p40 a4 —fe93 24p Ut passoados st ey yp Kooqp 94 YO} Ind we2e'] ,"2aup yreap 21p Jo apis 242 Uo ase sonpxy asoyas uONada4 SoH] (6761) andiouticy 2unsoayg 241 puolog, veya ‘peorsut 's19\02s1p au0 ‘uoRuny 01 9d‘ouLAd aanseajdaxp wadxo pynom uo asaya qurod ayp 1 Ae {a9A09sIp §,pnoig 40 auo spurts aeyp ssousannadas esau] © yates Bunseaddeos Jo ansuaizere4> 24p 2Aey—asnqe Aur 4o-Sdes Jo sioatasns suunotaas92USJOALAINS isNeIOIOF 4q parunosos soxpoy—sotourow sneuunes “1U9A9 ayp Jo ZuLsO4ns poxnada1 ESsmo][oy Ayqenaous rey 01 eumeN Jo yu>WwoU! assy & Jo 4>0YS 24 puooq uo soizseo aeyp Aopap josoduior auf jo s3vads ‘9ydurexa Joy ‘qne"] L0q]“[euaweUL bunny toy astse rey sasuodsa1Jo.9s svop> v Sury ser soameDy UIERI—9 porejost aaey sorpms jesmyna pue e-] Jo 14S] {9804p J9prsuodas |eYs | cUIpesed jocy juog ou ur maydou Sunos sty kq auo8spun eunen 24p Hurpsefos swuouu09 siq pure ,(9Z61) ,weMIOA e UL Lar -JenxasoutoH Jo ase.) vo sisouasioy>Asg aHLL,J0 APMIS SIY (COG) ,e4>494 9p] v Jo auaUITELY,, sty ‘98e> L1OG]§ pas OL uaUINELe Aw DvepDs [EYS | ‘UO Joypang “Te2s 242 Jo Aao8are9 sty Aq ure|dxo on porn uede| yr (uoRIUsOS or pesoddo se) siaayje ayp inoqe sau Sulqpouios sn [por eumen UF LonEaUDsosdos Jo smu ay ae onze 01 uaa jeouorsty ‘fesn] v se aydonseie> sneuNEN Jo samieu 94p paun o1 spay “uorssed ‘suoxdusés ut paneydstp “ypoads si yo sus01 ur AsououF on runes Jo WoRE|24 a4p yt] o1 St Aesso sty Jo [oF oy -afenBury reson] yo ureurop Azan 2up st yptyas Sazansaye [eurs0U urEsd> e HOI a]qesedos sv 40 ‘op wHoLy areaedas se uo9s9q rouue> se eI stsoypnas eUINeN Joo 2110901 MIOd 495530] 24 ng _,WapH2e UL jo {uoUNsaI ayp, Jo syeods uLIE]PEPY a[LYW ,udso4d VNOAVUL dO SAIDOTOdO.L, 9%The Psychical Nature of Trauma 7 order of language. A trauma, in other words, will not just disappear. It cannot simply be forgotten. Not only will it remain recorded in the real as a limit point to memory, it will reappear as a symptomatic enigma which opens onto acertain anxiety. In his Seminar X (1962~1963): L’angoisse, Lacan stresses that the anxiety accompanying a trauma is not doubt.® Rather, its effects have remained inscribed as an unconscious system of knowledge which appears in conscious life as a concrete insistence, whose characteristic modes are repeti- tion, passion, strong affect, or a suffering that one cannot simply and easily talk away or talk through. Trauma, in Lacan's estimation, is not only not doubt; itis, rather, the cause of doubt. Lacan stresses an unfamiliar picture of the causality of trauma, then: it isa ‘kind of certainty that can be known insofar as itis acted out. Putanother way, behind an affect caused by trauma, one finds the movement of cause itself as a return ofthe real into the symbolic. Precise knowledge regarding the trauma’s cause can, therefore, be ascertained at the point of the return: the name Lacan gave this particular kind of meaning was the symptom. Yet, the symptom of a trauma seems not to be exactly the same as the symptom of a neurosis —as trauma studies show—nor of some biologically induced pathology. Not surprisingly, one learns that the characteristic fea- tures of trauma are the secrecy and silence that surround it. And, insofar as secrecy and silence are symptomatic of an event whose core meaning has been permanently displaced—is not known directly—or until such time as the truth of the unbearable can be spoken by the person traumatized and, subse- quently, heard by others, the trauma can only enunciate itselfas an enigma. It can only spawn the kind of symptoms that speak of what is not there, not sayable. Without specifying any psychoanalytic category of neurosis, psychosis, phobia, and so on, Lacan, in hislater teaching, evolved a theory of the symptom that may well be fruitful for trauma studies. His work here is of a piece with his theory of what knowledge is; of how the mental is structured. Having spent decades elaborating three interlinked categories which compose the base unit of meaning which he called the Borromean knot, Lacan added the fourth order of the symptom in the 1970s to his categories of imaginary, symbolic, and real exigencies,’ arguing that the symptom knots together each, 8. Jacques Lacan, Le séminaire, livre X (1962-1963): L'angoise, December 19, 1962, unedited Seminar. 9. Jacques Lacan, The Seminar: Book XX (1972— 1973): Encore, ed. Jacques-Alain“soujaid ou jo 11d (zg6] ‘uueaeny stag) J2IHWV wre[y-sonboe{ hq aovyo1d Suoqny sonbse{ kq -po ‘une7 vo20 a2h0f “11 “26-96 AM (261) £ “0 Ganong aI URE]Y-sonboe{ kq payst|qes> 3x9 “9461 “FL Azenue{ Jo vorssos oxp pu LreuNLES pompoun “Sy (6261-4261) HIXX 2401 2upunugs x7 ‘erry sanbse{ ose Jp ‘711 “d (9661 ‘2uBr] s10F4 dWI0g sioyeg) anbulyoun anbuuyys 12 auuaunrny aiopdoy “‘woyey-uowvss 2wuv9{ “| “reutuiyg paupoun suoysuts 779261 S261) TIXX 2409 2amaruzs XT osTe JO {R661 HOON 40K MON) YUL 29NIg SUE ITY oIsutanx9 st aE eYp strvou UeDeT| “[eO4 OU ayp Suyype> Kg “ewe se vztusor01 aay uiod stun] 2uos 2 paxp0jq Us9q aary ey? soLOWOW stp Jo Ino asuE (9)furuvow anbrun sir touy v jo 2amans ayp sey wiordusds o1p apy ay “zou ay] 1yBnowp Jo sorNeY>q s,uOsiad Aue UI sseodde yeyp Suruesur snewusUD UE 2q}42s9p 01 awoysurs psoas a4p Jo Sunjads y>uas feaanpoyy d4p 01 9s3N0393 400. uve] ‘oSensupy s,uosiod yor ut Aue|nonued stp ssons 01 32909 sty UT 1 P294d4> aq 01 aSessour v ase Kay,y ‘uOKue 1 Sunpou Avs soajasurotp Jo pur ur yoy supiseseyD 14998 UF UUM vLUsTUD ue sv unre 20a” anko{ ur wordwiks axp jo d22u09 uemuwoe] 242 paqs>sop 23]. wreTY-sonbor{ Zg61 UI 27H] [ENPLAIpUL Ue UF PUMEN OF asu aa13 aeYD squaao [esau] pue 21219409 4p Jo Guse|nonsed axp syseur SurULaUE Jo s9ps0 uno] siyp “uve” | 403 KpUTasodust a10U41 —ajdurexa 104 ‘s1qoyd 40 SaneuLs0U ‘Shosnou—ouisop Jo pury 494 40 sty Jo ‘osuas exude ut ‘twosdwuse Suo 10U st uosiod ypeq ‘sin> pue sonmunuossip Jo feos aandoye axp pur “ouorsisu0> Aseurioust we se poissdsowt 4poq ays ‘Benue jo s9pr0 syoquads axp run aIpern uvowossog we Jo sommonAsosNW ay sOYoHOI son wy Suruesu Jo 49pu0 tp Sunmansuo> se wrordwi¢s ayp paquosop “spsoas s9y20 wi ‘UEDe] oy 31Q514u suru 4 XsequLy snorosuogUn Ue UO s¥sox AayJeaE SHIA Se seJOSUE Ing “Kayfeo4 IyDKsd joadoouoo werpnasg otp stuasosdas—wroxdwiés atp Jo s2pso atp poypes ee] WYyM—uNIP NOU Y>yar Aoua8exa YuuNoy ay IY Y>ns sa4A0 41 UO DUO pooeyd aze oyoquaés pur ear ‘AaeurSeun oy. ‘2]dwexs Joy sun uvauiossog ayi Jo 421ua9 ay We Ypssit sorta v rDolqo ayp 194% d0eds v Jo auasa1d au uo posatud9 se 10Uy 24p Jo 49ps0 94p pasn UeIe] eIp som wWopeT uoURTS) -ouuea asAjeue ueruese'y pur rstBojodo,y, “Burueour yo s12p10 s940 a¢p Jo yor josonsadosd Suyureas a4 “eos otp Ur sopisas Sjarewn yn ase seposur ‘eumMeN Jo vontissdiaiut Aue 02 es3U9> 9q pjnom 10uy, a4, “Aq oat 2a FuIUOUE atp 2onpoud aeyp 129} pur ‘spsoas‘saeuN poredosse Jo a2epy20u Surdyrusis arsoqepa sea v OUT jeUAIeUE KreuFeUNY/>yoquIAs Ds Jo ALUN jenpIAIpUL VWAVUL JO SAIDOTOdO.L 82The Psychical Nature of Trauma 2p to the units of meaning it ties together. It is put into language and identifica- tions, as if from outside them. And it refers to the signifier for sexual dif- ference—the signifier without a signified that Lacan denoted as a third term or the signifier for a Father's Name—which also has the properties of alienating the real of experience by the language that represents it. The more primordial experience of the cut belongs to a logic of the real as it marks the loss of objects-cause-of-desire as the first and most important traumatizing experience an infant must undergo as he or she assumes language and, later, sexual identity. One might argue that all psychoanalytic resistance has the structure of a knot—an enigma or impasse —which proves that some limit point of block- age lies in a person’s thinking about his or her life at a point which makes the first two traumas of life structural ones: infant loss of the partial objects that metonymically represent the symbolic mother as real'? and Oedipal loss of an identification of Oneness with the mother as a difference that structures sexuation as a split between the object @ and the law of interdiction to being One with the mother. Lacan offers, I shall maintain, a theory that is not incompatible with contemporary trauma studies in the United States in his theory of the symptom/sinthome. It may even add another dimension to understanding the limit points in memory as themselves having a certain structure and logic. Cathy Caruth suggests that one exits from a trauma through speaking of the truth, and a listening to that truth, from the site of the trauma.'° Putin other words, the Other—the social order—must hear what is actually being said: a transference relation must be engaged such that a representative listener from the social orderbelieves the ruth that seeps through the imaginary dimensions of a narrative. The history of a trauma becomes not so much an accurate rendering of an event, then, as the actual belief of hearers that certain events can—and, indeed, have—produced unthinkable, unsayable, unspeakable, buried memories. Lacan called these the sinthomes, or opaque disturbances, whose limit is that of representation itself. The Other —whether the analyst as witness or some other—must, in some way, cease defending his or her (unified) concept of reality, and attend to the picture given by the traumatized person. Likewise, in literary texts, certain symbolic insistences on the truths 12. See Lacan, Seminar IV, p. 269. 13, See “Introduction,” Trauma: Explorations in Memory, p- 11LES dp Sg96~ Ze (6661 42UIUING) ¢ “OU '9Z Jor “AuoEsypy Kunuone] MN, .Solpmg (seiawy] pur aXpymouy, sneuner] uO, “weUNEpy “Fy M1095 “py Jo1v9Y 10 49400] axp sayqeua—Aancue pur Burs24ns sso] Jo sansadoud newt -nen Sit Woy — [eos ayy wHOsy 22ueRsIC7 “xopesed oy azuEUTESp Koyp ‘suONeD -uosoads onsnuv Jo ejtUE se seadde Eun v Jo sauauiay? Jo21 wots :xopesed v s2}J0 osje uousWOUDYd SH — Yond s,asKjeue 2p vonust 07 1ouU—suIMasmut UH se |fDa se UE AsesDN] UF K}fenUNUOD jJ>s1t sorepunu ewes rey Aypzomox0u 2 st JO ION; ,,;popeA? 40 posmound suoneipour 2x2 01 feuonsodosd asu0y e yuias paquosut st, y>tya ‘KrourduL b yo Burdon jemodsad jo pury ayp se worduids aya jo asmiv9y siya saquiosop ueunsep] Aosyooy,,so1pmg Asesoury pue aSpopmouy snewinesy, uO, Ul “sun ssunoosip qusisisuoo jo utea8 yours ay) Fuyss9AeN “eumen jortensue] ayp yeods reyp stuodunés axp jo yeas ayp se Asowour ut suiod any syseU wp asie9 atp se 9a19s jf98 1 ySnoypyews0} dand Xue Ut a]qeadtsoss Hoye 4949304 ‘>q 1a @ 2291qo 24,1, () 24s2p fo wolgns smorosuasun so Dalqns 241 Jo ZuruK, -9) Ue saimnsuos ond9[eIp Apsv9 sIY,L “SuontoyNUOpr AseUIeUN pur Send ur] a1joquds jo autod arent ayp st tu219494 asoya—asts9p-jo-asne>-(s)22a1qo aq1—P algo ap jo Sutpuyos pur sso] Jo on29]e1p axp UL sopoy Jo saipo 2tp punose soappstwowp pura ietp siren Gavun Jo uondi2sur ayp Xq paimansues sSuruvow jo sps0 we jo st [eas ap Jo rdadu0s ureter] oy “oneUMEN se squvyut &q paouatiadxo o1v sasso] Ajse9 asotp1 PUY “2s189p Jo a3ky as19Au aU ‘Supoq ut aumpanans v ype] yo soxew souotsadx9 1ySnOYp savoud-Aupunid wiosy Sunpouos ‘eos snewnes axp Jo foA9] ay YY “Aaypeos afien fury (fesi9atun peoo)) a]qeztuoo94 v saves umouy s9yIyA—eWHEN e 4q pasnes VNAVUL dO SHIDOTOOL 08The Psychical Nature of Trauma 81 tonotsee or not hear. Distance enables the looker or hearer to discount, or, even romanticize, a visible, palpable trauma. Indeed, an artifact, archive, painting, narrative, or poem often gives the lie toa trauma by covering over the real of its suffering with images and words that seem to tame it, giving it the quality of mere art. In Lacanian terms, one could say that the passion of ignorance reveals its roots in the desire for homeostatic constancy —a drive that Freud and Lacan placed on the slope of Thanatos—that pushes individuals to avoid terror, horror,and pain atall costs. Any lie or deception becomes preferable, as long as it keeps subjects or societies believing their actions are consistent, unified, and stable. This same propensity to avoid the real—which Lacan equated with the sinthome of sublimation —also keeps artists concerned that their productions not be too unseemly." Social unity works, then, by denial, thereby speaking what Lacan called a master discourse which represses fantasy, desire, or any lack-in-being: S: 2S) Bea In this way, social unity works against the truth of the real of trauma which brings discontinuity and chaos in its wake." I shall argue, here, using the three textual examples I have chosen, that trauma appears to the one traumatized —or is grasped by the witness—at the point where unconscious fantasy objects can no longer suture the structural lack-in-being, thereby continually repairing a breach between the individual and the symbolic by the constant taking in of such objects.'” At such a moment, the (Lacanian) real becomes knowable as anxiety produced by the existence of a void place in being and in knowledge. Anxiety has an object, Lacan taught; the void rendered palpable. Lacan argued, further, thatthe void can itself be reduced toa kind of object (a) that appears when the imaginary order ceases to fill up the concrete holes in signifying chains with the sem- blances— illusions of wholeness—which ordinarily keep individuals from having to fight or flee an unwanted truth. When the real does appear in a stark 15. Ellic Ragland, “The Passion of Ignorance in the Transference,” in Freud and the Passions, ed. John O'Neill (University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), pp. 151-165. 16. Compare Seminar XX, ch. 2, “To Jakobson.” 17. Compare Hartman, p. 543.64 Jey S| Ie PULL, “SUNJOD UEC] 22g “77 € 9 (6681) ,SPuOUIYY UDDI9, pnoig puNLUsig “[7 €1-9 (1002) "ou ‘sdnouByiogy uk youvoy reg pornipy fo pousnof yp, sAydesZouoysipy se stsxpeuroypasg “JeOY S] ASC HY,L, “SUNOS UEC] 29g “OZ “(8861 ‘UOUON, YOK MON) sIssHOg UYO{ ‘suEN ToqPY UIEPY-sonboe{ “po ‘ambuy2y, wo suadng spmatg :(p561-£S61) 1 Yoo savory smbrof fo wmunusy ayy, “uvsery sanbae{ “6 “£6 596-€5 (8861) £9 "OU SUsPHUNf 19 munnLy :orsomg eombroyped np anbyvunes 2926 2} :uorrmumyoy,T, “UD2A1PUA, SOAK “| SuiZuuq—ased 94 wos uasoad yp ou! U4 SU YsinSUnsIp pjnom vUNEN Y 2heumen aq 10u pjnom souowur pouamios [fe ‘sarasnd siya uy -omsap posneo assy avy si2olqo-1Q) 21 Supunosns sowoysus oy se AjjenunU0D usmyas [eas a4 Jo saoaid Moy savesISUOUHDp ‘|e91 a4 Jo 29U9TDs sty s|]e9 24 yA tpi speroaop exp SuryDer jeoidojodon sty Bunyavor soe] see] "ewe aun ‘passorday Aaeunusd axp st ‘uoneumnse ssuyjjos weg Ul saSsoU rey A, ce SPAppSUIotp SoHOWOU 2\p Jo UORDops a4 UL se [Jam see ‘woY BuyUETI0y uy ued & pey ‘Korsno.e Jeoroasiy Joy Us29u09 OU IU ‘SaAnOU! Jo Jaquinu e puy “oun aya we pausof a19% hoy ‘aBuowa ‘kes 01 paurorsnaoe axe 2fdoad sv {ou pip ssuoursu: pooyppy> axp ‘esnore Jo spousd asaup uy -pasnore ‘9194 SoLUoWIoUL 941 UY spoltod so1e] a4 e posvodde Aoup sv anq asm Soup se ou s1e94 wSoHJLe sno sn. MOYs SaLNOUISUU POOPIE 3nG “ssossod Das Ep IIe 2q {eu pooyppiy> sno o1 Stuzojau ssuowsyy :pooyp|ty> sno wou |Je We suOUFDUt uv 2aey 9m syn9y% pouonsonb aq psopur eur ap, sous pno4y ‘ox0] quid siy Suniguep soyng 4, ayy UL sore] suo aBuow 1p SoLOMDU poaLaas pue paxomar oe suowsU uss ‘pourdo pas ‘soyNY “papsor94 Karp Squ9A9 ayp YUM snonunUOD ‘sexo PeUIBLIO {jpemn>e 219% SaLOUIOU U92195 wey aqnop s:pnase{ s[feo24 AUDUINES sueDe'T ,,, UaseAd ay UE pastorz0IsTY star se sey os ut ased aya st Azoasipy ased ayp [Sutaq] 104 [se] AzorstEy,, poquosap ay uaya / souruag se kjze9 se uoNsoNb stip possaappe uEDe”T ,-Ape93, Jo suON -miaadaavur Asequey—Suruonouny 1949 nq—ajqearouyun jo ureyp Surggrusis e Suppnposd soseao Sutueau snopsuosun asnesoq AJasizoid jjosir ewnes a4 jo Suraypos e sosney prod ap yarAs J97uNODUD UE Ypns ‘peopuT , TuruEIW UF 20, 20 ssounduia ue vo pesy Sunuosyuoo ‘Ksrauey yp soosaid weyp feos aq YE soqunosua we ss9pUEA $44 sEJOYDs uriuesey oy ,‘anbuoysied np mnbuvunv ange 2) :wouownyry,"), Uy ‘uaa e> -tidua 40 198) jeotoAsty ue se OU INg {9]quaoUy star “AdrKUE YALA JaUNODUD VWOAVULAO SHIDOTOdOL zsThe Psychical Nature of Trauma 83 the present into the symbolic from the radically repressed real—by the specific characteristics noted by the scholars in trauma studies: testimony of an accident; breaking of a frame of the scemingly normal; the catastrophic qualities of a literal, historical event; temporal delay; a repeated suffering of the event; the insistence of certain images; secrecy; silence. Such “break- throughs” place either the victim or a witness in a position to recognize the traumatic inscription of an affective knowledge which has dug its mark into the flesh.?® The fact that such witnessing encounters the imaginary—the narcissistic domain of narrative—to a greater or lesser degree, is only of secondary importance here. In Lacan’s view, a trauma distinguishes itself from its narrative, identificatory qualities, thereby becoming susceptible to treatment in analysis, literary interpretation, or social praxis, “a praxis... Ibeing, for Lacan, that] places man in a position to treat the real by the symbolic.”** There are, for Lacan, traumas at the base of being that the social itself is constructed to protect against. These are the structural pinnings of being; not the catastrophic trauma encountered in abuse situations. Nonetheless, cata~ strophic trauma can make an impact partially because its subject is not an inherently whole, unified being. For example, the trauma of the pre-mirror stage fragmented infantis that of progressively putting together an imaginary consistency of body. The mirror-stage infant builds a seemingly unified identity by linking images to words and its own proper name, as well as joining words and images to affect. In later life, when this unity is threat- ened —as in war experiences or an act of violence perpetrated —the fragility of the prior structuring is relived in the daily present if one encounters a hole 23. Charles Pyle, On the Duplicity of Language. In discussing the paradoxical logic of Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of duplicity, Pyle states: “As a function of the cut that engenders signs, all signs are duplicitous” (Ms. version [2/23/97]), p. 17. In Lacan's Theory of Language, Pyle brings together Lacan's three orders with Peirce’s trinary logic, equating the imaginary with the iconic; the real with the indexical; the symbolic with Peirce’s symbolic naming: “To cut indexicaly is to really cut, or interrupt, oF shape, or otherwise impose some kind of extrinsic physical mark on some material thing” (Ms. version [6/24/97]), p. 65; all rights reserved to the author; forthcoming in Proving Lacan: Psychoanalysis and the Evidentiary Force of Disciplinary Knowledge, Urbana, IL: The University of Hlinois Press. 24, Jacques Lacan, Seminar XI (1964): The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho- Analysis, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Norton, 1978), p6.£4 114 sounuss 295 “67 z1 4 (Zo61 SUOLION 9104 MON) JNO stUUEG Aq ssI0U YALA “sue 49TH UIE|Y-sonboel “po ‘is ~Aymuvoy reg fo soupy 241 :(096 16861) ITA 2421) 20uLUps xy weseey sonb>e| “gz “prod “uueunsepy asedwoy “27 66d ‘uaypaspury axedwor “97 (6661 ‘dnos5 2] WY “SEH vOABureuseg) “unr0r7 somboof uo shoes prong ut dep 3yoquikg ay 1, 28enBue-] Jo Kooy, suede, “oe sopeYD “ 2tp soantaaeu 40 sKejd ‘sursod soar yoryan eq se sjoquis jo uorsuounp [B24 2xp Jo yeads U9A9 Pinos 9uQ “onst[eas st joqusAs 2p ‘spsom soo UT “Dae anBea 10 ‘oBeu Sunday uns 10 “wi90d ‘Kejd “Au0rs v UL uoIssed 40 Suts94gns Jofurues onewsiua oy.p ,,"sase> aanesseu s pnorgy se Sunp oures ap peonas sojduexo Asesony yeup sossans uueunsepy “pavonuous aavy 2a sBuryseur yp 4q 241] snorssuod ut ayqemouy se eunen poquosop ‘pnosy SuMoyjoy “UEDe-] “Aorcue Suroq uo 21qez1UFo>04 ys0w axp VYoIp sno_suoD out ewNEN Jo suIOrduLs BuiSunq ‘Jeor yp jo dood Bary w se “wow ‘suonduny joy oy, ,,"a>uEs -simof usourfun Ue Jo 404304 BYP ssIUNODUD aUO IMOd YPryAL ae “Joy Jy Jo Daye 2IqeZHOqUIAS-UoU axp se 1Sup saquIsp >FY “ArorKUE UIOAy quIEdas -ur st Asoo jo auszadx9 aun sty rey sone udyaasopuey —Furyxy St joquids sip jt—joquids , Surpuodso.sos, aq-pnom su10s jo sus. ut aiqeztuoaas st yoryan qeyp ueYp Joyped ‘9aneueU s,JopoUE UF Jo YZnOY mo s9u0 ur poe UL Jo WorduIAs & " s1oHp Jo soOUISU YALA soayy TuNxeAs say UL poidnaso yonur aye sisosnau anewinen wo4y Suoyns suoned rip ‘aaamoy ‘oreme jou we J, ‘spe 9y—Auyenb aagnedos SoewNeN ours sty seq survosp seay ureu9s yp Sunpseus—eLoyshy pue ‘sIyBuy sea ‘suapDoe ‘ur cumnen v 0} uoneXY v pafe> ay 1eYa So.oU pnosy YBnoWTY “wWapDoe UP Jo.au99s 24101 wanI93 IWEIsUOD e— sISOINU,, sea 941] 910UU "(O76 I) 4doULG ounsvajg 241 puokogy Ut pres phos ‘ewes, “Ife 30} 9ydonsee> DUO IpLM J0U “uotp “Aayjeas Jo suonsoisip tpi yqeynoalqo urexs99 v aavy sonyeds jenaxar sv sasuarstsUt sit se sejosut suonmuasosdas 01 1ut0d yur] & se jppsit s|faAun at ‘seme suonoNAS ~woos Areurseutt ysnd [eusreur sneuneN sop <[UO ION] ,.,"23NIeIN] 0 9AIF 2m awn Jo Aujenb 2\p punt pue afiensur] yo ssouequmsip ssso},e pu aanefiou ayy ut s9fuo sieas,, yrs wep ang ‘avo uosqe {|Jeo4pes v sou ‘eSpopnouy am, ~euroad 10U S| pwnnu fo a¥paymouy osuos sip uy “suoneasdsovur Aseuieu ;apeos ayp yo Auejnonaed aansolqns axp ss1s01‘Aqjeorxopesed ‘siusUaJ9 NCU nen 9x9) 21p1 jo s9921d—aanzolgo ‘sntji—pareadas ‘Tes se Suwon uny ssopear oy} 01 santpeas [emaxo puig asaxp. 4q ang ‘suonsnnsuosa1 Aseurfeus —fauiowr 4poq 40} wss9u09 v ‘sis9 Ganuopt ue ‘Kupeas dats y “uonsy ¥ jou pny v [AUN pjnom ‘oanse2[dsip or ainseajd wosy susMy poo ayp Uupya wa WOU atp Ze UL pun Jo asnsodx9 ap ‘SxJoquAAS axp Jo UoRDUNY e st snonnoy sup ‘soypea) weaer] se 7]. abadxo 148i 9u0 a49y94 porenus 498u0] ow ase sBunyp ‘paroayjo u29q sey eas 2tp. pur snonnay stp uaaauoq uonesedos Dyp 2UC * + * “[eO4 BYP Yo apts 242 UO ~ ~~ poof ax owns 0 se Os feos ayzo1 an Sur] jo drysuonejas 242 Jo on29]exp ayp ut paredoy si wOYa s,wueMUdg ++ ps sv oandoo9p 40 Asosniff ueau rou ssop snonnoy, rem sdseait 2uo uDya a/qupEAe sowOD>q <[UO 2130] e Yons ing “uoRDY eyo 2zMIONLIs aKp SEY “uv20] 01 Surpsoase ‘oxoquiés oup se seyosur asurs soyeUU “oUDLLadx9 af [POs © up se “DAPI SH UL SYD oNEUIMEN {44 UED yYoOs KEIN] eH, VWOVYLL AO SAIDOTOdOL 8The Psychical Nature of Trauma 87 trauma connects itself to a crisis of truth, revealing, in Caruth’s words, not a trace on the psyche, but a hole in meaning. Dora, The Young Homosexual Woman, the Fort! Da! Paradigm When Dr. Sigmund Freud set up his clinic in Vienna in order to treat nervous diseases, he was in consultation with Dr. Josef Breuer, a friend several years older than he, who insisted that one could treat nervous disorders by an entirely new set of assumptions, assumptions which, off and on over the centuries, had been called “hysteria,” a typically female suffering. Although many medical doctors thought of “hysteria” as the product of a psychical trauma, an “acting out” of some memory that had been forgotten (ie., re- pressed) by the subject, such a view of hysteria often led to the kind of error Freud made in The Aetiology of Hysteria (1896)."° Geoffrey Hartman has pointed out in “On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies” that Freud’s theory here could readily lead one to confuse traumatic hysteria with fantasy, particularly if one makes the error of equating fantasy with the repressed. Neither Freud nor Lacan made this error. In the late 1890s Freud thought he had discovered the clement of trauma at the base of hysteria, He wrote: “At the bottom of every case of hysteria, there are one or more occurrences of premature sexual experience . . . which belong to the earliest years of child- hood.””” Yet, Freud’s thinking about hysteria changed to the point that he split from Breuer, in large part, over their different explanations of the cause of hysteria, Freud’s early opinion was that the cause of hysteria always had to do with sexual impulses." Reminiscent of Charcot’s use of hypnosis to prove that hysteria could be caused by verbal suggestion, Freud evolved a treatment which consisted of inducing in the hysteric a kind of state, not focused on external stimulii, that would enable the—overly excited, overly affected — woman or girl to recall the supposedly forgotten trauma at the base of her 36. Sigmund Freud, The Aetiology of Hysteria (1896), SE 3: 189-221 37. Geoffrey H. Hartman, “On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies,” in New Literary History, vol. 26 (Summer 1995), no. 3:537—563; quoted by Hartman on. p. 539 from Freud’s The Aetiology of Hysteria (1896), SE 3: 203. 38. Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer, Studies on Hysteria (1893~1895), SE intro,, xxv,964 , ‘uourunpoy,7, “uoyosiopur, axeduio “Zp “7 -d ‘Pu0gy “pnaiy axed “[5 “LEI-€ ZZ AS (661) Messy aauy.y :eestrysouopy pun sasopy ‘pros punwusig “op ‘L-9:C AS (€681) worrornunauu) Kavunuyprig ‘Durucurye jouansy fo usunysoyy proypleg 242 up ‘pna4g punuidig pue 1ond1g J2s0[ “6E [eas ayp Aq want ppiy> pur sotpour udass19q ssaUIBUG & jo UON>IpsorUT sHOquuks dup ‘ouIsap sno_suODUN s19y1OUr ayp 01 29uas2J94 UT SUTULIDy 40 auI|NoSeUT se J[psauo souyap aud ‘sprom Joy0 UT “Walqns 449A9 JOJ 2HELUNEN st—Lton -enxas Jo uondumnsse ayy pur—Anyenxas yam squnooua ay aeyp sonsie ay ‘euaisky Jo asne> oneuNeA ¥ Jo eapr axp doxp 10u Soop UEDe] OYA cq SUEYDH] St ayoquaés ay ul uoddes jenxas e yo soyrutis ayp saya ounstow ay uF neuen St pty ‘osuasuow sir pue Aupenxas, jo uondumsse fenrur sir jo sey aalqns Auaaa aouauadxo ayp sozneuresp HyUOD e “eauNEN peoxy> -Asd yy, sasne> iuvuruusaiap [eotZojoypisd sony sKeanye o4gm s204p “esky Jo ase atpy UL reIp Yom Sava suy UL paurerureMs prose, (6g61) eustoysouopy pup sxopy 01 euaIssy Yia ssoiNODUD IsAy St Woy “pud ay or SurwUrIaq Dtp wor 570m spna4y payseur eumen jo idsouo> oyp sv sejosur ing aaneseu SaeuiSeurr ue dn ayer yp siuoxa pooypyryp jo sour -ow.out sno1osuoo atp UF punoy aq A]pensn sou jp108 Soup ‘st eH] PeorFoyoy>«sd 40 proiskyd—sworduxks yo usu .%ydsip snows ayy uF posoquisuios-o1 24 Ajo ue pur yeas axp ut passoadou Ayfeoipes ‘poopur ‘ose ay, Asowsu pur ay8nowp snorssuo> 01 areunxosd ou axe sooua9stUIUIDY “uonezIjemidaou0.01 ¥ sgosopun sosuaasiurtuas Jo 4Zo9q2 ay) YaAsmoy Zo" ueIMEDE Uy 2nd Sunje, ap 40 ‘sisijeuvoysAsd payfes pnosy rey ur Aypeuy FuneutUN> “Supjuyp Jo uroisks asnue sty ‘paoput ‘uonenisuo jesrpout s pnoay a8uey> 01 sem—pnoyg 01 painqume udyo axe ays ySnoypye ‘posueape ay sida -uod foy spo peusur e Suoue—Suuaquiouss uo sons s,zanag “euMeN yo Asoo kre spnazgy ssop ue Auoayp runen uo yom {erodwou0s YUM GOURD UF 940UE axeY O1 stUid9s Kxo9Np ssanaig_ yo wodse sty, ge PRIA YUU axon iol sty or ssinqunuos sanarg, saruz>srutu21 wos dyaroR Loffns souotstpy, “aang 01 ay auf sem SsuD sno,z9U ay 0} awedosdde suonouts ay3—SunUEU ‘ojdusexo 10) —Suuoquiowrsy “eapt wo.9y1p v psourape sonoag, “Bursa4ns VINAVUL dO SAINO TOOL 88The Psychical Nature of Trauma 89, father, and in terms of other realities which are equally as enigmatic for the child who encounters confusions at the point he or she seeks the consistency and wholeness of a unified identity that will link together his or her being, gender, and sexuality. In stressing that sexual difference i not an innate knowledge, but rather is learned in bits and pieces from the Other, in refer- ence toa signifier without a signified —the phallie signifier being the abstract, signifier for difference itself —Lacan gave a reason why the encounter with sexual difference is traumatic for children. In any traumatism, Vanderveken writes, one finds a giving away of one’s power to the Other. That is, the Other takes a certain portion of the subject’s real—which Lacan describes in Semi- nar XX as a space opened up between the appearance and the reality— thereby creating the suffering."* This can occur because bits of the real lie outside the subject—as sinthomes that ex-sist or sit outside any particular ensemble of a seeming whole—such that the Other can see or hear them. When pieces of the object a that define one’s jouissance in a condensed form, servingasa limit point to language and representations and, thereby, marking one’s knowledge in the real, are touched by the Other—whether through insult, exclusion, or maltreatment of any kind—the Other traumatizes a subject by quite literally opening up a hole between the objects that usually suture any encounter with the lack-in-being and a concrete brush with the palpability of the hole."* Insofar as the Lacanian concept of the real—defined here as the knowl- edge one cannot bear to know and which, for that reason, is radically re- pressed from conscious memory—concerns a knowledge that returns into conscious language via symptoms, passion, suffering, or affect, one can study its traumatic effects upon language at points where the image (imaginary ego identifications) ends and anxiety arises; or where consistencies and appear- ances are cut into by affect, and so on, Both Dora and the young homosexual woman, as well as Freud’ little nephew, manifest anxiety at the moment ofan encounter with the real which emanates from what Lacan designated as a void place in the Other. Furthermore, the appearance of anxiety in these three texts functions, I would argue, as a limit to memory and representation that bespeaks a meaning beyond signification that Lacan called the sense of a meaning. Trauma experiences, as well as literary language, show that there are, 43, See Lacan, Seminar XX, ch.7, “Knowledge and Truth.” 44. 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Jo xpour [eepsownsd axp se evaiscy paynuapt pnarg ,,\(1Z61) ,oFd Mp jo sissjeuy axp pu A8ojoyp4sq dnosp,, uy -28pa] wouy wussqeauosoud v se snorssuosun a4) Jo adoouo> sty deevs¥ or Seat v sn Surar3 ‘oFenSue] pur wysnowp sno1suos urypiar seuntd {pms or Ava sneusSipesed $19450 suonuny sno1rsuosun 40 ss2201d. vuaisdy jo aseq axp ie asne> aneumen v jo mata surser] ‘Kysiooud D10py “ureyp Surdpusis uo a squasoidas reyp Suntm snorssuooun ue se zowloUr Jo stata anbrun v ares0qeI> 01 21qe sear URDE] “uosqoye{ pur pno4y jo s9YpHo FuiuLg sup UO paseg ofpajmouy quasedsuen SuipprX wey soqpes ‘suoneisdsaiur pu sewsius s94oa wip ofip2[souy passosdas v Jo suits sv ayBnowp pur offensury ut oxow or sworduxks smoyje wawasedsipAurduosyy ‘uonwoynuapt jo uasng aSieursy s phosg jo uonepsuen s,uvse'] , Aen Karun, e se juowow 9q, ‘hea ssovo1d-Asepuosas & ut saypour sj Buys au amNsqns 02 ‘suonejes {ougjeamnbo oyeut 01 U0 smof]e UoResuspuorjoydeINYY .,->8enBury UIDA08 aeyp sodon jeso.9ys om ayp ae Kuruoisur pue soydeious wey AxA02s1p s,uosqoye{ uewoy (pin Suruonouny sso201d-aeusnad jo peoid4a se auauua.ejd -sip pue uonesuapuos yo ada2u0> s,pnas syzo%or BuiBuq Jo uoneaouUL oyp apew use] *(suaa) s 1onosg) (ss9201d-Aseustad) snorasuosun pur (ssa20ad jepuod2s) snorssuod :o8pajmouy ur >1%o] Jo spury wuas2y41p oa “paaput VINAVUL AO SHIDO TOOL. 06The Prychical Nature of Trauma an woman, Freud announced this as a rule in the Dora case when he described the young woman's “conversion symptoms” as a physiological translation of a psychic response to the sexual advances Herr K. had made to her when she was I4yearsold. Atthat moment, Herr K., having dismissed everyone so they could be alone, tried to embrace Dora in his store. Assuming that Herr K. excited her sexually, Freud maintained that the fundamental rule of the hysteric is to deny the sexual excitation she feels for a man. The hysteric’s question, as described by Lacan, is quite different. Ithaslittle todo with sexual excitation, or even fear of male sexuality. The hysteric is troubled, Lacan argued, by an identity question: What is a woman? Lacan exits from Freud's impasse in thought, which ends up in his suggesting that the traumatizing element in Dora’s case—and in other cases of hysteria as well —is the visual or tactile impact of the anatomical sexual difference Describing the scene in the store, Freud says Herr K. had ostensibly arranged to meet Dora and his wife at his place of business so as to view the church festival together. Meanwhile, he persuaded his wife to stay at home, sent away his clerks, and “set up a scene” where Dora could be surprised by him on a back staircase. He threw himself upon her and kissed her. She, in turn, fled in disgust. Freud implies that Herr K. wanted something more from Dora than a kiss. He wanted retribution. She had denied him a kiss at the famous scene beside the lake. Now, she has run away from him a second time, with no explanations to him. She, nonetheless, talks about these episodes to Freud. Some days later, the K.’s had planned an expedition which was to last for some days and on which Dora was to have gone. Not surprisingly, Dora refused to go along on the expedition. But Freud was surprised and interpreted this as areversal of affect, as well as a displacement of a symptom of sexual excitement from the genital area to the mucous membrane of the alimentary or digestive canal. Dora’s trauma was attributable, in Freud's view in 1901, to Dora’s sexual excitement which had been replaced by disgust.” On the prior page, he had written: “I should without question consider a person hysterical in whom an occasion for sexual excitement elicited feelings that were preponderantly or exclusively unplea- surable; and [ should do so whether or not the person were capable of producing somatic symptoms." In light of Lacan's theory of the libido or jouissance— that not only is one 47. Compare Freud, SE 7:29. 48. Compare Freud, SE 7:28“OS —£8 L661 By) f OU ‘pg "Or ‘nataay IuK;ouvoyrled 24, (E>UUDIE sopeyg —dorue Jo Soaxp s,pna4,J 02 uINpUDPPE Ue) , FCG] INYPS XEPY “PUSHY sosseyp sumisodursg,, ,aorcuy wrod 94.1, pnanpy wey ssedwoy “Gaorxue pue punom o89 ue uao,ioq Uonepps axp aziseyduso oy sasAjeae pue sisiojoy>isd o> Kq poroaloa uaog AjaHie] acy SaotKue Surpsesas saxzoanp s pos ‘co —p91 d axedwo> “71 -2:02 79“(9Z61) ,Aarxuy pue surordusés ‘suontqnyuy,, ‘pna4y punuttiig “16 $0281 "4d *(c261) 91 "OU "270231, 2P UAAAYIMG 7 XhL6| MUOY) stan ap auUarpHa4f 2po25y axp jo ssosBuoy tpITA a4 18 UaAIs (C761) ,2WASION LT, “UeDe] sonb>e[ “OS “CTE A Zg6] WOUON 320K MON) HOND2Ig PILE; UI (GL) ,SHO!SUODUN UEIPNIS | ay ur oatsop Jo on>9[e1p axp pur valqns atp jouorssoaqns 94,1, “wear sanb>e{ “GF aouasayip v soytuiis wey ajdiound Ayjeas ev sove‘ounus yyy ofensuey jo ane] ou aq ueo o291p “9]diourd stp jo wontezypenadaauod s,uere"] UY Ave] OU 24, pinoa aso4p ‘suoniqiyur ou ase axoup 1 :opdusexe Xq yn sey “ss9"po Buowr sjooyss unyyursy ayp se IK ,.,°222Ngo fo You) pun ssouatufopur jo Kayyenb ve sey 1] Surpoutos snogn Aarue stu :uoumnedx9 01 uonepas a[geyeaswUuN we sey, exp Daye ue AaorCUR s]]09 94 9494 Kesso EYAL ,epuDpPY,, 242 UI S1UDUE -uro9 sty Aq ‘s9A9m04 “poourAuoD a10ur WE | “opiqy passoado3 Jo no Bursize suoniqiyur penxos pue AorxKuE UsD4N9q YUY E Jo syeods ay vaya _KoEXUV pur suroduagg ‘suomqryuy, ut 9761 240)9q “YUL Sq parsnsip st ezocy Ayan ureydxo 01 Kaoaqp v quia dn ou169 0u ssop phasing “vues Zurnposd soy yenuaiod sip aaey si29y> [eNxas ey Suisuas siy UF ‘UMUTEUT Pjnom J ‘Saq] sureysns 2x01 s pos SIDI a4|,“22Woss0f Jo a1maxd pouoy Spuy dour s,ue2e"] opissuoye astuononpos Ayjea1Boporq se sseadde sisoup spn. jc (¥S9Y 24p 40) 1824 a4p pue (Spoq) Kseursew 94 waoss19q ‘Bure 4qpeosSojodon ‘parens oe yptys 4941 sho1ssuoouN Aypeo4pes axp UE pouNg suoneps snsissiseu saiouiou 01 20u219}1 uF uIUEIUE snopsuosUN se pur of jo s9pso Aseurfeunt ap pur oSenSur] jo s9ps0 ayoquads ay ud2.010q —oeds snorsuoun ayp sxoiue aetp [euaIeU KALE 2yHUAp! ay 04 2901932}9 ur ‘oenSue] 40 ofosodns ayp quay ovenbo ayStur au0 yorya— feos oy pur ayoquits ax usosieq pare2o|—soytuts aueN, sz9yrey 2p OF 20U932}94 ut ‘Suruvous Jo >180} a]qeztpeus0} v donposd ospe 22unss¢nof yo spury 2054p Ase] ye reyp ‘s10ursaupny soyDeD UEDET,,“9]qeUIT 9q 104 Pjnom swordULAs WoISs9A -wo9 jeotioporsdyd yo Asoayp s,pnas{—Bunpiou axp pur ‘swouoyd aup ‘oze8 yp ‘soton ayp ‘snyfeyd (Aaeuiteun) ayy ‘moy AzeutsN xp “sa20Ky Oy “ISEOIq at —nolgo ypro punose raye/promoleun Jo suone|jarsuos SuruesW oT dn Supping ‘oxisap asne re1p sizalqo Jo siadse petsdus a4p Kq powtox Ajypomas VINAVULL AO SAIDOTOdOL, 2The Peychical Nature of Trauma 93 between pleasure and reality unless that law is based on the paradoxical premise of there being an exception to the law on which law can be based. When Freud wrote up the Dora case in 1905, he spoke of the formation of symptoms. But his description remains at the level of positivistic descriptions of conversion or somatizing symptoms, He interprets Dora's disgust as a literal rejection of the sensation of pressure she felt on the upper part of her body when Herr K. pinioned her against the stairwell and tried to kiss her. Not only was the kiss disgusting, Freud opined, Dora also felt the pressure of Herr K.’s erect member against her body and was revolted by it. Her symp- tomatic response was to displace sexual excitement from her lower body onto her thorax. In a footnote, Freud defends the logic of such displacements. Lacan supplied what Freud's argument lacks: a logic and a means. Because he lived in the milieu of the intellectual revolutions brought about by linguis- tics and cultural anthropology, starting in the 1930s, Lacan understood that a symptom displacement may well occur as a signifier substituting for some other thing, some image or effect, or some knowledge repressed from con- sciousness. Lacan emphasized, as Freud had before him, that anxiety is an affect that is not repressed. It wanders, inverts itself, takes myriad forms. But an affect is not repressed. What is repressed are the signifiers that anchor it? In anxiety, Lacan teaches that the subject makes the most radical movements of trying to ascertain what the Other wants of him or her: Che ouoi? For, itis only by knowing the Other's desire that one can validate oneself in the scopic field of the gaze of others. I would suggest that Lacan could offer a logical explanation for the way that anxiety responds to trauma, where Freud failed, because he had access to Saussure and Jakobson's discoveries regarding the laws that govern language, where Freud had only an affective symbology. An object-cause-of-desire has the structure of metonymy, Lacan argued. It serves first asa radically re- pressed cause and, subsequently, as a limit point to memory and conscious knowledge. But insofar as its displacement has a referential cause—one of the cight (corporal) objects-cause-of-desire which Lacan describes as constituting, areal Ur-lining of the subject—it will always remain pre-specular.* Such material can, nonetheless, function by substituting one thing for another. But the subs ions themsel es are made up of imaginary, symbolic, and real 52. Compare Lacan’s theory of sexuation in “A Love Letter,” Seminar XX. 53. See Seminar X, L'engoisse, Nov. 14, 1962. 54. See Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection, pp. 314-315.sxor oy ur seadde 01 suonens sayuing og -d ‘evocy ‘pas sueduto; ss [1¢ 4] aeatqns sip Uo UoREUTOJUT 494 [Te Jo 99INOs ax w2170820/ pry 2Yg ">AI0s 0 a]qeUN 940m saLOUIDUE JOY Y>IYA 2[PPLL ese WOY] aUReD a8pajnouy 394 219401 JO uonsonb ay ang “pease ranoqe mouy ays :yuexy pur iduuosd skempe sea Jamsue 19} “ypaeds pau1p ou! wap Sunepsuen UF ysts IySis 4394 pauusas a1oyp avy? snonBiquieun os awWor0q pey a 0} suoIsN|[e J9y [AUN suTEU sar Aq Sunyp e yfe> 10U pip 1 “<]Surpsoo9V “ase> step ut aso snos08u1 vor suon -duunsse Kui 1a{qns 01 snorxue sem J asnes9q ang ‘sAnoU! snonudt>suO> Aue wosy 10U ‘Sip pip | pue S98papmouy jenxos jo vorfos oy ur si>ey soy Aue 01 494 2onponut o1 OW Wand stp YIM sured asorwo18 o4p Yoo | :28poymouy jenxas jesnaeu ‘e>18oj01q yo uonou snsyiduis v 01 uouswousyd x2jdw0> v 2anpos 01 10U st wI99U09 spnouy 2019p. poxy, oures9q sunssoad v Aes or urDU Yt pinom reya ng 29H pay aures9q pur xesoyp stp asuteSe sunssoid snooueruns a1 o9 waLa2e|dsIp yo ssazoid v Aq posagjos sem auoz 21ueB01019 puosss si4y Jo YoRRIIIXa ay2 pue ‘sHou ay ‘ue#10 9peu1ay Supuodsoss09 oy ut a8ueq> sok -ojeue ue 01 pa] Ajqeqosd s2quiow 19919 ay2 Jo aanssoud ay, * * + “auOZ [eso a1uaGoF019 oy ut uorssaadax Jo wrordurss ayp st asnésip ay,z, anoge auie> surordurds ax jo voneuraoy ay Y>Tyas UE Ava axp purissopun ues aa 1eqp euawousyd aasip asoyp Jo Uonejazu91U! ay auNODDe OUT Sure Aq {quo sta] "22uauadx9 9]8uIs © WoYy poatsop WYP Jo |]e—uONwss2UOD a1 -uons9yje ut paSeTu9 wou Jo souxproae ayp pue‘ yeorfojorq sty paseq ay eaUis Jo [ada] 24p Ae SuONEpPs Jo Sou9s feotHo] v posodoad pna.ey “28 pajmouy ur Aejd ovu 2ouasqe pur 20u2s01d yioq sung ep algo ay punose yuowasow peonD9]eIp ve UI sites KzepuODaS siI Joswua91 UF UmoUY 9q Kuo HED siren feursLO ‘st eyA oydersu Jo asmIINAAS ayn aaey skeaape [fim 9 a2alq0 punoy(as) ay rey pane ueoe-] “o1Foy stp Sumoyjog ‘swen Asowaynuapt aeun jo suopureuos pur sweuwos— feu pty uo Bi YNAVULLAO SAIDOTOOL +6The Peychical Nature of Trauma 95 Freud is so perplexed by Dora’s forgetfulness that he goes to the most farfetched lengths to explain her reaction, saying that the taste of a kiss reminds one of genital functions, even to the point of the smell of micturition (p.31) Lacan depicts Freud as trying, rather, to figure out how the original object—the first memory—has always already, by definition, been lost or become absent. Freud knew the object could only be (re-Jexperienced as (re-)found. In his topological work, Lacan had equated the body with the imaginary —as that which has mutable, variable, plastic properties insofar as words, images, and events can sustitute themselves for other meanings, thereby creatinga seeming consistency. This would mean that the illusion one has of having a whole body can be cut into—marked by affect—by the discontinuities and ragged, traumatic edges of the real. Once Lacan has made topological sense of the imaginary as an identificatory consistency —at least a logical one, if not an experiential one—commensurate with bodily identifi- cations, Freud’s biological interpretations of trauma and anxiety sound less farferched. ‘That Dora’s sexual curiosity has been stimulated by the relations between her father and Frau K. is doubtless. Not only had they taken bed suites, separated only by a hall, Dora surprised them in a forest together. The two families had, as if by chance, moved together to Vienna at the same time When Freud said to Dora that she had been complicitous in the liaison between her father and Frau K. because she had acted amorously toward Herr K., she admitted the possibility right up to the scene at the edge of the lake. More important for purposes of a study of trauma, however, is Freud’s argument that some particular historical event is recorded and repressed, but remains concretely alive, even insisting on presenting itself in conscious life as an enigma. The particular character of hysteria distinguishes it from all the other psychoneuroses, Freud wrote, in that its psychic somatic complicity, whether offered by some normal or pathological process, is connected with one of the bodily organs: Lam prepared to be told at this point that there is no very great advantage in having been taught by psycho-analysis that the clue to the problem of hysteria is to be found not in “a peculiar instability of the molecules of the nerves” or in a liability to “hypnoid states” —but in a “somatic compli- cance”. But in reply to the objection I may remark that this new view haspiog Aysnes weep siv0lqo s9s0} A7peaezmunMes au0 ‘9yH] Jo ses aXp wos,| “AseIURY jo Aaueonsed ap AyFNoy ueuMY Jo saKe] Seq OU! ayP Jo 21moNLNS up [eaaad [pL yalqo Ue Yons ‘saousa1 puodas Jo [AI] 2y Ie SurVq-uI-y>K] E [1y[9y—u1s0} aamansqns e uI—oaouro1 puosds e 1e UeD axIsop posned assy YE pa{qo ue Jy “[e24 atp Jo so2aid se ssousnor9suoy Ja1ua uxD soLOWIDUE THeUNEN snoy 995 02 uFSoq 2M) ‘asne v IU pue Wordusds ¥ aIv>UT]EP pjnoar asuods -o1 B Ypns ey panse uve] oYLO ay wos uO WoY sIeDOssestp ‘sised {jpoq wosy sBurppay jenxos sowsedas ouiowscy oxp wey pouteurew pnsy popsosos usaq sey pune eae joosd ureu2> e Sun2yo—>]0y ap Iy ‘afeunt yseas autos ‘diay Ksourotu atuos “es Areun auios Jo 9q J]! 199/qo1s0] © Jo a8paymouy {uo s,uossod v‘sax0os07y “22e]d Kaduro ue Ur “yrs0y os pur Iw>s9 Spunos ‘28eun aimnsqns v 20rjd o1—sayor 14 aun ays ut —oun pu areds ur ypeasasnur 2u0 20ueIsip 2yp Ng “uatp “y71s- um Buycy-sMp YOU 1399140 24,1, solqo ue yo aovzans ap ae Surucsus aunganais 01 aiej2i s9]oy pue ‘siutod ‘sauy moy jo dseaZ yesrFojodor sty uo spuadap ‘2194 “2oueape [eto] s,uvse"|—si99]9 Uo s1otp Jo sasnie9 1osIp a1e sueS0 ayp ey pas 02 W998 11 S>xeur yty —1sed Apoq Jo weHJ0 Ue Wor so Sump ayp wosy Spoos1p arwueusd 01 su199s 19a(go DuI0s 405 o4ISp 24 IPL uaatg sonsadoad soypze9 sit yo stuz9y UF UMS sit 30} autsap arp SuRMINSUOD ‘ooe]d assy ou Ur so} 199Lqo ue Jo suLeUrDA EY J0y HORTIOUDP wst PID9/qo2q 1, -potpmss aq ‘ssa]aypouou ‘ued y>iyar uoneruasoadas pur Kourou o2 yUL6d wu b GorssuUOD & se saAs9s rDalgo aU Jo Asooyp SIFY “oy Maspp W SuNeIsuNUD ayy Sox298 vues e dooy tpoq ue wey Buruvows UF ssous|qnop uIEL2> bse afpajMoUy snorssuosUN puE sno1rsuOD Jo UoN2X2UUODaUI [e210] 9 pueaszpun 02 sn Suyqeus ut 2ouvape urersa9 e soxeus UeDe"] “PA2] 2U01¥ {1b-OF dd] ‘sosomauoypisd ayo wosy 72 sarpruavaffip yoryas euassy Jo Isa -peaeyp sejnonaed wey Surajoaur at jo uonsod ayp ypta Auo ang ‘wo}qosd 2poyan ay YALA [kop 01 2Avy J9BUO] OU ayy “IE paysturWIP qOIxX9 SUNOS 01 ospe sey ang “y>eq soyNy wo|Gosd ay paysnd quar auI0s o1 AyUO 10M VINAVUL AOS OOTOdOL 96The Psychical Nature of Trauma ”7 corporally and psychically. Indeed, loss and trauma could be used inter- changeably. Each loss occasions an association —a memory —that implicitly promises to fill a lack-in-being, to make sure that no sense of emptiness registers itself in the body. By isolating parts of the body from the whole in hysteria, by showing the migration of symptomsasa traveling of symptomatic identifications, rather than medical maladies, Freud gave Lacan the basis by which to link his concept of reality asa One-minus to a dynamic structuration of inert fantasy circling around a limit object. Dora is confused in her desire. Her games are complicity games in the sexual world of grown-ups. She has yet to engage her passions and find her place in her desire and in response to the requests and expectations the Other has of her. She leaves us with questions, not answers: Where is she in her desire? Where is she within the field of the scopic gazes that attract, repulse, and judge her? In Lacan’s presentation of a structure to the discourse of hysteria, he places the subject of desire engaged in questioning as the speaking, agent: 825, aes, Freud’s young homosexual woman, on the contrary, has found The Lady she wishes to court. She is not questioning her desire. Rather, she is secking her father’s approval of her choice. And when she promenades her conquest in front of him, in an implicit question to him, and receives the answer of a scalding gaze, she throws herself over a railroad bridge. Although she only breaks some bones, she had risked suicide. ‘One could interpret the young homosexual's act simplistically, She cannot bearher father’s rejection, so she throws herself over a bridge, But Lacan takes us further than this in understanding this act and, I would maintain, in understanding the nature of her trauma, Among his many statements about the cause of anxiety, Freud also noted that anxiety is always oriented toward the future and is one of the strongest manifestations of the kind of fear that can be engaged when one is unclear about what the future will be. Lacanarguesin Seminar IV that each traumatic act resonates on the imaginary, real, and symbolic planes that come together in any production of consciousness. This theory of mind enables him, atthe very least, toargue that trauma will always point to some aspect of the father’s power in the unconscious. The traumatiz~ ing father may be the real father of jouissance, the symbolic father of law andeel dpa Zs 6904 A] anunuag aredui0y “9g a8 ayp ae sea fog pjo-ypuow-gy auf "Y>] Joppour sty vaya por oq aH] dup Cyst jo woneyssdsoqut s poze] Yio sovsTesip ueoer] ysnorp woso ‘Axooxp s,ue>er Jo sooud se awoprout jacy jo, 34 Wo 1x91 s,pnas_] 24 1YsU DUC) 280} Ajpesneumen pue Ajpeotpex us9q sty wey 19kGo ue 405 suI-puEis sv ‘129/G0 ainy se fyuo quassad axe ep si29Lgo Wo ssvaq wYp asned e ‘psi aBenFury {yo ying 2xp saysopun asne> wuasqe-auasazd v weep aysiner Ede “adiourige Cunsoagg 242 puotogy wt [p93 WIggOg ap {pI sures s,ssaydou pay] sty Jo uors -snosip s,pnaa.q jo uorneiasdsoqtas s,ue3e"] 01 Buizs2494 Aq 2pnpDU0D |feYS | “soyo yp yo mataand aqp unt satdnos0 au0 uontsod ay stsasu09 sieaye s1oquiss ay Ut yom s.9U0 PUY “nea [eoHZojoUO say anoge uonsonb peoiiojodor v stat sv “uty or 2]qerdaD2e st a>10y 1alqo yenxas soy JPY YoNUL os 10U st "SHENs Pynows | SOUPLy 194 wos Use] 01 sypos ueuIOM [enxosouoY FuNOs ayy Tey AA “Tes HA JO YIN 94p Aq suowsny| arp Sumno ‘o#9 Aaeurieur ayp dn oxeur wy suoNesynuapr onsissioseU aip sosisid siyp ‘2utsop Jo aa{qo ue st duo se seosUY ae~P soSpaymouy>se duo Jt asuas sayeur 29e oy or Sussed,, 494 jo voNMesdsout s.r] “kpamayye Suro8sopun st ays vuunen axp mmo Sunde Aqesou SYeads 01 os ‘pros 2yp oWUt kq purus Jay no sis 24g “28%ptaq 4p 4940 _y9si34 savozyp ays “Kog Aqeq ou 242 fq sops0 ayoquuAs axp wt paorpdax u99q ‘sty ys reyp uoneULsIJUOD sv Ape'] a4, 02 uore|>1 394 Jo WondoLD4 s,soyp0y 194 Suxprassipy ,"suoND2gFe 494 U>pors sey O\ss J9yR019 AtoUE 9K JO IUDT AIDS 94p “spsioy sou ays sus urae'] Seas sip uf ‘stuad syoquiés = soypey Aseurseur yo vonenba uv 01 Joupey s94 soonpos uewtom Sunos oy—yuom 30 onyea Jot] —sops0 aqoquu4s J0y ut uonysod s2y Surpsesos paznewnen ud>9q Furey “Ape at, noo 01 suiffag ays ou sup ay “suoNDaYE ssoqpey 494, ut d9e|d pofajtaud 294 1qnop o1—suoneoyniuapt jedipag Jo wou0U ye>1 oy pap oy sgjfe> we2e] yas us Tuuonsonb-s[ps uno s9y Xq poudrysioy axe sonmpqisuos soya —uvuiom unos a4 soste> 1uana StU, L,"Uos e*PHyP.a1gu © OD tpAlg UDA asn{ sey sotpiour atp :poziseyduss pey pnasy rey sassazs ueder] “suoND9]Fe sny ut aped Jay Suipseos soyney 404 01 vonsanb woyduur s,uewos Funos aur stu20u09 ‘2se9snip UI Buipueassapun pur asensury or yu] ese jos FUNK -unuua {ysvaj> ‘920d axp jo Dedur neues ox jo uoNEIsdsaIUT s,uEDe | jg 210U 40 a0 Jo 19084 BUDS J0 tare] _yo.aney ofasadns jo pury vse suonsuny oy sotpey {seuew ay J “uoneNsES VINAVYL dO SAIDOTOIO.L 86The Psychical Nature of Trauma 9 where separation, individuation, and loss of the other are noteworthy events. His mother has gone away, temporarily. Lacan depicts this event as opening up a ditch of absence around him. Freud was interested in the fact that his grandson replaced his mother’s presence by a repetitive game of rolling a bobbin spool back and forth, saying “Here! There!” (Fort! Da!). In that way, Freud says, he mixed pleasure and grief for the purpose of mastering the sorrow his mother’s departure has occasioned. Lacan will later explain such a dialectic as the possibility for objects of all kinds to suture a structural lack-in-being Lacan takes a different tack in the Fort! Da! game than Freud. Although, like Freud, he agrees that the little boy has been traumatized by a loss, in Lacan's topological teaching, a ditch of absence is quite literally opened up in the scopic field that had anchored him as a solid subject within the sphere of his mother’s gaze. When this gaze disappears, the little boy encounters a palpable void or hole which marks a limit to the perimeters of perception which seeks continually to affirm who and where one is in the imaginary/ symbolic, When a trauma causes loss of position in those orders, the trauma demonstrates thatloss of position in the symbolic/imaginary is experienced as loss of being. Freud thought such inexplicable acts of repetition denoted a biological reality, usually occasioned by instinct. He writes in Beyond the Pleasure Prin- ciple: “Itseems, then, that an instinct is an urge inherent in organicllife to restore an earlier state of things which the living entity has been obliged toabandon under the pressure of external disturbing forces. . . the expression of the inertia inherent in organic life."** In other words, repetitions are performed at the behest of the id in order to provide pleasure, which Freud defined as the absence of tension or the maintenance of homeostasis. But Freud remained perplexed as to why there was also a “beyond pleasure” within repetition that was redolent of the death drive Lacan questions Freud as to how a zer or pleasurable? He reinterprets the inertia which Freud equated with plea- sure as some meaning placed on the biological organism from the world outside, rather than being something inherent in the organism. Since Freud did not understand that what repeats is the signifier, for lack of having had access to linguistics, he could not advance in his logic of the unconscious beyond a biological theory in which the body causes its own effects. The degree tension could be life-giving 58. Sce Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, p. 36.991d Ap auuurg asedwiog “6s “yeas aul uo a8enSuey 10 ‘a8enSur] uo yeas axp yo uonesado 2qp ySnoup vumnen Apms ur> au0 aw~ asodosd pynom J ‘81x91 puL saat] Jo souyso1ur siya ay 3x9) AavurFeun/orjoquiés ayp Jo sANeaIeU SuIAoW-39\9 aup sdons yeas axp asaya 1wiod stp we punoj aq 01 uoreuasasdas pur Gow Or wun] v yeadsoq emp ewNeN pur ‘soey> ‘oydonseres ap SuAUMODUD kqoz94 spayrunsip sv j]as2u0 stuosjuos au0 Spe] or seas (¥) 19!qo ay) UDy AY gc Blqo ou Jo Pe] a4p st ‘Kes [JEM URIRT ‘sIs09 yre we apry asnur foq any yp Tey Ay “2[doad pur sBunp jo s9ps0 Areurseun pur oyoquids ay unyia aoejd 10 uonsod v Suraey se J2souo aMNsUOD21 (01 SGa1un pue “AaypiqeziuBo294 ‘Aounsisuos jo Fur9q ese JJasouo aimpsuOIas 01 ‘soyaes ‘st uonnadas ayp Jo unre ayp et sapnppuod uvse'] “sHuo# pur sFurwo0> {yep ayy ur sxoqpour stay jo sso] Asrsoduroa oy soiseus 01 pou pynoys affe Jo stuou gy 01 ¢ Apprewmxosdde punose uosppy> Aya Jo vonsonb ay dn sung 1 soyrey soypour ayy svussoadas yey joquués (Jenp) v r0U st Jo01 40 Jods ayp ‘uaprour sup jo uoneiasdaoqur surest] uy -ypsuany Jo aa1d poos e yp P24 wrqgog up (sx29xpeD) sasaaut Kog apy yp YOryAr hq 19y1URIs 94p Jo Uorssed aya ‘vata s.ueoer] ut ‘Sisastueur awe Joos uiqqog aup ut j2C7 [2404 Jo uoadas VWAVUL dO SaIDOTOdOL, 0016 An Interview with Jean Laplanche Cathy Caruth Jean Laplanche has long been recognized as a leading French thinker and psychoanalyst. His pioneering work on Freud's early writing first revealed the temporal structure of trauma in Freud and its significance for Freud’s notion of sexuality. In his later work, Laplanche has elaborated on this understanding of what he called Freud’s “special seduction theory” in a “general seduction theory,” which examines the origins of the human psyche in the ‘implantation of the message of the other.” I interviewed him in his home in Paris on October 23, 1994. I. Trauma and Time CC: The seduction theory in Freud’s early work, which traces adult neurosis back to early childhood molestation, is generally understood today as representing a direct link between psychic life and external events.! When people refer to this period of Freud’s work in contem- porary debates, they tend to refer to it asa time in which Freud still 1. See, for example, Sigmund Freud, “Project for a Scientific Psychology,” in The Origins of Psychoanalysis: Letters to Withelm Fliess, trans. Eric Mosbacher and James Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 1954), esp. pp. 410-413; Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer, Studies om Hysteria, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works 101“(R61 UNBUDg “10K MON) Keooy.y uonompos 2y1 fo uowssaddng spnauy :ymmay uo ynossy 241 “uossey koayja{ “> “(0461 ‘VouCUTULE] 4 ssiBeg) aryouny tod wa tow 12 a1 Jo wonYsUEN *(9Z6| ‘SS94q AUsI9MIUA surydoF] sUyO{ :qyy ‘s10uN -[e a) weUNyayY Kauyo[ ‘suEN SistppuDoYrKsg ut yrHaCq pun 2fr-7 ‘oyouE|der| UED{ “~¢ Z0zd (Z61 ouery ap Soureayssaatuyy sassaug sue¢) wonmumgns oy] sanburpwuzqqoig ‘oyourydey| weal “7 “EAS ,“cuasdH Jo Bojonay ULL, ‘Paxy punwiig pur 7 yy se pau s9yRaxy “(761 —EG6I “SSH YUrFOPY iuopuor]) “sjoa $7 “UosK], URTY pur Kayeng xapy Aq parsisse ‘pnoiy euUy yuan uonesoge|joo uy Aoypeng soure{ Jo diyssoupe ayp spun parjsuen ‘pas punuadis fo Buoy e sypewwog [-g-] yum yoo | daas as1y ayy ‘pn. ut padojoaap §1yny sa asned9q wuerzodwur 4294 st uoN>npas Jo Az09qp atp MOY “Asay & 10u si “Aaypeas sry on yuq sous uosseyy yp 40 “Aaypeo styp on y>uq 2UED phos rei 410 uononp2s Jo Auypeo1 out parsoyfiou pnoz.f rwIp Aes 01 puyy “worsasse ue asn{ “goayp e you st PyYD 242 UF UELOdUAT si VORSNpes reYp es 0, sos0ust 4jaiajduso> ay yor “Asoo4p aq 01 2041 3Nq ‘woRINpes jo Auyjennoey ay 01 y2eq sowod 24 ‘As094p UoNINpes payfe>-os ay (01 ypeq s908 ‘o}dusexo 404 ‘uossepy [4244J9{] UO AA “orn pas jo 220/ yosnno 4p passitusip asnl 2] “$soo4p sty anoqe 108103 {z0D4p wonanpas pojqes-os ayp pauopueqe ay ways ‘pnasf u9AD ay anBse pjnom [ uononpas jo Auo2ys 24) noqe y[ei 100 op Aaup ‘uonoMpas inoge aypea ajdoad uay a4 “por2]ou Afpr9}dwwo> us9q sey uonanpas jo 3 ayp 40f D9"{d v ape VINAVUL dO SAINOTOdO.L zoAn Interview with Jean Laplanche 103 time ago, in The Language of Psychoanalysis, was to unearth this theory, which has very complicated aspects: temporal aspects, eco- nomic aspects, and also topographical aspects. ‘As to the question of external and internal reality, the theory of seduction is more complicated than simply opposing external and internal causality. When Freud said, “Now Iam abandoning the idea of external causality and am turning to fantasy,” he neglected this very dialectical theory he had between the external and the internal. He neglected, that is, the complex play between the external and the internal. His theory explained that trauma, in order to be psychic trauma, never comes simply from outside. That is, even in the first moment it must be internalized, and then afterwards relived, revivified, in order to become an internal trauma. That's the meaning of his theory that, trauma consists of two moments: the trauma, in order to be psychic trauma, doesn’t occur in just one moment. First, there is the implan- tation of something coming from outside. And this experience, or the memory of it, must be reinvested in a second moment, and shen it becomes traumatic. It is not the first act which is traumatic, itis the internal reviviscence of this memory that becomes traumatic. That's Freud's theory. You find it very carefully elaborated in the “Project for a Scientific Psychology,” in the famous case of Emma. Now, my job has been to show why Freud missed some very important points in this theory. But before saying that we must revise the theory, we must know it. And I think that ignorance concerning the seduction theory causes people go back to something preanalyti By discussing the seduction theory we are doing justice to Freud, perhaps doing Freud better justice than he did himself. He forgot the importance of his theory, and its very meaning, which was not just the importance of external events. CC: So you are saying that, in the beginning, Freud himself never under- stood seduction as simply outside, or trauma as simply outside, but as a relation between an external cause, and something like an internal 5. Jean Laplanche and J.-B. Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis, trans. 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Ww 901An Interview with Jean Laplanche 107 centers around the notion of piercing or penetrating, the notion of “effraction” or wounding.'! This notion of wounding seems toimply a spatial model, in which the reality of the trauma originates “outside” an organism which is violently imposed upon. You have suggested that the temporal and spatial models are complementery,"? and Lam wondering what the spatial model can add to our understanding of the role of the other in trauma. JL: One mightask, since I have emphasized a temporal model of trauma, what need is there to go back to a spatial one, to what is called the structure of the psychic apparatus? Now the spatial model is first ofall a biological model. That is, an organism has an envelope, and some- thing happens inside, which is homeostatic, and something is outside. There is no need of psychoanalysis in order to understand that. Biologists understand that. But when I speak of “outside,” I am not speaking of an outside in relation to this envelope, I am speaking of something very much more “outside” than this, that extrancity, or strangeness, which, for the human being, is not a question of the outside world. As you know, many psychoanalysts have tried to produce a theory of knowledge. We don’t need a theory of knowl- edge. Psychoanalysis is not a theory of knowledge as a whole. The problem of the other in psychoanalysis is not a problem of the out- side world. We don’t need psychoanalysis to understand why [ lend reality to this scale, to this chair, and so on. That's nota problem. The problem is the reality of the other, and of his message." ': The reality of the other. : The reality of the other. Now this reality is absolutely bound to his strangeness. How does the human being, the baby, encounter this strangeness? It is in the fact that the messages he receives are enig- matic. His messages are enigmatic because those messages are strange IL. Jean Laplanche, “Traumatisme, traduction, transfert et autres trans(es),” in La révolution copernicienne inachevée: Travaux 19671992 (Paris: Aubier, 1992),¢sp. pP- 257 ff. 12. Ibid., p. 258, 13. See, for example, Jean Laplanche, “The Theory of Seduction and the Problem of the Other,” in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 78 (1997): 655-666. See also his “Seduction, Persecution and Revelation” in The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 76 (1995): 663-682.“(8661 ‘>%popmnoy 310K MN) ss9U49 110 wo skosszy ‘oypurydeey wea{ UL uonnpoaay urstuisdor paystuyyy ayL, “+L -pamonns v sv jppsu pjing 01 sey off9 24p 41 aiejsuen o2 step 41 ss201d 02 puy “passadoad 194 10U ang ‘paruejdun A499 st O89 ayp smtp puy 99 “aessaw ayp jo ssouafuens ayp yaa adoo or aavy am wey yoey A498 9471 01 punog st] [e19U98 ut ABojoy>Asd 01 punog Furpauuos s1 of 21 UNEP ,uop og saMIaNINS sny>Ksd axp Jo BuIpying reyp “SOK 7/ -adoppaua reyp soreuriiz0 10 sopaoaad s0 saedionue ‘suis91 Jnof ut ‘uononpas stp 40 ewe II Og 3.9 “at eget ee ere ne ee -affessou s soypio aip punose Sunepnoan ‘st eyp ‘uestus2dog SuivUIs9q, Aaa au ae Suing Giosuny soziu9]o.g 2} “[enpIAIpur ur sv Jjpsurty sping ialqns ayp reya sooy2 uononpos ax 01 uoNEA>Z Ut S111 Og “039 at Jo mata Jo utd ayy Woy st Aydesfodon s,pnosg ‘os9ymasp> pies aavy | se puy “of ue pling on st ssousuens sip yarn Suidos yo Kem sty puy -ssoustuens step quim doo 01 sey Su1oq ueumy |Teurs axp wyp Ie} ay yaLa dn punog st smesedde o1yp4sd axp jo ea ‘aypo ar91909 4p Jo rods | “p 81g e309 Big v yaa ‘seus UeMUE De] Wt Yeads ,uOp | ayo a1as9u09 ayp Jo yeads J ‘s9qpo ayp Jo Mou Yeads | ua s>yI0 24 Jo snorouosun axp fq papeaut sofessou Yat poruosjuo> st 94 pue‘sno1s -uooun ou sey Suiog uewiny jjeurs ay wey IDE 94 OF punog Kpouns st ayo ayp Jo wajqoad ayp og “snewHIUD pur afuENs 2g y,upjnom soSessau auf ‘snomsuooun ayy ‘St rey Yayo [eUIRUE sty ‘9IpO UAL sty Aq papeaur jfosumy rou sea somo axp Jt ‘St YLT, “soapastuoyp 2 VINAVEL AO SAIDOTOIOL 801An Interview with Jean Laplanche 109 CC: Is that why the ego is, after that, always open to the possibility of being traumatized again? JL: Yes, yes. The other traumas of the adult, or later traumas, are to be understood with the ego already in place, and the first trauma, which isnot trauma, but seduction —the first seduction —is the way the ego builds itself. CC: So in every subsequent trauma there is always a relation between the specific event, whether it’s a real seduction or a car accident or whatever, and the originary founding of the ego. JL: Yes. IL. Sexuality and Trauma CC: As you point out, in New Foundations for Psychoanalysis, after Freud “abandons” the seduction theory in 1897 he continues to develop various aspects of it in different ways throughout his work, but it no longer appears to have the same familial (or even sexual) character."” When trauma reappears in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, for example, itis linked to “accidents” and war events, first of all, and ultimately to foundational moments of consciousness and the drive." In your own work, however, you insist that it might be possible, even in the example of the train accident, to link the seduction theory of trauma toa nonsexual theory: With any disturbance, even if itis not specifically sexual—for example the train trip, or the train accident —a sexual drivecan be released and, in the case of the train accident, it is really an unleashing of the drive, traumatizing the ego from the inside on its internal periphery. In other words, it is not the direct me- chanical impact that is traumatic; it requires a relay of sexual excitation, and itis this flood of sexual excitation that is trauma- tizing for the psychic apparatus.'” 15, Jean Laplanche, New Foundations for Psychoanalysis, trans. David Macey (New York: Blackwell, 1989). 16. Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, SE 18. 17. Jean Laplanche, Problématiques I: langoisse (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1980), p. 218.LAS WSISDIEN, UC, ‘pnoay punutig -g] £2 }4] sn0K uowwosyp ret swusp -19 02 “Yeap 01 paxul] soWO2g eUUNLT] MOU 29UTS “Yeap Jo 22uE -sodunt aup ‘2ydeousig aunsvapg ays puokag ut ‘oanposut os|e 944 1,Us30q] “Saypenxas ur Surzye01 jou Sumpowios st az9"p wy Sums8s0) sty Appsizoud sear 4oaIqo [ev vse 2940 tp Jo 2A0] Pue “Kar]eI01 & se j9s9UO Jo Dn0} se USISSIOIeU Jo Asaaoosip ayp jo soFuep ayn Ng "WSISsI9seU Jo ¢[6] Ul AA2A028IP IY -pnosgy Jo souasoasip qweysodurt your ayp Jo 9u0 s,zeY,], “WisIssioseU st uoaoosip wensodun Ax90 vst y>tyAr “szaaoastp sy ey TPM -7f {Suma310) sty jo anuanbosuos & se ss9n09sip ay 3etp atau Surspautos ospe asoqp s] -99 “apdiounig ainsoayg 241 puokag jo Busueaus 242 shaeyp ‘uoruido Aux uy “spodse snorssuosun si ul ‘punoqua st Aaxpenxas wep Dey dup sposdaodsip asay | rey st SUI “SOU SHY Jo sHasWAL SOR TL —srasuel 29:9 4. —240}9q 1Ng ,puosaq, 101 ‘ou ‘soxg sity PUOKog Anyenxas jo podse Surpung ayp ‘st weep ‘sox Ajuo st yoryas “wsissiozeu unygnoyp | wey 2andrustp aso Funpauios ‘pus axp ut'st Arpenxas,, ‘Surdes s,pnosg jo Kea v st 2pdiourigy sunsvayy ous puotog “xpi v sv ap9fqo aya Jo 2A0] Jo “Aay]eIO1 e se 20] Jo :2A0] Jo pur AaxfeI02 _go.s9uueg 2tp Japun payjozus sea Aayjenxas “ustsstoseU Jo UonINposUt 2yp ADF “UisISsIoseU Jo LONOMposU ay Yr parsers sty [ ApeNxos {go sox0eseyp aANDNARsep a4p 19810} 01 SurwutGog svar pnosy wy ey aup ut soy] adiouug aunsoang 241 puokog Jo aouesytuBis ouput 4044 soamidna oy ut pe sar puy ‘Supuoseos ouput sumdna ase 1942 sSuruoseay jo woy v se ash aye) 9g 1ouULD AF ‘papuEUIsIp aq AsNUU IxDI SHIA Og “IND SIE JO 218] aqpststy,[, woos pur ‘soe asay ayp ut uospyne> ax aut aud JA9U Nok ‘uayo1q 10U sear LOAp]neD ax cuOspyNeD ayp Jo aio] axp sxoI]O4 “Aes pinom J “yoiyan axa1 & say ‘pus ayp ov Huruurfog Aa9 aup wosy parosd -s9U1 9q 07 Sty 1 puL 4x91 9anLINoads v 1] “popuELUsIp Aor9{duH09 aq Asn Y>tyas 4xa1 xajdutOD Auda v st pdioung aunsorg 2y9 puokog Tf gAsoatp uononpes aya Jo stuausa]9 ures apdeoutig aunsnajg ays puodog szop Kear weya uy “soayp wonanpas sate oy pue uononpas jo aftendur] ayp ur asosmur pesoust uno snok 1 pare sur99s ‘2494, UAIOde dy JO UOISUDUNP [ENXDs 9y1 UO 99UDISISUT INOK YWAVUL JO SAIDOTOdOL ouAn Interview with Jean Laplanche un JL: ‘The traumas that Freud treats there are adult traumas. And they are usually gross traumas, train accidents and soon, Now there are many interesting points in this regard, which have to be reinterpreted. First, he says, the dreams of the traumatic neuroses prove that some dreams are not the accomplishment of desire. But he did not try to analyze those dreams. He simply took them for their manifest content. That's very strange, to see Freud being fascinated by the manifest content of those dreams, and not being able to see that even those dreams could be analyzed. They are repetitive, but they are not completely repeti- tive; there are always some points where theanalytic method could be used. And this he forgets completely. That's my first point. My second point would be more positive. It’s very interesting to take seriously the fact that when the trauma is associated with a wound, a corporeal wound, there is usually no psychic trauma. It's just trauma in the medical sense, as in an earthquake and so on; you also have traumas in the medical sense of the word. And the observa- tion is very interesting that if there is some wounding the trauma does not become psychic trauma. Now the other point which is important is that he says all traumas make sexuality active again, that is, by developing sexual excite- ment." This question of adult trauma, I think, has to be examined through experience. One of my followers, Sylvia Bleichmar, who is Argentinian, was in Mexico at the time of the big earthquake in Mexico. She had a team of people trying to treat the post-earthquake traumas. And what was important even in that treatment was ana- lytic work. Even in so-called physical trauma, the way to find a point of entry was in what was psychic, in how it revived something from infancy. If there weren't this revival of something personal and sexual, there would be no way of coping with those traumas. In this context she has made some important inroads concerning the resym- bolization of trauma. CC: When you say, “if there weren't a revival of something personal and sexual,” what do you mean by “sexual”? JL: (mean that, ultimately, a trauma like that may be—and this is very strange—in consonance with something like a message. After all, 19. Asan extremeillustration, see the movie Crash, directed by David Cronenberg Uean Laplanche’s note}.ayp pies prox “ya se sueasp asoyp UF uoss soBuey> rey ‘Sx uray ur sofuryp wey ura nox yon rposse 2o4y pur wonraadsoiut st y>rts “porpaus angqeue axp joautod Sursers ayp aq ue> wy sprap [jets Suiuey> soup sat pue ‘susessp ypns ur steep Suuey> omp ‘sprerop [ews a4 puy 02 aary shvanpe 1no§ sinouoys asoup UI Ng “Wo4p! Uaa.sipq anaaOYs vag eu B94] ‘SX zoSessow aneumen rou ‘Buiaq se rxquoD step Uy “wes ayp iasdsowuros nok pjno> ing “parexdsoiuy 9q ues wreoap 242 ay ‘19830} pnas.q pres nos “treasp axp 01 xpeq Of pyno> 2a 51 95e2 304 UY] “99K _guvouu siy, sop ryan “wousanb wip Jo vortsoduut a4p se poorssapun aq plno9 ‘uo os pue sweosp Ur aBessour ayp Jo was queysuoo 1p “tonnadas so spequsey poyfe> st yas eKp yu NOs OCT - ‘utp Sur -zxjoquuss Jo Kew vq 1,upinom axoyp— zou or uoddey stun pap dye stip Aya —wonsonb yse asnuar nog 9394 Surtpoutos ‘seumes sso13 saufiua Suryiowios you st 9s9up J! Sun ures ayp wang “SOx qqny aBessour ayp aaryiumsse 3,ue9 nos reyp Kpaed st 11 Jo Suweaus ayp fuypurassopun anogsisisos wp offessouu eat UHL soSessouu 1911509 01 Pru] -suiSizo 01 poy ‘2suos ouzos Ut ‘st aessour wtp pu no or Sunpouios suesus wip Buryousos ang ‘femvy staep Susp -auios yl oy] ‘aBessour v se UL UDye1 9q PIno> 2yenbypseD UL UDA soy UT VIAVUL dO SAIDOTOIOL ul oe) ow ‘09 ow ‘D9 of WL 0. oT 29 zucc: JL: An Interview with Jean Laplanche 1B repetitions are the same, but they are not always the same, and that's the difference that makes all the difference. TIL. The Primal Situation This brings me to your own rethinking of what you call the “special seduction theory” of Freud in terms of a “general seduction theory, or the origination of human consciousness and sexuality in the “im- plantation of the enigmatic message of the other.” Your own theory of seduction seems to involve the larger philosophical and foundational quality of Freud’s later work on trauma, while insisting on the story of the “scene of seduction” from the earlier work. Would you explain what you mean by “primal seduction” and the “implantation of an enigmatic message,” and why you insist on retaining, in this philo- sophical context, the language of seduction? What is the relation between a universal foundational structure or moment (the primal seduction trauma) and the contingency of the accidental or unpre- pared for that is so central to the notion of psychic trauma? For me, seduction must be understood as a primal situation. Thats, it goes back to the constitution of the unconscious. And seductions— infantile seduction or adult seductions, seductions in everyday life— are derived from this original situation. This original situation, as I understand it, involves an adult who has an unconscious —I'm ver realistic, I say “he has an unconscious,” I'm not afraid to say that, I think that seems very strange to philosophers, “he Aas an uncon- scious,” like a bag behind him— : It'sour baggage! It’s our baggage, yes. So, the original situation is the confrontation of an adult, who has an unconscious, and the child or infant, who at the beginning has no unconscious —that is, he doesn’t have this baggage behind him. (You must understand that I am completely against the idea that the unconscious could be something biological or inherited. think the idea of an inherited unconscious is something thathas tobe forgotten.) The unconscious of the adult is very deeply moved and revived by this confrontation with the infant. And especially his that is, not perverse sexuality —in the Freudian sense of “perverse, perversity as an overt perversion, but the perverse sexuality of theAya 0g “pEyP 4p 4940 payprear oa UOsod ayp UL sarseIUEy [eNxos pur sBurpoay jenxas asoup ofr oumn Buoy e parou sastnery>dsd qua1oue van “Uo 0s pur ‘suersinerpad ‘sistojoo9u48 {ueur £q paiou uD>q sey Siu, 1 28pamouy>e 01 azep 2,uop dap ySnoypye ‘Fuissnu ut oanseayd Jenxos ary uowom Aueur wet ano auiod oyss ‘sueDEneIpad Kueut kq potou usaq sey aseaiq Sursmnu at pue isvoug fenxas ay w2aanioq ands b 9¥PUE 01 UOStas OU st 239 IY IDEy Dy MON; AUpENxas S11 Jo De] aan step 19840] auo saop Ayan Asea1q step 01 PIrY> axp Jo voNe|as axp Jo syeads auo vay ay cumnOB. 104 mou IseO4q aIp Jo Aarpenxas step st Aya puy “weuiom au Jo Aujenxas axp jo ued e st yey Sunprousos st yseasq ay. ‘st sey | gueMOM 4p 404 UeBI0 sHOL9 Ese ysea1q ap. eI adoad papurusos sey aut axojaq oy A, -2y1] [UAXDs SurpuEyssopuN or a:0Ur UPL Ng “Uo os pu H oztfeUsDIUT OI 2aeY Nos soy pue AD9{qGo S14 ayp se asvaug atp asvaxq peq ay ‘sva1q poo# ayy Asvo4g a4p Jo Eads Soy, ‘2[duuexa 405 suemrapy axp ay{e1 s.197] “sishpeuvoypisd Jo ype eq Zur jreyp anoge fein v ayeus 01 uoseax ou st a494p puy “ppiyp pur ruazed Jo UoRYes ,auD0UuN,, sour ap Ur as94axAsaA9 948 Autfenxas assoasad pur Aayjenxas wep asu9s oyp ur Sst ey) “Aayjenxas asopy “speun asoyp UE yuNYA Kaqp UE Autpenxos 2u0Uu yoni st az9yp aeyA Kes | ZAaHTENXos KYM Og ,,“SaIseIUEY axp UT ospe pur ‘ounseajdasoy aup ur ‘sunseajd Suryea jo suesus axp ui uorssaasod st auatp) :uorssaasad st auayp “Aarpenxas jeursou paypes-os sajnpe £4909 ur aeyp St Aayonxag fo Kuoay.), 241 uo skosssy 22441 24 UL UMOYS SEX, pnosgg 1ey Ay “Aypenxas yo 1usu0dwo> wersodut Ue se OuOKsaAa Ut st ‘sayes ‘uorssaasag “axatp pur 2194 pare[ost aq ue> 1M Zunpowios asnf ou 5,11 asian sod Jo suss0y ayy!29ds ypuas paynuaptoq ouurD Aarpenxas ‘sr aey_, ‘paeauog and sey pnosy ysryss ‘Aarpenxas poztpesouad jo eapt aq 228.404 01 Kem w st sty reyp Aes pinoms | “Per 449A9 Ut NOD {4942 UE stat ozayanduana st Aatpenxas os puy ‘paysene kijenxas 2198 Aoyp wey? Aes oyas uaapytyp ayp &q kyjeradsa ‘e121 uo and Fu19q st sang party, ayy ur Aayjenxas uawoW L494 siap re ‘asne aq au 01 ppo UDA stUD95 uonsanb siqy ‘siya ur Aapenxas daoy y yas ou payse nos “mony -(spuan ing ‘savas Avs ,upynom J) spuon, jeuuagioad ayp yfe nq Aypenuss suo you soajoaur aeyp Fu‘dq ueWNY YWNAVUL AO SAIDOI0O.L “uponxos fo uo2y, 2y2 wo skossey aauy., ‘pnos punurtig “97 +tAn Interview with Jean Laplanche 5 sexuality? I say rather, why the forgetting of sexuality in the very fact of nursing? CC: Why do you think there is a forgetting of sexuality? JL: Well, the discovery of Freud was very important for generalized sexuality, but he did not go back to this point. Maybe there are some places where he touches on it, perhaps in the Leonardo essay,”" but very few places where he deals directly with that issue. Freud talked about many erotogenic zones, but he never talked about the erotoge- nic zone of the breast. For me there’s something missing there in the theory, including how the erotogenic zone develops in the woman (and also in men sometimes). But what's important for me is not just the fact that the woman may have some pleasure in nursing, but the fact that something passes from the nursing person to the child, asan enigma. That is, something, passes of what I call a message. And the most important thing is not the breast as a shape, as a whole, as an object, but the breast as conveying a message to the child. And this message is invaded by sexuality. CC: And that would also mean, then, that itis invaded by something that neither mother nor baby can fully know. JL: Yes, absolutely. Something that is unconscious, mostly unconscious sexuality, Sometimes it is also partly conscious, but there is always something going back to the unconscious and to the very personal history of the person, CC: So in this case sexuality JL: Yes, what remains unconscious, enigmatic. CC: In regard to this role of the other, you have suggested that by intro- ducing the mother (or the other) into the temporal scheme of trauma, the reality of trauma—as a temporal structure—can no longer be thought of in terms of a dual model: “[I}fone introduces a third term into this scene—that is, the nurse and her own sexuality —which is only at best vaguely sensed by the baby —then it is no longer possible to consider afterwardsness in dual terms.””? What is the relation between the other and temporality in your model? also means that which remains enigmatic. 21. Sigmund Freud, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood,” SE u. 22. Seduction, Translation, Drives, pp. 221-222.sour Joy “uotssaida1 zepuosss pur uorssoados pourud uooaioq vor -unsip ay YySnonp pnasg ut vorssosdas yo Aroanp pes9Ua8 asour 942 on pay{ur] oq eo “Aayjenxas Jo fopour sHeUIMEN E40 “uORONpas Jo {4091 24 aeyp asoFins nos ‘sou ourEs o4p Buope “sstyeuroya%ey sof suor -vpunog many Uy ‘snoirsuosun pur passosdos Sunpautos Jo Surjeads aut nok “ofessou posiuzosduro> v jo uo Burssed ayp jo svads no uay Ay, quaWOW puodas e UL Fur apidiquios uatp pu afessou at Sursto203 asay SAD9|e4p sew est ieyp SnoopeIp jesodwior e sdopasp pLy> ap ‘uo usp wosy puy ‘snoaueajnuris Surppowos se uo passed stat‘uo passed str uy, “yesodurar éjar2jdui0> 2q 1ouUrD oBessou ay ‘uo passed aq 01 saps UT “Ay saEy Og» Auyesoduiai 01 paroolgns uo uayp Woy 228 passasdax uaog aaey yp suaytutis yo suoneruasodas A199 ay.f “921 -eioduroas 02 st yom ankyeuvoyaésd sno ‘34404 sno rey Wdaoxy “A -,esodwior 0 punog rou ‘[esodura) 0u Surpowos se , pasuosduos,, pursiopun | puy “postwosduios sav Aya uosear oy Say “SOK gpasturosdusos sar Ayan 2eyp S| “Qyesoduror wosy paroeanxo st ey Sunyroutos st aap Kes pynom 1 0g “fayjexodwa ou st az24p snorpsuosun ay ut pue ‘sno1ssuoIUN sowio2aq 1 4ynpe aya Ut ‘Kes $29] *passosdos ua9q sey Aayfenxas UY A, guononpes rey Jo Aaypesodura oun 01 pousddey sey rey ‘uonsnpas {reu!8u0 ue punose pausoy sje st Jotpow ay) ut ssausno1ssuosun IeYp Jt pu aPOW 9xp Jo sNO1Ds -uosun atp Jo atuos sfaauo Jo surPUOD 11 suEsW yy ‘HEUTE si ofessour ayp Jf [tsodui91 20U st INpe stp UF aSessour axp weyp Kes NOK saypo ayp jo afessour pastwmosduroo ayp ‘st rey ‘[esodusay you st rey Sunpowos uy uonesus.u0d v st a19up Wey s9UEL kes pynom | “PLY dtp ope sy Wosy Aaxpesoduim Jo a8ussed v st axayp Kes a,uppnom 1 05 DYNpe ap Jo Anpesoduune 4494 a4p WE st Aayfenxas ass9As0d ‘san yom ay Jo Jo stIp 02 y>eG o8 or puy “Aarpenxas Aq pasturosdus0> sta] “Jenxas pue aanieasosoud-jp9s si—afiessaur aures aq) ut— aWOUr utes ape pure ‘oun sures axp ae “y>tyan OBessour axp Jo AWuEy NUNS sa] soUpoUr ay UI snosueyMUES st PLP ayy Wt Anpesodusos se Jpasit dopaap 01 Suyo8 st eyss ‘st aey_L,“snoauryrnUns Jexodwore sures st 3] [esodui9y ou st pps s>4ou a4 Jo aBessauU Ang *pyEY>24p Ur sdo -ppnop ssouspaemuaye Jo Anpesoduisy ay yeyp st wea [wey Ay “Ersoy -oatp v20U W,[ Ng" * ~pod soaseunssporsuy ;aquioUIDy soOIOUL dpiqourun se so oyp Jo yeods | Axyesoduiay uo aut jo saded e uy VINAVUL dO SHIDOTOIOL 29 ie ul 9 u “29 otAn Interview with Jean Laplanche u7 trauma psychiatrists today (in the U.S. at least), the theory of trauma and the theory of repression are opposed, since repression doesn’t engage the same temporal structure as trauma, How do you link the two? JL: V'm mostly interested in the humanizing trauma. That is, the first trauma, which most people wouldn't describe as trauma: the origi- nary seduction of the normal, average subject or future neurotic subject (not the psychotic). So I have been much more interested in that aspect of trauma that ultimately leads to repression and restruc- turation, as opposed to something that has not been translated. Now, I completely agree that in the framework of the two-moment theory of trauma and seduction, one has to ask the reason why, in many instances, there is no second moment, or why the second moment is hampered or paralyzed. And that is really the trauma which cannot be reinterpreted, which is implantation, what I call intromission.?* And here we come back to the question of psychosis, and to the question of the superego. Because I think that in some way the messages that become superego messages are messages that are not being translated. So I would speak of the superego as some kind of psychotic enclave in everyone, something that consists in part of messages that cannot be translated. CC: Did you say that in some instances there is no second moment? JL: Sometimes there is no second moment. In everyone. I think that there are some things that are not repressed after all. IV. The Other and Death CC: We have been speaking about the role of the other in trauma and primal seduction. In Life and Death in Psychoanalysis, your analysis of seduction trauma takes place within a larger framework in which you analyze, on the one hand, the relation between the vital order and sexuality (in the “Project for a Scientific Psychology” and in the Taree Essays on the Theory of Sexuality) and, on the other hand, the relation between sexuality (now including the vital order) and death (in Be- 23. Jean Laplanche, “Implantation, intromission,” in La révolution copernicienne inachevée, pp. 355-358, reprinted in Essays on Otherness.9d “asdgruvoyptsg a8 yrOaC] pur afr ¥z ‘moUy 2,Uop 1usuidopaasp AYP UI UIOd Urea e or dn siUEFUT IE Uy [12 2Qy "11 2AeY pnom o]doad auos se pound se st Aes,upfnom I—theap Jo eurSiu9 ay or pue yreap jo uonsanb ayp 01 ralqns J[e 248 2a eI asuas ay uI—"peap Jo UORsanb axp 01 se MON, “2aup Yeap sty Jo 9109 94p pooe|d pnosey wey “wIsIyPoseUL Jo 2PIS 2p _VO ing ‘wIsIpEs Jo >pIs ay) UO OU sea at PUY “YEP UL WEY WIstPoseLIOpes UI JO WUSTYPOSEUE UI DALUP YEP [EAXIS 941 JO suas & Jo 9x0 29s J “wsIyposeur Lewd or quIod pjnom | “yeap EYL auour Puy “Ayenxas jo awanxs axp “ayjenxas punogun “Aaypenxas asnf St DALIP Yeap peNxos aya ‘ow JOY .yPeap,, UO URI ,[eNXas,, COA tpeap penxas, eat payes ancy | Aya pur ,"2atzp yreap,, wai 942 MOge feonLsD 19s wy AY SAY “2K TL auede uiayp aye1 nox, 9. “pnaag Jo ,2Aup ywap,, payfes-o8 ay pue “Yresp jo ewFUD ayp “yep Jo voNsanb a¥p aeouNUIsIp Jafour spp Sunjuryp Aur ur soueape | wyp sow ayy aeIp plese wT Tf esisdqeuvoypssd ut yep pu s9y0 ay usdaxt9q VORE|as ay pue {2094p uonsnpas oy ut s940 tp Jo [04 4p Gaaanreq HORE] e 2491p S| uoazow siseydwa oy s9Kpo yp Jo 224 Yaar yeop Aur Jo Surysow a]qronpasst axp apiy wou sop eq Apion] e yo pue‘uisersnipus jo uis0y {san Sut42900> {SnISIp Jo asuas 94 UI 9q PlnosN at Spmame EIpNas_y 2) WO ponfoao 9q aysiu yaeap 02 voRpas UE ory UTED e JL JMO ay) Jo yneap ayp 40g asvdaid ‘pry yueAy NOK JJ, se porejsuEN aq yur , yeep 40) aaedoud ‘apy ues NOK Jy, *uORE|NUTIO} 210591] aip Jo suoneaduray axp 01 uonepas ut sdeysod spisopour as0)q, «peop 40 oxedoad 934] aunpua pjnoa nos jp, ['shes pnazg] © °° 2h401 -eurjdxo weyp jeotyae sou st y>ty UOIsUoUUEp & UL ‘sIsKeULOYD és uy ‘92e4d sit spuy—suorsuay jens Jo 0192 0) uonanpas 3[0s ay! 1ou pur apanuy se qpeap UeUIMY—xpeap rey aq aE aysEP :pno4,J Joy Yawap Jo oULaYyLUBIS oy Moge y]Er NOK Spn90210U Jog IU O1 UOHNponUE ap UL sisApruDoyAeg UL YILACT pun 2firT “Yooq sn0K Jo apn ay auay—(apdirurig” aunsvrjq ays puok YNAVUL AO SHIDOTOdO.L silcc: JL: JL: CC: An Interview with Jean Laplanche 119 death and don’t have any questions about death. I see the issue in a very Freudian manner, or atleast froma certain perspective of Freud- ian thought. I would say that the question of the enigma of death is brought to the subject by the other. Thatis, itis the other’s death that raises the question of death. Not the existentialist question, “why should I die?” The question, “why should I die?” is secondary to the question, “why should the other die?”, “why did the other die?”, and so on When or how does that question of the other's death get put to the subject? Well it’s put at very different times in everyone's life. And it’s also bound to absence. [ don’t think that metaphysical questioning about one’s own death is primary. It doesn’t mean it’s not important, but I think it comes from the question, “why should the other die?” : So would you say, then, that itis not necessarily linked to the implan- tation of the enigmatic messag: Idon’t think it’s bound to the very first enigmatic messages. But there are enigmas that come afterwards. By suggesting that the question of death is raised through the death of the other, you seem to be returning now to the notion that death is situated in an “ethical dimension.” Can you say more about what that means? Tama little surprised to hear you ask about ethics, because in my opinion the alterity of the uncon: with ethics. I would say that itis deeply antimoral. I am not referring to ethics in the sense of everyday morality, but rather in relation to your comments in the introduction to Life and Death in Psychoanalysis, where you say that death as a finitude might ultimately be placed in an ethical dimension, rather than an explana- tory dimension in Freud. And I wanted to understand what you meant. Ob yes, sure, sure, yes... . Lagree with you that an ethical dimen- sion is introduced by the question of the death of the other. But I don’t think there isa link to the primal seduction; I would see it a litle after. Evenin the oedipal situation, which includes the question of the death of the other. Maybe when you said to me, at the very beginning of this interview, that for psychoanalysis the question is not about knowing but about the reality of the other, perhaps that’s what you mean by ethics. That 1us in everyone has very little todoWELL Ad ‘Ze son] ‘sipouvoyptsg fo sustug ayy “SZ “Sunpotuos aryysuen ues nos yoryar our apo jo 24a e st ysrya “pdur sndipaQ ap 40 apo> uoNeNses ap Sours 40} “oenTury 07 eusoqUT st Y>Iys 2poo Jo ad e our oNE[suEN v DALY ospe Ke nog, ‘oHengur] aap Jo ada v 40 ‘oBenSur] aaup s|pe sounawos ay Jey OUI UoRE|SUEN suestE df] ‘spsom oUt UONE|sUED UWE ,Us20p ay ‘uonysuen yo asnjtey ayp 40 uoNYpsUEN Jo syeads 76 soUD"] snourey siy ur ‘pnosg ways ‘su 40J puy “ppour e ysMl’s.at |eqsan si aeyp [ppour e se uoNe|stEN 940 [JF Og JoIPOUE OV BenuE] yo ada duo Wo4} ‘SI IkeYA ‘uONE|sUEN InoLWas-sOVUF Osfe Inq ‘uoRE|sUEN on -sin uy] ‘Jequaa Afuo you suvaur ypry yy “uone|sue Jo syrads uosqooe{ yp asuas ayp ur Joydeaus snsinsuy] w stu wD su asn | U>4 Ay J, uOnE|sueN,, WWI yp an | op Aya ang “eusTUTUE £494 UDDq sey KE] -ngroos sasinduy Aur mou or dn puyy “19110 atuos pur suede] wey ‘os $s9] yontu $131 {ata Jo 1utod snsinsiuy e st avora Au Avs 2,upjnom | {sua} ansinguy se aoueaytusis sy!0ds s1oup anoge pur stuz9) 9sorp jo Surueour axp inoge s10ur Kes nos UES uone[suesiep, pur ,vonejsuen, jo yp1 01 payury Surg, noqe nq Bunpauios Fumouy noe ou s,u1 ‘001 3941 og + vonyjsuen jena29p1ut quia op 0 Surary sv Suneysuen jo uonsonb axp 29s z,uop | -aFenFury -ofeunt ue 0 ofenFur] aanaaye ue UT ospe ‘st aI SofenTuEy ues ut passazoid are Koyp asneoag -soSessour Suissasoad Jo Svan yem29] -[a1UE Uv UeouE a,uop | ‘fenprAIpur yp Aq VONeIsda UI 0 UoRE|sUEN jo yeads | uayan :sso201d pernoo|pa1u1 ue se aXpejmouy inoge pres aaey yey wodas pjnoa J ‘FuLMouy 01 puvos ut Aype1s9dso puy S24 4.0 a4 Jo Aureos ayp Sunuosyuos mnoqe soypes ang ‘ABojouysid> anoge 10U st at “st VWAVUL dO SHIDOTOdOL UW ‘00 1 ou ozAn Interview with Jean Laplanche 21 So why do I speak of translation and not of interpretation? Inter pretation may mean that you interpret some factual situation. Trans- lation means that there is no factual situation that can be translated. IF something is translated, it’s already a message. That means you can only translate what has already been put in communication or made as a communication. That’s why I speak of translation rather than of understanding or interpretation. CC: It also has to do with the message and its enigma. JL: Yes. I'm very interested, now, in the debate with hermeneutics. One of my last papers is called “Psychoanalysis as Anti-Hermeneutics,” which suggests that the aim of analy but detranslation2 Translation is very important, but it’s not an activity of the analyst. I’m not anti-hermeneutic in general, I'm anti- hermeneutic only insofar as people try to make analytic work a speciality of hermeneutics. But the other point is that the only translator, the only hermencut, is the human being. That is, the human being is always a translating, interpreting being, But what is he translating? That's why I'm using the word “translate” and not “interpret.” Take for instance Heideg- ger’s hermeneutic position. He says there is a proto- or first under- standing, which is the understanding of the human condition. But as 1 see it, there is no translation if there is not something already being put into words, not necessarily verbal words. So I would go back to the idea of a hermeneutics of the message, which was also the first meaning of hermeneutics. Because as you know hermeneutics in the past wasa hermeneutics of the text. And especially of sacred texts, like the Bible and the Koran and so on. So think that we have to go back toa hermeneutics of the message. Not a hermeneutics of the message of God, but a hermeneutics of the message of the other. CC: So you're saying that the modern notion of hermeneutics as a process of understanding has forgotten that hermeneutics originated as a reading and translation process. JL: Yes,a translation process. Hermeneutics at the very beginning was a ic work is not translation 26. Jean Laplanche, “Psychoanalysis as Anti-Hermeneuties,” in Radicul Philoso- phy 79 (1996): 7-12. Sce also “Temporality and Translation: For a Return to the Question of the Philosophy of Time,” in Stanford Literature Review, vol. 6, no. 2 (1989), pp. 241-259."og -d ‘saauugy ‘uourpsursy, ‘uouonpeg “1z “ASojousu0u -syd Aq ano padias fjar2jduto9 st aur 40) a9ua49494 pu uoRerUasasdas yo waigoid oy.p, “suonewuasaidax ory Bunzers souss9y94 Jo Aupeas ayp Surpynges Jo wra[qoud ou st osu aeyp garry axp 01 uodo os st Surg Surat] Aue sep yuNp | “[eussIUT SuMpowos wosy SuazEIs ‘pom Jeusoaxo otp Zurppingos Jo auu 20 wio{qo.d ou st auatp puy “Sunpowos Jo ssousno;ssuod st ssousNOIDsUOD [eUITUL Uaxy “SuMpoutos Jo ssaur ~“sno19st0) SI ssousnorsuOD AudA9 reEp asus 942 uI— aavy nox Z.Aaypeos a1ypssd, payfe> oacy no .ey4s puerssopun sn djoy ,uone[suen,, sop soy IXaIUOD SHI UP: “SOR gssouppe Jo aunpnns wep yt op o2 sey sourrsisoa a4p puL PLUBIUD a4 Jo HuNaLUOSOS Puy” “ssouppe uv jo Sunysuen ap skeanpe say SOX “w1soy 2y}oods v soxet ssouppe ue asnesog “IUsMIDIEAS € JO Sunyysuen ayp ‘Kes $29] “wuosy yuaLaYEp st y>Ty ‘ssappe Ue Jo Sune] -sueni otp—xojduioo 210u 1 soyeur yryss—ud4p Aypeaysoods sat og 3h gnof 0 passouppe st eup afiessout ving ‘ofessou Aue Supejsuen jo Ajduns you ‘uawp Sone ew sp: SOX gospe ssouppe ue st a1 ya Avs 2u0 pyno> ‘oypous op wioyj afiessou jeurSu0 ay yam ABopeue ue ayeU WED 2U0 JT “affessour v Suratovo4 Jo uonENus ayp Jo Inq ‘uorLeMAS Uo s, 990 4yoqou “uoneiasdaaiut ue st uoneiosdaaiur say axp1eMp eapt yp 01 4>9eq of 0 st mevodun st eyas ‘fenpiarpur ueuiNy a4 Jo ssHMaUsUsIy 2yp Jo yomouresy ayy uy “Jemoey snl s.r ‘sisey ash sa] “powjsuen 2q 1oUUND Jp! UL UOREMS UUINY 94 LeYP 10840} 9 Ng “uoHEMS ueumny ayp Jo sonnouauDy v auTeI0q W ae st SuNsasOIUF st EY ‘sa Sopra} ut puy ‘nok on passouppp Sutog Hunypoutos jo sonmausus9y VWAVULL AO SAINOTOdOL of wiAn Interview with Jean Laplanche 123 Now, my problem is not that. It's not a problem of the other world, the other thing, which is taken care of by phenomenology, and it is also not an analytic problem. As I said before, it’s a very big error on the part of psychoanalysts to try to make a theory of knowledge starting from so-called psychoanalysis—for instance, starting from the breast and the reality of the breast. Or even Winnicott’s starting from the first not-me possession and building the external world beginning with what he called the transitional object, and soon. The problem, on our human level, is that the other does not have to be reconstructed. The other is prior to the subject. The other on the sexual level is intruding on the biological world. So you don’t have to construct it, it first comes to you, as an enigma. CC: So it’s the opposite problem. Too much other! JL: Yes, the opposite problem. Too much other, exactly! And instead of saying the first not-me possession, the problem for the human sexual being is tohave a first-me possession. That is, to build an ego starting from too much otherness. So your interest is in how that takes place. Yes. What I say in The Copernican Revolution®® is that we are first Copernican, that is, on the sexual level, which is invaded by the other's messages, and the problem is to recover from that. CC: Since trauma, at least later on, is connected with accidents, would you say that when the adult trauma interrupts like an accident, it is the reemergence of that too much other? JL: Yes, absolutely. That too much other coming back, And there is a destruction of the ego. The ego cannot cope with it, or even is no longer there. So in that sense I agree with you. The otherness comes back full strength! VIL. The Practice of Psychoanalysis *: Asa final question, | would like toask youhow you became interested in the problem of trauma in Freud, and if there isa link between your becoming interested in that and your philosophical training. 28. Jean Laplanche, La révolution copernicienne inachevée,‘saqpo amp Jo ssazppe ayp Jo aureyy ay UL UoREIDOsse 293; Jo poypotU ayp ‘St aeY_T, ‘94n9 oy Jo poysour ay2 ang ‘poyrout 2anda/qo ue r0U ‘potjiour 9ytiuoyos e jo asuas stp ut poypour e ON; AYA sean oy yuTyD 1 PUY ‘poyrsur e [pe Joassy svar siséjeuLoy>asd yey r22y ax passans pha ‘uonenus onjeue ay ut Suojdxo as,oa weys savy.L saK -sonzead Jeouyp anog ut Butsojdx9 24,n04 wyan s.aemp puy Aayjesoduuar jo 1vadse wuas9y1p Apoxojduuod v sey soypo otp jo aSessou axp roy a1ey sitp on FuNWHOD s reyas Zuneysueno 4Jo‘arey umo s2u0 Sunesuenos yo Aanjesodusay xp st ay “Aayjesodusr yo addr soyour st weyL -2y1] v Jo 2JoyA a1 YIM pair2UN09 a:0ur ypnuy Sunppauios st gayyoyFnscyony7 ySnosyp ‘s9x03s1p 02 pain pnasy weyas ang “Aaypesodwar areypataun ‘sun ayeypaurunt sty spout] 4494 st oun jo wadse 2eyp puy “oun Jo Dadse jeorojorq yp st ‘uorurdo Aus ur ‘siup ang “ssousno1suos jo woisks ayp sjje> 24 1eYA 01 pue UoRdaa sad 01 poyut St yt ‘pjzom apisino ay Jo aouaHadxo ayp se aun jo vorssanb xp st 2194p ‘puey au0 ay UC y>"PaHOr wey paxtu 94 yontp | pue‘pnasy wioumn jo stoadse oan ase9] qv ose asayp WE YUNKp | gAatnbur jeatuyp anog on payuyy ospe siya sy “{z9n0981p §,pN94_J Jo ADU] JeIONAD e st 9421}9q 01 Zeadde NOs yt ‘oun Jo uonsanb axp 01 S10m nos UL ‘sx>eq BUI mou ospe aae NOX “aso 24) 2401 un 10M op | Y>Iyas “op Pjno> Adesoxpoy>csd Jo pury soypo Kur aetp Sunpawos asnf st 20u 40 JoyIoya puE ‘I UT Fuyop axe 9M ey Jo wonsanb ayp pur ‘uoneniis anéjeue ays Ayjeos st Asinbur ws josey SIP IE Og “OIRO oY Jo eUITUD axp YAM poruosjuOD Furoq Jo UoNENUS ay Suraiaay se ang ‘uonenais penaoey e Butataas se asnt poorssapun 9q 10u pjno> uoREMIs snKjeue ay) IY a9} | “pnosy Jo UORUDAUE any ayp ae 18 AE pip ON “Ayeorydosopyd aus or unsosovut dua powioas soasu—asoan Aayp se Sparx OU aye NOx yeyp Aes sn NOs ing Yourey 40 soqpous axp Jo 9Jos a4p Avy nos ‘st rey—BurKeyd-—ajos sv 30 ‘Apass09 parannso> us9q 2U avy II qUDA9 wos Suns -vooos asn{ se sisyeue jo Suspurisiopun ayy sur 404 [e1usuepuny d10ur asi Sunpoutos a10yp st) {BuLe|d-2Jos Jo pury v asnl as] Go2niz0ad ouyouvoyrtsd us pnaig fo worruaaus Kiva ays s1 roy *uorsanb aq zoyes ang ‘yons se 40m feotUT]> Nog oU:22n>eId nKpeULOYD suo ‘apf pun Suizg] ur ano swutod 1988apr9qy se 9194 parenas {pease st worrsodxa s,eaaistay Huruz22U09 uonsonb sno Jo 3foya yf. “¢ .Suomnf anbsmniaou, ‘uy, werptag [euro axp pur (, 29u2ugp aypoanon m,) AMUESUT MON, 9Y,L,, OPN S,eA>1sUUY UD2KI2q YORDIUUIOD a4p s[e09u09 aeIp (.uoneMKZUT sty Jo ssouoTuENs oyp,) WHO} w UF ix YsHSUR oxp UF suvodde up] wt soavg] eaasizy rey pIAG wos UoNEION e—s207 fo sanz. yo soxdey> sup on ydeatida op wep parou aq pynoys 1 -puosds ysiiug si youaig ‘suonIps Ypoq oF wast aq |[Ls stone x92 HIP o1 9g |] wAarstY 02 saoUDI9}—x ‘paroU astausqnoss9[un “Z| / RFT “Ad (7961 ‘Sso4g AussaATUT IquINJor) :420K 2) ZoHPHoy woo"] sun ‘22077 fo 5477 (E861 POUR SUeg) mou p sauoasipy earsisy eHN| “7 “uae avy asta “soto pjnom | ueYA Yo0q 5,eaarsuy jo Jodey> swnonsed sp ovur yred aumypULAKgE| sour sey v pousdo pig) Uo soampa| snojndnsrs asoyss AMON a4%e]-> J0s824044 ¢ 2U0N Jo Urs L30 a1 se poorssopun ‘oureu ayp oruaape ay Uo puadap sJosi1i0U pinom pue pjioas ayp ut vost 9q Speasye pjnom wey oun v ur aeuis ws pavers qo4942 2g pinoai ‘|[>a% se snssioseX; Jo oureu A194 axp pooput pueypduer 942 jo uonrnuioj ,weipHso,, {jzadoud a4p , ‘pIAg,, Jo suueu sodoad ayp s04 “UNos3" suyp sarueduioose aeyp aureu sodosd aup jo arpqeaep v jo vapt axp pur ‘somp soup ssons UN IT (EOI/IED) OL “A'V-"9"A Ep) PIA 01 WURLIEA a7apdiwor sy S11 2Mo 244 “24MIesAIT] Jo UTEULOP dtp JovUD sMSSIOIER: Jo 21qey atp pip, ‘sau TASTY ,{019 UENSIEYD ot Jo SuruuiBoq ay ur AJuG,, “zmesU] Jo s|jey 21 UI paoype aq pjnom {sors auues a4p ‘oFensue] 10 aysnoIp Jo pooysoqysiiou Jppour ur ouAsIp 294 pue &q 950 “Ksor>o(en jeorydosopryd stip aprsuopy -Aepor ureros [ns 90 AoeH9] as04yan AusoLaIUT s,fnos 21 Jo Uonvutioy sau e—saidetp aatspap & aresngnenr snp pjnom snunojg susisstouey pesrydosopyd jo soisey oy uy (CLL/9b1) .aS8YD Jo Zurs24yns Huisodun ay yBnosyy Aarueuny sno sumsse on sn pay rey v2 UeRSEYD, ayp “esd MoU v Jo UEIs ayp Ie Ft se, Pore] aq PjNom snuNOId “(CL L/F) _Ayeusoiut saneinoads our Ayjeapr uoIe]g WIO}sUEN o2 s9ps0 UE UON>aYa1 Jo voneziewaur 241 un ow! Bumes, Jo aIqede> 2040} a¥2 se ssvad -de snuy wstUoIe|g-OON “(691/6E1-EL) ,24Ne|NDads pazfe> 9q psoput asnut ey) anFojouoW owt ‘snunojg Yt ‘pouTsoysuEN st, ‘soatsA8 oys ,“wIs!BopEEp Oe |d,, ow p sauoIyET UL SIS>BBNs wAdisisy IY pooput st step 104 _{UUJOJ VEIUNO|g A|lenUAssa nq pay!pow v Ur ‘epor Surat] [Bs pue ‘esa UeNsUYD app Jo souMUDD ISI ay UT WHOg “UHSISsioreU jo Auuesut mou ev teuomf onbsouaou sSuursur sou v, ‘ssoupeur jo {sorsty 2ip aprsBuope “sy axoy2 rey oxatioq 2a ED ZoULDOp UENsUAYD Jo aApE ay pue snunojd Jo suorstaas apiqns ayp £q pautsoysuren so1e] pue “AID s1UoIeI ay VWAVULAO SAIDOTOIO.L 8zIThe Catastrophe of Narcisism 129 “Narcissism” here would not entail a psychic event whose character would bear on the very advent of temporality, but would simply fall within the already given time of a chronological succession. All this is quietly supposed by the opening gesture of Kristeva’s account: the “first complete variant” of Narcissus in its literary form (“the fable of Narcissus”) appeared with the work of one who is named “Ovid (43 nc.-a.0. 16).” ‘The history of literature would thus echo the history of philosophy, or rather, would serve as the origin that philosophy itself would echo: for as Kristeva recalls, itis Ovid who precedes Plotinus, anticipatinghis thought and providing in advance the mirror in which Plotinus would be able to reflect (come to see himself). As Kristeva puts it at the conclusion of her account of Ovid's myth, “the reflection of which Narcissus became enamored and which led him to his death became {latter emphasis mine] the fundamental topos of a thought that parted with ancient philosophy to nourish speculative thinking” (134/105). This new thought would include both the gnostics, who “viewed the perceptible world as the result of a fault,” and “Plotinus (4.b. 205— 270)"—we again mark these dates, which resemble in their brevity the austere engraving on a headstone—for whom, in contrast to the Gnostics, “the primary reflection that created the cosmos is a necessary process” (135/ 105-106). Thus, even if Plotinus will ultimately turn away from the world, like the Gnostics (and in accordance with a certain Platonism), even if,as he saysin the Enneads, “we must close the eyes of the body, to open another vision,” it remains the case that the perceptual world is not, for Plotiaus, simply error and fallenness, since “form alone can penetrate into the soul through the eyes” (140/110).4 The eyes of the soul cannot open, according to Plotinus, without relationship between this apparently obvious chronological “datability” and its inter- nal possibility, “the structure of datability” (Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson [New York: Harper and Row, 1962). Pagination follows the seventh edition of the German text, Sein and Zeit (Tubingen: Neomarius Verlag, 1953), which is given marginally in the English text, in this case, p. 408. This problem is especially pressing insofar as the relation between chronological datability and Heidegger's question —“wherein is such datability grounded, and to what does it essentially belong” (407) —will be replayed at the very heart of narcissism itself, since the structure of narcissism, in Freudian doctrine, articulates not merely a momentary lapse, of a contingent pathological deviation, but the very coming into being of the subject. 4. As Kristeva’s translator notes, there are “considerable discrepancies” (Tales,*(s2tpoue 10) Bu}s9s Jo ht uo aBueypxo,,) , 24H” oun mod 02 op 2ugtupua 20m s23uP4?7,;SM0|}O} SE ADSL) q p>19pUDH (97 "QQ ‘prouUEy) smUNO| ‘ase sip UI “snuno|d Jo Suonejsuen YsH Uy pUE Ypuary axp UDaA2q (¢ ~U “6g eet snunofd pue piso yBnosyp a]q4q atp pur ore|g wos spea] AoAuns 9uK ‘syped oan Buoy poronpuod st ypiyss ‘ovo jeawojooyp v pur peaxrydosoytyd v yum pooeydas st zowopy fo siameg jo uoneussau jeans pue jro1Soj010s ou, ‘30m s,taansiry jo Asorsiy v union 2207 fo 272, Bunquosul ospe 24 ‘wont -suea sty Jo Suyuurtog ayp we soziseydurs 29077 fo 9707, Jo s0.esuen ayy wp (oouasqesut pur 199lqo 242 Jo) Asor29/eN ajqnop sup pue ABopeoud8 snp stay sa8Fapropy pur wrey 104 9q |] voneuriieu 942 se“uoness9 Jo Auiqssod ay 405 wontpuo> oxp soqpes Ing ‘ssou -wojjey pur soso 4jdunts rou st 1yadsd pue Azosuas ypog “uond>[J21 yrs UT qunos28 UENO} e ‘Pury 49410 a4p1 UO ‘pur—aqnop je>1poYpoUt o2 porsa{qns 94 Aqjemuoas i148 eq uondo>sod-28t2s Jo pjsom v—snoauoss9 pur ‘kaopeys “uoytey se pliom ajqndsosod 9x2 jo zuno2o" ue ‘pucy au0 oxp uo ‘sn Fura yey 4 aptaip 01 auro> pjnom d| ou st, astray] oy ‘snsstose jo sdans axp ut SuraoH}0} PUY (ZTL/6bL) JPPS ap jo aoeds our ayp unIpLM way SuLXjUN * ~~ yoneInsads‘uoneiUuasoidas ‘uonsoyas ‘ofeust—pooyr2algo Jo 203005 o4p or soypes 40 adéxoypae oxp 02 Uuasop JfPstury poyse] 2fy “ysinsue sry yey 01 129LGo we 399s 104 pp, snuo}g 999 ‘SMULL “(ZE/8FD) .24O 2p Jo 249 duanansuod ai s9pun a>eds snoI9 -omne ‘nypésd Jo aunsopp aan22qjox ‘snouruin, >qp s|je9 eaaistzy rey —jposut twon29Ufo4 Jo ss9003d A198 a4p Jo worzoeyn2pr a4 Uo “ysinéfue pur JoypuE UI Aq porpew sanaso3 & uy ‘sisisut snunojg vaya uuNy dnstssfoseU aye 01 [Le OU Soop {ayoysorxo [eon Ul YonD2[93 Jo Suypurioss AerusUoM siya ss0[>4p “92 “(OL/OFL) 45942 242 YBNOM ~ * © geNEUDd, JJM EYP ALOUOINS UE “uossuoup ,ea20/g0, Ue []e> 01 Uo OF JPM vadIstryy YM “voIsUOLUIP AosUDs €suye194 ng *[eop! ApreIpouTU OU st YDIYH ,u1I0}, Uo 2>uaPUadap amnjosqe Jo WoWOU & SoHpa]MOUyDH I se JeJOSUE WusIoNSsOUD UNO} poysiNunsIp 3q Snip: plow —seapr ayn pyeor spavardn wey says “oy>isd ay pseavor pean pouumi—snunolg £q pareangneur {ors aane|ndads jo uoreur0} ss9U YL (EU “T6E/2U'SEL) ,228JaNs sU|LUNS ¥ 40 JO.sNU E NOL ASTX UD, ‘ses snunojg ,uon29]p>4 weIp 2:0uH o¥, —Yondaasad Jo punoad jersayeur ayn VINAVYL JO SaINOTOdOL, ostThe Catastrophe of Narcissism 131 to Dante, Valéry, and Gide; the other goes by way of Paul, Bernard de Clairvaux, and Aquinas, to Mozart's Don Giovanni and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet” (vii). For the translator, Kristeva’s trajectory thus passes from the sociological and cultural domain (Powers of Horror) to the philosophical and. theological domain, cach of these traditions being mapped in terms of its attachment to—or abandonment of —the object. In the chapter entitled “Narcissism: A New Insanity,” philosophy and literature would thus be intertwined in an intimate trajectory that preserves the identity of each, while also revealing their common destiny. We can therefore believe,and even narrate for ourselves, the history of philosophy and literature, which is also our own history. Such is the initial thesis linking Ovid and Plotinus ina chronological chain that will eventually bind us in turn, and lead to the present day: the “tragic, death-bringing solitude of Narcissus” is a new historical formation, “on which will be founded a man very different from the political and erotic animal of the ancient world” (150/118—119). And this new formation is a legacy that will be inherited, according to Kristeva, for “the Christly passion and the arts of all Churches have come to root into. . . that psychic space of love that the Narcissan myth and the neo- Platonic logos had actually just completed” (149/117). IL. The Place of Psychoanalysis There would thus be a history of narcissism. And yet, we should perhaps reflect for a moment on the curious position that psychoanalysis occupies within this history —on the peculiar absence of psychoanalysis, or pethaps its omnipresence, in the chronicle and calendar of narcissism. Between literature and philosophy, various trajectories and traditions would be elaborated and transformed, as Kristeva passes from the “sociological and cultural investiga tions” of her earlier work to the “philosophical and theological” interests of the present volume. But in this history which passes through philosophy and literature, psychoanalysis would cither be ignored, or else psychoanalysis would be present at all stages of the narrative, as if it did not submit to chronological time, as if narcissism did not need to wait for Freud toinvent it, but were already waiting in the wings, or indeed fully present onstage, in the texts of Ovid and Plotinus, and even in the Platonic city, in the form of an old insanity which this “new insanity” would presumably displace. (A short parenthesis on reading, then: “Novitas,” the “new” in the title of Kristeva’ssaneazeu ¢ 40 a3euy Ue UT Uda! 9q I0U pynow 11 :K4ors ap wayzta7 seadde you pinoa at Yposu stsKjeuvoyp sd 04 se ng “Aydosopyd pur asnesoay Jo Asorsty 2yp UL uappry st rey YN ay own IsIy 942 40} 9z1UTOD91 puE 22s 01 91qe 9q pinom oat ‘sissyeuvoypésd Jo (sa1eay2 pur) ummipaus yp Ysnosy 1 “soaps -uiotp 2z1uS0203 01 1481019 2q pjnom sassnossip 4940 9524p Yr UF aDeJANS Sun29Y94 30 punos3320q jemad2ou09 4p ‘SannesseU aIp Jo punos3 30 wMIpout 242 2q pInoa Jjesit sissjeuEoy>isd “uantua 2g Ue souOVsty asoya surEUE -op 9tpo asayp jye ayHUN :snotAgo suoyasoIp st sasise Iw AAINDYFIP ay, -souydiasip asoyp utp spjoyun NI080y steYM 190904 01 smoyqe snip stsseueoy>isg “22mes04| pu Kydosopyd jo souoasty paepurrs axp ur 0] Sijensn steyp 220(qns ayp Jo Ksor0Len e soytsep> pur sarepionye yoryar s{aoatp ondqeuroypisd Jo punosy20q ayp suede a9e]d aya pinom ‘sasKyeur aleoifojooyp pur yeorydosopyd,, 304 ospe ang yom jenn pur pe>18o] “01208, 1941 [UO ION, “adeId soe UMOD.e 494 YPIYAN UF LunIPaUL [eu se se saadas 1 etp apn]auos {uo WED aa S}1om s eaaxstsy UT posoUst Afduns19xgu st sisspeuvoypisd outs puy ‘s2ajasuiayp anoge [a1 pynoa sunzesauy] pue Ayd -osojtyd req saviors otp1 puryeq “Aarannso{qns jo Gorsty ayp ur Sutuaddey A7poe st avyas dsea3 on sn savoype 2ey) ouresy jemadaouo ayp “ooejd soye AFopeaus amnuo atp y>ryas ur eanypaus 242 2q pio. 1 9s]9 10 GuNo9D¥ Jo sno >} 9q 59419 pinom sisfyeuroypasg oyoue 9u0 Yue [eaRUDpr OU ssopoypIDAaEE Ng ayo yore yuim Buneuosas 10 Zuoys Jo a[qede>—paysinSunsip Aypeuoisisoad 94 01 to9s Isv9] 1 Pjnom Y>IyA suTEWIOp 10 souNdiosIp oan “Kydosojtyd pur oumesouy] Wo4y stsAjeuvo4ypssd sarezedas wear 995 02 a|NOUEP StF ase yDTyAN ur ‘surewop s2430 asoup yptar SurvULFoq A494 a1p wosy poutaniozut 2q plnoas 1 9s[9 40 SanesreU ay ur aze{d OU 2AeY JOY Pjnom sisKjeULOYD*sq (‘sts -opuoged yoys stip asop 244 “10804 01 porduor st SaruesuL aLou,, s,eaaistryy weyar JoquIoW 0 seadde snya pjnom ,anbsona0U, s.piC) “S419 sTUOre|q 242 jo Anuesur ,pjo,, xp sieadas pur soya e 01 to2s pjnom ‘ued si 30} ey ases4d UeIPIAG UE FUNONb éq Jjos1t wuaWNI0p Pinom Auuesur sou, sMp ‘souaH:WD [erHOIsIY 2ANdUNSIP v Jo UoRIOssE atp se jjasut Sunuasoad :so1onb ar wey sjeasu09 {jsnooueynus weep uoeionb © 9q pinom saadeyp s,eaaisizy Ut .9u,, ay —uonsonb ano Aqjeau st sup aouts — Apso 2101 30 “ote sadosd axp Jo Aarjiquaep ay &q posod u29q kpeasye sey yp onsonb ox awades snip pynom “(2202p ayoanou w7,) sordey> VAAVUL dO SAIDOTOIOL zelThe Catastrophe of Narcisism 133 but would rather be like the watery pool which suspends before us on its delicate surface the image we are invited to contemplate, the image of phi- losophy or literature. The ungraspable liquidity of psychoanalysis, its watery y and omnipresence, would thus be the element in which this history is formed. Psychoanalysis would be like water, like Cephissus and Liriope, the father and mother of Narcissus, the first a god of the river, the second a water nymph, who, anticipating Narcissus in advance, is herself transformed intoa lily, “that other flower of moist areas,” Kristeva says, “the funeral narcissus” (131/103). ‘Thus, between literature and philosophy, on the one hand, and psycho- analysis on the other, between that which enters into history and that which accompanies history without itself being inscribed in the calendar of time, a question would emerge—a question that not only concerns Kristeva's text, but ultimately bears on narcissism itself, insofar as one must eventually ask whether the event of narcissism is in fact a historical event, or whether, like psychoanalysis in this text, it flows alongside the entire course of historical time without belonging to a particular moment or a given temporal instant. Can we believe, therefore, that we are really dealing with a history of narcissism in Tales of Love, as it might seem at first glance? Can we believe, invisibi morcover, that there is in fact a history of narcissism? Is this text in fact a history, and does the phenomenon of narcissism enter into history? And what would it mean to believe or doubt, that is, to enter into a debate in which doubt and belief, certainty and skepticism, are the organizing virtues? Is not the entire apparatus of doubt and belief, documentary evidence and theoretical Vigilance, already part of the narcissistic story, in which recognition and misrecognition, seeing and believing, play their deadly game, mixing the imaginary and the realat the heart of the constitution of the subject? To doubt the story that is being told by Kristeva would already be to enter the arena of narcissism —of representation, evidence, and suspended belief. At the same time, however, if we were not to doubt, if we were simply to believe, taking Kristeva’s history for granted, an entire network of questions and difficulties would have to be set aside. III. The Catastrophe of Narcissism In fact, this history of narcissism already puts in place a temporal structure that narcissism itself should not allow us to believe. For the time of narcissismET-€01 (L661) 6£ “04 “pms Your4 270% ,ssn8SOIEN Jo soISESIC] a4 :2suOds>y aiqissodusy uy, ANON He | 295 “UDxED aAey as1%I9420 20 PInom | suoRDo.p ‘ur out paysnd Aussoatuy Azourg w somo] asoya “ioanoNy 24re]-y wos} Must TE fur 40] wonesidsuy ows puv ,“usissirseu jo sawsesip ayn, ‘oseayd sup aye | “< quoao oneuMeN yp OUpey 9tp Jo span sp ayL] 10 Burause nop Bususe ‘Spiop1oy 10) suoddey tpeop se Survoddey oyna suoddey a veep soups ang ‘u989 yeonpate éppind v 40 voneuBeuN axp Jo woUy e “Funpou sosour Si aFvetp ueaur ou Soop Y>yas ,AUDs24d,, 398918 sem Up Ised e ,‘29eId 300, J9s9U_ moyauos aeKA SuNpowos ss0y>s04p st sreadou IeYAy “suoNUDID pur suonuaosd jo ysoaniou Xue 30 ‘ureyp syoquuds Aue ut ape fd v UoAtE 19AdU sed pue oanany 02 YoRepps uF auassd apeU s9,9U “yans se paoudiicdxa s9A0u sea quaao oneumen a1p asneaaq S111 ‘Ses pnoay “Kem stp ur siwados vuunen 1p yt Puy pasaquuacuss 343g fo props posnadaist sed 241— s1u9A2, pa||e99q uur Aoyp jt —stuoa9 anewnes Ur eM sn s[pa1 snyp pros osnaNg axp pue ased 241 01 ones v Aq pos2ps0 ‘ourn jeots03sty ow paresSoqur ud9q 20U sey ae quad Ue $Us29U09 11 Se JejOSUT “KJOWIUN [EoLOISTY WO} 22UNsIp st KzowsU oneumen jo wines ay ‘xeunYysIU aya peqyseY 24,1, 280] st aouUdtddxo umo sapaiqns 242 etp os Guasoid ay Jo 0x4 ur yposu Sunuasoud “susngoe soysea any sed 24s Jo vouD2q}o294 ¥ st 40 ,6sowoUL, se Jeadde 20U sop ep Goww jo pury e yum vorsts Hundrssoiu pue Dolgns oxp Suypuyyg jr se—9ouajiodxo averpoutut jo 22ejd ur saqjasuuoya STurosse pur atou pure 9194 a4p jo sousuodx ayy furyso(q uasozd oxp1 vodn apnstut or anunuos oq, aun ased 0 Suojpq 20U op seumnen s9410 pur sem Jo soouDLadx9 944, “wHsIs -sioreu Jo qu949, 24p Jo ep ayB—wwaA2 242 Jo “AuqEreP a4p1 pur ‘aiep ap 1 9194 wamas isn 24 20/qns 242 01 Yans se Masoud apeur pur pazijoquids sonou ‘o9ejd assy au ut paouatiadxs saaau sea ay asnevoq steodos vumen atp ay —sneuiu> asour se} —a>ey 2xp ose ang ‘sanseojd jo ajdiouud xp Jo uonrjors qussedde ur eumnen jo aouauiedxo ayp 01 y>eq I30/qns axp Sug sey soreunyfitu 10 suirasp ui Surusmos pur ‘Keane sed o Bursnys ‘syeadas aw aeyp 2o8) 24p §ydunts 2ou—auoA2 snewUMEN axp Jo exodus seyd9d axp sassosns ay asym ‘adiounig auns02}q 2y9 puokoy UL sossnosIp pnoag exp sewneN Jotpo pue sess Jo.2ouatiodx9 941 [394 pIoM wsss1>seU jowwatOW aH, “sun, Aseurpio Jo aprvosys ay1 owt poussut APyaInb o01 aq 1oU P]noys yp Ward ue‘eurmen w2]quips94 9309919tp pods tstssioseu Jo 1u949.4p ‘saMaNANS 2Iseq 3s0uu si U] AsouloUU [eouorsty Jo 43910094 atp puo aq TUDUHOLY K49A9.V JI>S01 sada sonoeseyp 2peuINEN sot} W2A9 UE Jo 90H aUp Sorsestp v Jo aun a4 st YWAVUL JO SHIDO TOOL PEIThe Catastrophe of Narcissism 135 that is recounted in thestory of the primal horde in Totem and Taboo, an event which occurred, as Freud tells us, before history as such, before the beginning of historical time, ina mythical moment that explains how time in fact began.° As the very structure of the “mirror stage” suggests, the traumatic evemt— the very advent of the ego—takes place before the subject is able to bear witness, before the “I” can utter any yes or no, and because it stands at the origin in this way, “before” the subject, we can only conclude that the trauma was never present to the subject as such, and this is why it cannot pass away,or belong to the past, asa present that once was. Because it does not belong to the past, moreover, the traumatic event is constantly expected to return from the future, like a catastrophe that is about to occur—a catastrophe (like object- loss in Krristeva's text) that must be avoided at all cost, avoided like madness itself, which, in Kristeva's account, already happened with Ovid and Plotinus, and yet must be avoided in the present age, where it emerges like an impend- ing catastrophe, a “new malady” which may well be the defining catastrophe of our time, a narcissism that, although it was invented by Ovid and Plotinus, 6. [tshould be clear that, in speaking of narcissism itself asa “trauma,” we are not attempting to condense into a single form the actual experiences of trauma—those, for example, that are linked in contemporary psychological literature to the definition and diagnosis of PTSD —and the “structural” or “constitutive” trauma of narcissism. Following Freud, we are rather suggesting that specific events (such as World War |, and its analogues in the theory of PTSD), insofar as they reveal a peculiar temporal return, might lead us to consider that the very structure of the subject includes and even requires a peculiar traumatic dimension, something “beyond the pleasure prin- ciple” that must be theoretically developed beyond the contingent examples of actual historical trauma, It is this very step that Freud takes in reformulating the theory of childhood incest, in quasi-anthropological terms, as he does in Totem and Taboo, where the “original murder” of the father is cast, not as a real event, but structural characteristic that would account for the very emergence of historical time. See Monique Panaccio, “Notes on Freud’s Concept of Trauma,” Clinical Studies: Interna tional Journal of Psycho-Analysis, :1 (1996): 55~63. As Slavo} Zizek also abserves, the concept of “trauma” in Freud progresses from an initial grounding in reality (an actual rape or seduction or violent accident), to a more generalized account of the traumatic constitution of the subject, which leads Freud to regard the trauma not as anactual event (one that might be interpreted and symbolized) but asa logical “stage” that can only be constructed and not interpreted. In this sense, the trauma corresponds to the second stage in Freud’s presentation of the primal fantasy, “A Child Is Being Beaten” —a stage, Freud says, “that never had a real existence.” See Slavoj Zizek, The Plague of Fantasies (New York: Verso, 1997), pp. 119—123,uiu40 sHewNeR Jo a]q_ssodUN UF o Funep>4 Jo sey rDoLqns ay sear Kure ayp Sypsioaad Sutaq (suonuaauo> aaneuzeU UMo SY sey pu ‘2sU98 UNO Si st Ytyan “ABopoy>Aed peauauudoj>ap psopur pue ‘uondy “wt “Korsty) axnesseU J) SWJO} 41 —a1UdF Jo soNeUE SIP Ue@ Joy SuNTPoU Uo 3891 01 aWOD |Jom LeUL Furuonsonb sno yo uapang aznua ay wey sea]> 94 plnoYs 1 9"} UE UDYas oUEs2,4IpUT Jo sneuL e ‘[eIAL 249% ‘suUDE UF soouDIOYTp AjreUIN|N o¥e Y>ryar “soouDI94NP 2sotp Jf Se 40 ‘22uDz4FIp OU du9M oud FISe ‘MM | “PAW, v4 ,YONDY, Y “g 14861 ‘ssa4g eyseaqaN, Jo Aaiss941UQ "AN “Ujoour]) ows UUY stER YareICy 2y1 fo Suny 9y1 AOYDUEIG 22UNKY “Z raundojaaap su jo aes A499 ye aaneseU 9Y) Jo oun stp STUY reED AArIgs -sod 40 24942 Azarem Jo Pury a4—Jlasi! sissfeuCoypisd yim Zuoje—sdyre lusisstoseu st 40 ‘oamaesony pur Aydosoyryd pia op 02 2Iqe 9q 01 9s aSe9q We pinom aa se sepused axp UO LUsississvU Ind am URS , Z2}H] Hoquads su yxeUL wy suoNeUIO] [eoHIOIsIY snoIseA ax [TE YBnosyD wo!qns oy soiuedtuoIse Wey punom snsissioseU v a[qesD]o1 DJOW dyeUZ pu UIEUOD o1 soyPeF Inq ‘Susunsop 40 aquidsap 01 {jduns you ‘paustsap sprom Jo qoa e “urdu euoRdY, vozoJox9qp PANLITEU yp S| ZaA0] Jo Safer [Ja aM Vays so[e Buy [uO aM aay esauonsty s2p anb snow-suostof ay :sopea Buyjoa Jo zoneUr v s9yReI StI inoue p saurossipy Wt siSaBBns vANsUy se aaorty 2un Snsissnren sip jo Gorsty v 243 9a Ue> pur “usissiseU Jo aoueauayur pur uorssiusuEsI v as0Kp s] ¢epor WDYUT P|nom saajasino aan 1eYp 9uo pure ‘woRUAAU! [e>L0IsTY e-aIeUsisap o ppuaut apn 494 Jo , AatuEsUE MOU, 9U2 S] ZUORBUNIE] WOIsayy sEjMoned StI Jo sHIY oy se soqpaseno 25 Sanoas0u ‘9a PINOYS Z(COLAET) AMAND!GNS UsasaQ\ Jo LorsIy oy in200 11 aaeyd sejnonsed Aaa atp pur asngy onsisstozeu ayp jo Aaypeut S110 aip,, ‘SPOP KAMSLTY sv ‘ssans a40jo19y9 9M PINOY <(CI1/9#1) ,AUlANdaLqns uwiaisa,y Jo Asorsty auf ut aed peronaa v yons snssiozeNy esd o1,, ‘shes y]ossoy ays se ‘Burypin poopur vaarsizy sy 'saajosino uo ospe pur (a1 07 y>eosdde sno uo Ajjerusuepuny 210u1 40) sed 42 Jo o8p2moux sno uo Sutsv9q uonsonb Ploy-oma v st SHE Zppom Auviodwiaiuos ay) ut (pu sit 40 uonnadas sii) ade pjo sit pray pur piag Jo sys au UL Yasig Joavep vsnssioreNy dai am ULD gas081Zns 07 suza9s sea] Ie vADISH'Y Ep AeAs Ip Ur o]QuIEp st snsstoIeN JoouEU ay aeyp aaatiaq rya ‘Oysy pur snsstoxepY Jo Kxors ay ALM SEAT Og “sa3yeus 93] pouiaasavur 10—ureyp >1oquaks ve UL poyuy Bur9q sousds ajoysm xp ‘Kaos snomasd ay Jo oy>> 40 Lso8o]Te yp ‘9[e1 sqLOUE UO AseIUUTUIOD v Inq “VORUDAUE ALOU e AI[e9s OU 49M 3fED {pea Jt se ‘440s saqpour Aq pasnponut Kxoas Ayaaa Qjoyan vse sasoydzowmnayy ay ut puy 944 veep sopea Jo Surs94e] pur uonestsqust ayp Aq ‘Kem sneuarsks pur Jesoua sour v ut porenquao.e st Aunbaue Jo uonnadas pur uondaods ax 01 sed ping uonuane roydxo amp ‘sou st ey Ay ,,,9]qsso02" a10UUF 1 2yeU PUE 1 puedxa 01 s9py0 ur yiAw axp sayspou— (oXpapnouy ondjeuroYy>ssd purer -uo paopur swuoudopaap aaneaseu sty ySnoyp se) pajapour st urstsstoseu jo adaouoo ayp yadur axp jo uorssaa asoyas uodn aod pazipiars ufo Ue—PhO IY, ‘SoM roYouELG ,‘oe21pUL 01 [HEF 10U op sIstBojOYPAW,, ased yeorojowpAus v ur pres uaoq Apeoaye sey weYA MoU purIsspuN pUe way O1S1 ska Bs0Ya “TALL E PUL -TOWIUSUIUIOD E saUTODXE|& st (suEIpaTEN 39945 aMp 94) PIA pur ‘suo aUD!UE UE Aprayte st pjor Butog Azors yp “as -oydiouprapy aya ut skeaape sy ‘IstuoIstA23 snoI9sUOD-J19s UND v Pur soweAoUU snoy010U & 192} UF St PIAG Y>rYar 1 uONEpPs UT ‘SnssioseNY pune s>}qQu} JO vonipen paystqeis>-[foa & prac Jo own ayn Aq Apeosye st 249171 ‘soauanbastu0> sur Sumnsund anoypias ang ‘safpa] mouype JJoss9y vAaisiry{ se pur “azsmC 242 fo Suasuyy 94,1, ur no sywiod oy>urjg 2uNLpy sy p2sn99s APy>INb os aq 1ouURD uiBt0 JesOIsty SIE pur “pIAG 4q paudauL you sxofos9yp sem ALOIS OH, “purur ur aavy oy ur998 SHY 1e Pino eaaisiry yeep UOReZt[e20] LOUOISTY up Jo ANIYyIp aznUa ays sorsto Aoyp Kzenu09 axp UD “1x91 atp Jo aUaWNLE [earydosopiyd ay UO Suswaq [ea ow axey pjnom wip UONEUTOJUE pur si>xy [eTUSpEUT Jo Suua Jo.uos ay ‘uoneuLosu Aaejpour Ajduns you ase uIssnog puL snsuor] anoge sep 2994, | “yreap sty Noge HuiFuLg kyjeuy pur Soup ay) Woy JJ wry Sumo ‘uny spuyg aexp Aiaisdus so uorsnyp: ue ang “ypasuTY JOU sqPour Jo(p1BU st exp aeus Ue—asoyp A}Jeas 20U St ey s99s rep VOISIA poreULDsey ve ‘Kutejopt Jo pury v 40) paystund st oya pur dou pjnoys 24 ey $928 OYA Si 94 OU a1OJOI9Yp SI SNSSIOAENY S,PIAG (GOL/FEL) ,S0494 040 a4 pue syrAuL VINAVYLL dO SHISOTOdOL, selThe Catastrophe of Narcissism 139 curas/Seposuisce gravis vacuague agitasse remissos [lines 318-319])—turned to Juno and said “I'll bet that you women have more pleasure in love than we men.” Juno disagreed (as often happened with these two), and in order to settle the dispute—each insisting upon the other’s greater pleasure, without knowing in fact or by experience —they turned to Tiresias, for he alone knew what love waslike for both the man and the woman, For one day, he had come upon two snakes intertwined in the woods, writhing together, and taking his stick, he pulled them apart, and was instantly transformed into a woman."° He thus lived as a woman for seven years, until one day he saw those snakes again, insinuating with each other, and thinking that the same cause might produce the same effect (or the reversal of that effect), he once more forced them apart, after which, he again became a man (“taking on again,” as Ovid says, “the form and the image of his earlier self,” “forma prior rediit genetivaque venit imago” |line 331). And so, when Tiresias, having been appointed as judge, took the side of Jupiter, Juno punished him with blindness: “Iudicis aeterna damnavit lumina nocte” (line 335), Ovid says, “she damned his vision to eternal night, condemning the eyes of Justice to be blind.” Like the story of Echo and Narcissus, and indeed like the story of justice that Oedipus brings upon himself, this too is a story in which blindness and sexual difference are brought together, and a story of punishment as well. Thus, like the work of Plotinus, which fashions itself with Platonic instru- ments, so also the myth of Narcissus is not new with Ovid, but is rather inherited and repeated: the time of Ovid’s “new” insanity is thus less easy to grasp than one might think, and itis not clear that this time will be datable in the way that one might date the signing of a treaty, a scientific discovery, or some other “historical” event. Nor is this difficulty restricted to the tale that tells about Narcissus. On the contrary, it extends to narcissism itself, for the “event” of narcissism —if one can speak of an “event” of narcissism, when itis really a question of something that never occurs, and at the same time never passes away, something that is impossible, a self-apprehension of the ego that is not a self-apprehension, a “splitting” that brings death at the very moment it brings the subject into being —already introduces a break with historical time and its sequence of localizable occurrences. Thus, while we have suggested that, for Kristeva, a provisional line might be drawn between 10. See Jacques Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind: The Self Portrait and Other Ruins, trans. Michael Naas and Pascale-Anne Brault (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p.“(LOV/EL-9E1) ,sn9z, pur euspy Aq, ureSe sypo%or ind uayp axe yey sovard out dn wiry ano oyas ‘suey ay Jo [eapso at SuioFzpun s1oj0q ‘toss1Ut v yo sueaw Kq v49}4 Aq poonpes 94 02 “ysusny sore pyyp v se snsduoigy “ypu atp yo uorss94 uO 01 Suypsod.e SeYD e294 sn 127, :so1a ays ‘snUNO|g Jo 1x91 94 UO SuuoUNWED ‘sny.], AYSNoU UuerUnO|g UII DULDOp [earyPAU pur sreyDsE Jo ,suOD9]94,, 9s94p sass9.:18 A{powadas yjossoy vaoisiry pur “ypstu ueIskuoiq & Jo “oy>> ya “KsowusU SYD FPS St Ing YuaUFOWL ;eITIOISTY e OY pauLZUO aq 02 OU sya st sNUNO|g yo Ayuesur ou, ay .’snuNo]g UL ** * s.uDWJox peory AW soMoUE, se ‘yeu 01 [1ey 10U s90p vaarsUry aBessed e—(z9 /9¢1) ,sMSAuoIC] Jo sossIU 24 ur se safteunt siotp ae poze aavy Aoup snedoq 2494 UAOp Yst4 s{nos ueWN},, japo|paut Jo Aun qwososd-s9x9 oy2 UIYpLM [Nos ay1 Jo UNPDYrUNDs ay, ‘GonuDAUr ,a19U,, UMO sty Jo UIRLIO ayp TunuTE|dxd ‘sKes Jposuny snUNO|g SY ‘9sf> s204ai0U pur ‘Suneadas pue Surioquiousas Jo amonuas yp ut ‘sowWoW 2yp wi st Jest Ewin oy eI apN|Uod A2,, JeaHHojouosy> pozz]e20| & UL IsIsuOD YOU Pjnoa eumen oy Jo amaonus ann stp wy A9ey atp pur ‘soujnoyptp jesodusor asoup uaald ‘poapul 40} {AuIEys09 Jo punosw sau e wosy Zunseas pur 230}>q auo8 sey rey SurypKasa (Zunqnop 20) jo Sunseo ‘pyom sau v yo vonusaut a4yp pins 4yduns poussouon aa 290 1e4p 2x94 oq 01 ayISHUU vag a0}2494p pInom a] ‘29ueApe UL pounlEpD Apeaupe seme sey EWP ELUNE e—YFnosp-ys0m, pur ‘roquiatuas ‘eados 09—soquuatuos 01 9q pjnoar 10H ssoyar ‘Buryurypy Jo ysra v ur ang Guasoud 01 ssvadde easy iy! oanesseU {serusUIND0p D4 UI Yon Os you IsISUOD o2 aArY Pjnom Jjpsi LUSIssoZeU Ie SUITE Tey SuryUTp 2yp , aga, SANMINsUOD suIP pukaron sn sUIOd WisISsIo¥EU JF PUY “Ht Sastidw09 {qjenuasso yep saMonS snewAiU o~P IM vUNEN sp Jo UoNErUasasd AaeurSeur pur syoquids oy asnyuo> iouue> aa rey) suEdUE stYp ‘Kear ajqusta ss9] 40 au0ur © UL aT UNEpEA seaq pynow Aydoso[ryd 44949 pur aaneaseu 44949 aeyp aij 40 Aunsop v oyH] jaais{nduuos jas sweados urstsstozeu 41 ‘Ss9]24y9 “AN “(poppe siseydus9 “gOI/8EI—ZEL) .JIPS Jo SS9USMOIDSUOD UsDIS,\\ Ip Jo ‘ssoupeu ansissiozeu puosog ‘uoReroqep ay Jo ssu9U4772 702150) SMULIO|A YA 210394, 01 ‘ures parejsue Jo pauusossuesa 9q 01 rey uoneuossuen v ut ,‘snssioxeNy Aq pozionosd pur ‘poziueumy ‘pozneuresp,, 2uv oj Wosy paLOYUE ,sUdUNAISUE, ayp ‘SoAsOSGO EAdISULY se 405 ‘Cuors4t, ou sey djduus wisissioueu yeyp es 01 20U St siup ‘Jaxamoy ‘UN atUeS 4p IV “painoos Apreap os s98u0] ou st oamiez21] pue ydosoxyd jo Gxiqeiep jeouorsty ay ‘@auasodiumo {areas Sit UH) pueY somo ay UO sIsKfeULoY>ésd pue (UDRLIM 2, ury soLsoIsty sIotp Se seyosuI) Pury su0 94 UO saMeZN] pur Kydosonyd VIWAVUL AO SAIDOTOAOL, OFLThe Catastrophe of Narcissism i IV. Of Narcissism Itself Is there, then, a history of narcissism, with an origin in Plotinus or Ovid and an end or culmination in Modernity? Or is it rather a matter of telling tales when we speak of the formation of the subject? And if the literary and philosophical exposition of narcissism in fact reveals a structure that cannot be historically confined to a particular moment, what would this mean for narcissism itself, as itis understood not in literature or philosophy, but in the domain (and genre) of psychoanalysis—if one can pretend to suppose, after what we have just seen, that this psychoanalytic domain is “no longer” the domain of philosophy or indeed of literature, but a distinct and strictly separable genre? In order to do justice to this question, we would have to ask not only about K risteva’s text, and the peculiar tension that marks it—narrating the history of subjectivity while at the same time taking back a certain number of formulations, as we have tried to show, with observations that acknowledge an archaic repetition. We would also have to ask about narcissism itself, about the story or history of narcissism, as it appears in certain versions of psycho- analysis, where we are told about the moment of the “mirror stage,” which replaces a moment of bodily incoherence with a new unity, only to be again transformed (or metamorphosed) by the order of language. Does Freud himself (ike Lacan, who only repeats what Freud has shown us) not speak of a “primary narcissism,” and of its later transformation, through the ocdipal conflict, into something like “secondary narcissism”? Does he not also speak ofa period before narcissism, before the Lacanian “mirror stage,” in which the subject's body would not yet be coherent—a stage before the constitution of the body? The essay “On Narcissism” is perfectly clear on this point: “We are bound to suppose,” Freud writes, “that a unity comparable to the ego cannot exist in the individual from the start; the ego has to be developed. The auto-erotic instincts, however, are there from the very first; so there must be something added to auto-croticism—a new psychical action—in order to bring about narcissism.”"! IL. Sigmund Freud, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 24 volumes, trans. and ed. James Strachey et al. (London: Hogarth Press, 1953), 14, pp. 76-77. Further references to Freud will be by volume and page number,yd pI 41 tap “el wd (2261 Suo0Ny 2204 MON) UEpUDyg URLY “suEN uoND2pg P sstOg “UEDe] sonb>e{ “Z| JPSWTY pnozy ,"WSISSIOIENY UO, Avss9 sty UY VoREpUNOy 2AnMNsuo. yD 2wo249A0 19491 |]1A\ stONE|suEN pur swusLUdo}dap-o4 JO1e] Isoya.—9UDISIXD Jemeu qs aimdng oneunen ‘assy e—o8> 21p Jo uoneurs0y jentur Ue sjreruD awe ej BP U! FaeTeYD aaympz5u09 s1y WI 21] [NOM WIsISsIDIeU Jo DINIeD} Jruaurepuny a4 ‘mora sup UG ,,,g1USUIdo|>A9p JeIUUE aznUD szDaqns op aumonans piu SF yas yeu TILK YT “ANuap Tuneud!e ue - * - jo von -duinsse otp, 01 sunowre ars sossIu aya yo JuSWOUL 9YB IY 9Hp2|Mour>e Aysnourey 10u URDe'] S90q] “3eAP 0s 10U st JMNEUT atp 001 a19y 49K puy -sisdqeuvoypasd 01 Burpsopae ‘ss08s9pun Js wUsIssio2eU ey soffeas Jo sousas a4p. uayp 4xa1 s,eaarstry Ul souboe uf Kroisty aya yOu j—uuSIS -sioreu Jo Aaorsty v 2q smtp pjnoa 21242 ‘oon sisKjeuvoypAsd Uy ,,120/qns sv uonouny si ‘[esa9atun ayp Ut I 01 soxoiso4 aSeNSue] a10Joq pu TOMO a4 YL uoneatyniuap! jo o29]e4p ay2 Ut paysnsalqo st 1 240j0q WHO} [eEpsoWLd SI UT, [21 sn on sjeanag a8 eas sosstUL a1p weyp soma ay Udy [ppm se UONEUULOJsUEN) Jay] stip sopaymouype uerey] _ro9lqns,, 24 Joy ,s9YO,, ue se 9B sow AyTeUy vo (o> sonye ue sv Ayuo Sutseadde) eun oxp ov Koad sypey assy we a a[Eyan IEE Auaye ue—s9yp0, yp Suyquisss Sunpawos pseaoy ‘Feu oyp jo wyeos 24p puodag wolqns axp {aze> par yoryar Oureu sup qd aya yorya ut ‘uoneziueSs0 saxpoue o1 ‘snosdoIne sje pas YoY ‘sunseojd ureiao v yo aygede> st yaya jo ypea sauoz. kjipoq Jo a8ejquiosse poztuess0sip Pwo. pauojsuen Sutoq Aq , “uot, st poq aup y>ryas wt ustuOU! jeansneur 1poq wouy sossed pyry> oy uayas (Zot Jo PUEZ IY UL ING) austOUL, dUp ,‘9TeIs JossTUL,, 94 asIN0D Jo. st ,uonde jrorypdsd atau, rey, y, “wsissioseu anoqe Butaq o1 sessa00u 9q pynow uonse jeoppésd mau y “Buruurfag ayy ye qwuasosd you smyp st wusisstoseN ayp ‘ssouarajduios Kreurfiewt oy uoneususesy 4 VNOAVUL AO SAIDOTOIOL zlThe Catastrophe of Narcissism 148 observes that the origin of the ego has a formative and structural character that no revision and no retroactive reworking will be able to forget (not only because of its constitutive character, but also because, as we have suggested, the inaugural “event” of narcissism cannot be, properly speaking, remem- bered). Narcissism will therefore never pass away, like an event that acquires a date, or a moment that eventually belongs to the past. Speaking of the projective identification that supposedly marks a stage in the “maturation” of the subject —what Lacan speaks of as the displacement of the first, bodily ego into a transitive identification with the alter ego—Freud writes that the subject now projects into the future another possible identity, an “ideal ego” toward which the present ego can aim. This will be a new formation in which the initial self-absorption of the child is supposedly transcended, cast off, and left behind, as a moment that now belongs to the past. And yet, no sooner has Freud deposited this notion into his text than he finds it necessary to explain that the process is not so linear: This ideal ego is now the target of the self-love which was enjoyed in childhood by the actual ego. The subject's narcissism makes its appearance displaced onto this new ideal ego, which, like the infantile ego, finds itself possessed of everything that is of value. [Diesem Idealich gilt nun die Selbstliebe, welche in der Kindheit das wirkliche Ich genoss. Der Narzissmus cerscheint auf dieses neue ideale Ich vershoben, welches sich wie das infantile im Besitz aller wertvollen Vollkommenheiten befindet.] (SE 14:94)" Thus, contrary to first appearances, the so-called “primal” or “primary nar~ cissism” is not a stage that is eventually given up. Indeed, as Freud adds in his laconic way, depositing the most obscure theoretical difficulties into a prose that is altogether misleading in its urbanity: “As always where the libido is concerned, man has here again shown himself incapable of giving up @ satisfaction he had once enjoyed” (SE 14,p.94). We cannot stop here, however, for the matter is still more complicated: it is insufficient to say that the primordial narcissism of the child (“the self-love which was enjoyed in child- hood by the actual ego”) remains present in its future transformation, in the form of the ideal ego which now attracts the self-love of the subject; for the 15. For the German original, see Sigmund Freud, Gesammelte Werke (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fisher Verlag, 1946), vol. 10, p. 161.atp jorsayj9-vsnpayy 2tp Aq paypsned og astauioypio pjnoa rey anne 4 01 af soni yoryan ‘uonerpour a1foquics Jo s9py0 aya esz9atun ayp ovr aiessed oxp uosoudax snip pynoas ofensue] s,pno4.y ut) [rapt o> ayp 01 of feapr a4p wiO4y aiessed y,], ‘wstssizavu jo ino Kea quo ayp on UNOULE oy doUE]S ASIY Ye SUID9s wey) aBengury ur aanany e suado (,,uoneaynuapr syoquids, s,uvse-] 01 Sutpuods 21109) yptyss Jo ase] 4p ,Peopt of, ays (smMUNUOD assed ayp sv) 24 Wey —, OD, ay Jo (uaas aaey am sv) syeads pnaiy 229924 ‘porta asnf avy om oSessed Gaon oyp ur xo uerpnos ayy ur svadde yaya squswour soup Apastoord SE] ."Tess9atun,, aup1 Jo vorsuaup ay UL ,aD2/qns,, 94 Jo (SaN|NYsIp out sn pr9] pinoa vorsuaup [esodwior aso prom 1aqu0Ur) ,uonvso%s94, a4} s{[e> ‘ueoer] reyas pue (4940 ay2 YIM UOReoyHUDp!) oD 49918 a4 2 UORE|DZ SU UT of ayp “w10y jerpsounid sir ut 089 941—ue>e] Aq parejost Apeaaye siuowoW 2ouy ours 94p a19}duuH09 pjnom rwnod>e s,pnosg 4p os AustuOUE JoXouR IK puy 2a pur ‘paresoqeye saxpany auv Aixjesoduin seynaod s1oqp ut porejnonae asn{ dey 99 of atp Jo siuawoU om 242 ‘sanuNuOD aBessed oyp sv IDE Uy ‘[ssoua3 yoy ayonyum sop noypuryy 2p ut ayoqon ‘aqayisgiay 2yp unu sp3 yoqpvapy woseC7] ,pooyp|np,, p>]]e> DUD sreyoue Ue OY porNguMe AOU st eI UORDEISHeS PeORpAU e , YusUKoLuD Aso}, © Jo Surmdesos oy so panssuor st Ip 20f-JI9s GO uORD9]ye-omne. ai) saaisooy ,ssou,, of Jeopt axp wuawoU aip (,sourseadde sit soyeitr, 40) 110g staf st wsissioseu yey} SauLim pN4g Ut}a ‘oReZDpIsuoD Jpun sMon.NS seynoad ayp st sity pur ‘surat aeya% st stKLT ‘paoluo (,2u1n v uodn sDU0,, ‘urse) 20u0 08 ystpyEy> op Yoryar ased feortp Aun e sjosiy 40} wuasosdo4 01 , “oun, s2tUd0},, Jo j]>sit 01 Heads oF O89 sup MO|pe [LAA wy AusuDSUEIZe pexodur>, axau v “Sauer spsea.x2eq & j]2sit 404 oanposd 01 ‘KiJeo18es0U *(, pauuApuoD, vs aysiu 9m 30) 9]qe st Awrour> s1y>%sd ayp wey of jeapA, 942 Jo siseq yp tuo éyuo star veep st as0y Burkes st pnosy wey ay [uaqoysiaa yoy 2po9p1 anou sosomp Jno] wasoy 2890, stp Jo siseq 24p wo XJUO [2way2810] aouENUD S41 2yeUE pu dn moys ,asiy,, pjnom —snussizunyy Jag] yysi Bunyp Aaa 24p Ang “wsIssioneU jo afins 40 wo) 4920] v Afos9UU OU—J)as4t WisSS1DsERY “Jew Awadde o1 49p40 u—uonnados ureui99 v ynosp—ooua1 ord ayer 02 pey wsissioieu 41 se sm sta “(pape siseydusa) , pa20ydsp 2ourcvaddo s1 soypui wisissiozeu, y>tyan ur urseayd snojnonow s,pnaz jo asuos ay) posput st stp 404 :taof saz, sys yFnowys Syuo aun say B4p 405 aFs91H 01 ws [now ng “Buruuisaq ay) 8 911 01 seadde ou ssop *(,p2Xolua suo pey 24 uonDxysnes, ay2) wsIssIoAEU Jo 20u9Hs9uU> 24 Jo atUOUT 4394 yp ‘sJasU UIBUO ayp yD st ADEy seHAM0d VINAVUL JO SHIDO TOOL tblThe Catastrophe of Narcissism 15 imago."® In short, with the arrival of the ego ideal, projected into the future through the symbolic apparatus (likea little spool of thread with its phonemic attachment), the image that was given in the mirror will no longer be suffi- cient, and the subject will desire something more, something else, an identity which might capture the recognition of others. Imaginary narcissism would thus be normalized and moderated by language and exchange, and by the mechanism of a newly social identification (the notorious “identification with signifiers”). It is thus as if speech itself were the consequence and by-product of narcissism, less a rational tool of communication between already existing “subjects,” than a fantastic and desperate invention spewed forth by the human animal in an attempt to fashion an exit, or at least to heal the wound, of the narcissism that brought him into being. And again, this chronological mapping of stages is clearly irreducible to any historical sequence, for Freud notes that even with the ego ideal, the child is not willing to forgo the narcissistic perfection of his childhood; and when, as he grows up, he is disturbed by the admonitions of childhood and by the awakening of his own critical judgment, so that he can longer retain that perfection, he sceks t0 recover it in the new form of an ego ideal. What he projects before him as his ideal is the substitute for the lost narcissism of his childhood, in which he was his own ideal. [SE 14:94, emphasis added] Infantile narcissism is therefore not actually transcended by means of social identification: on the contrary, itis projected into the future, so that it can be “found again,” recaptured and preserved. Freud thereby suggests that the very formation of “conscience,” the awakening of “critical judgment” that comes with the incorporation of the admonitions of others (an internalization of the law) and leads us to give up our infantile demiands, is at the same time a repetition of the narcissism it promised to transcend. Atevery stage, it seems, the transformation of narcissism is less a sequence of discrete stages than a process of repetition and reiteration, all of which is set in motion by the “originally” narcissistic constitution of the subject. 16, For an extended discussion of the relation between the ideal ego and the ego ideal, see Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book I: Freud's Papers on Technique, ed. Jacqques- Alain Miller, trans, John Forrester (New York: Norton, 1988), pp. 107-142.S>uSUTURLHT 94p UF ‘s40}>s0yR ‘tuegsue styt uy 4 pusdsns U9A2 JOU “uOISI>op Sty uo ypeq OF soiuo] ou Ur wEYLAGY yoy uF souoUIUUY aanjosqe go wersur dsvsF on 9]qissodu yp st sup * = + asdop-auaty-ou v Suersut tue AUo 405 ‘parewsuunsuod 9194 Se St 294 LADeS otp Y>ryaA Mt UEISHE OU ssurpui24 auany “yyeap pue aay uses (Jo asne29q pu) audsop “ysryn ut Kuiqissod e ,ow-as0UN-|I0s, te ‘oanany € 01 asts sonst Aypeoxopesed ssoy aanjosqe siyp adaooe 01 (asa{qns & Jo" 94 aq 01 ples 2q UeD sMSSDIEN Jo Yoo] axp ueyp s10u ku © payfe> 9 Uae UPD I j1) UOIS!DOp asoyM weYEIqY UESN smMOYS pry L038 6 ‘>ees] Jo 224 Li>es oy) Ur pas o1 TUDUIOW e403 SuryIIM st epUssog YP astOsd siyp sdeysod st ay ajqissoduyy soyxo80y¢ 20u st axoy y>tya uF wisissioseE Jo} aan & uDy—pus Ue IeU j1—10 wis{ssioseU OY uD uF Jo ositHOAd up Ano spjoy Yor ‘ssKjeuPoYD%sd UEYA P2opUt 40 “earisuy weYp ‘sdeysod ‘oundues sso] 11 soyeus Kors veIpisc) a¥p jo JasesyD a1ydosisere> oy. ased ainjosqe siyp Jo waoy 242 ut “4240 34 ase9 astuosd a4p jun seas soAoU so ‘sea s9xou rip ased e‘opmatuoyd peurii0 ue armadeoos pian wep aouaIsIx9 UE up ou0 Sururene jo Aayqssod atp ‘pavansoy Kem soxpou ‘odvoso ue ‘any siya yosuvau iq ‘os1tuosd 01 {juo—Sutaq owt of axp sBur4q at uayps UawOL A494 aqp Ur prep pur voNraytnod sFuU4q rey ANUDpr ue ogy ouM] AjsnoqU>uz0d sn s][>1 soresseu spin ,"Hu126 seas 94 IY MOU I0U pip af4,) aDaKqns ayt tou st aeqn ,Aanuaps, Ue Jo yiz0} FuuN3y oyp somes ang ‘uoIsuo4osdde ~.JPS, 100s} eI. of 242 Jo voIsuayazdde-sjas w S]qissodum st req uA Ue ospe si wsissioxeu 0s “food Auoieas a4p 40j0q snssiIENY soxy reYR doUE]S auf Jo quouoUs axp oy] “seas soADU IY oWIN stEp ss9sS0d puL , 940993, 02 49p30 ur ‘oanany a4p owt sisofosd 49 0910us Y2olqns axp wp 240—uIF IO 1S0] & se sane, s98s0uu9 Sjuo veqp sed, © 02 2813 s9ar8 (san220 soAdU aeIp FuIpouos Jo wonsonb © Ayjeos sty uss auaAD, UL JO yYeads UeD aUO 41) LuSISsIOIEU Jo aud49, 24 1e4p 2sUDs 2tp UT su WsIss19zEu On spudIxo 3 *KseNUOD aXp UO) snssioseN anoqe s[P EADS 9] 942 01 powstnsa4 ud9q 10U sey AyNIKEP a4p ang, aosty, pur {A0rs, UdDaunq sopNysY>tp , Sou0Hs1y, p4om Kad 94p UL ‘opin s.eaawsry ut wuosedde st wotsuon sty y ‘Burpjoyun ainuo su satuedusoose ang ‘Auors1y out s91U9 I0U ssop Wed SU JOF Y>ryar ‘sIs\peUEOY>Ksd Jo 99u9 -soudyuwio Azone atp pur ixor sup ut sumo pur dydosojiyd aziaaioese4> 01 suu22s seo] Ye aeKP_ KsOrsIY aHP UD2AN2q ‘uoRHodar pur AaOIsIy U9o%ID4 Uwoneyp sea sey Nad v SYoog s,erSUy, UE UOISUDI w YEU OF potn axey aa, <“VoIspop,, Auqisuodsay ‘oguseg “a VAAVAL dO SAINOTOIO.L, oFThe Catastrophe of Narcissism 17 that doesn’t even separate the decision from the act, God returns his son to him and decides by a sovercign decision, by an absolute gift, to reinscribe sacrifice within an economy by means of what henceforth comes to re- semble a reward.'7 This “sacrificial” instant is precisely the time of the narcissistic wound, the time of the subject, which does not begin in identity with itself, but passes in an instant (the blink of an eye) from being “nothing” to being “something else,” from incoherence toalienation, The moment of representation is the moment of a subject who is nota subject before he sees himself, and who isalready lost the moment reflection begins —a subject who is nothing before the image gives him to himself, and who is already something else as soon as the image arrives. ‘The time of the subject is thus an impossible time, the time of an instant of transition (Untergang, metabole), a moment that gives and takes away in a movement of constitution that is equally the destitution of the subject. It is also the time of the voice of Echo, who calls to Narcissus and is never heard, who calls in words of love that are at the same time not her words, not the words of any subject, but only the borrowed words of the other, twisted and cut short in a mechanical reverberation, an echo that only repeats the desire of Narcissus—who in fact has no desire and expresses no desire—an echo that returns his words in an inverted form, which he is unable to hear. The voice of Echo thus repeats this impossible time, echoing a desire that does not (or not yet) exist, and returning it as an expression of “love” in which no voice of any subject is present. And yet, in an ethical gesture that could be inflicted only by psychoanalysis (as Ovid tells us in advance), this is what Narcissus is called on to “recognize.” In fact, it is precisely for failing in response to this perverse and impossible call that he is punished by the gods and condemned to his mythical fate, The time of the voice is thus like the time of the gaze of Narcissus himself, who, looking into the pool, does not see or recognize himself (“Quid videat, nescit,” Ovid's narrator says [430]), but rather falls in love with an image, the simulacrum he mistakes for another —another to whom he then speaks, saying, “I can almost touch you; only the smallest distance stands in the way of love. Why do you deceive me, disappearing when I reach for you” [Passe putes tangi; mimimum est quod amantibus obstat./ Quisquis es, hucexi; quid me, puer unice, fallis?/ Quove petitus abis? (453—455)]. 17. Jacques Derrida, The Gifi of Death, trans. David Wills (Chicago, IL: Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 95-96.(bed topsngy 242 fo Busnuy) sas aamiesom) Jo wipeas Suryszesox0 ap —2os4p J2y091p Wo4y pantiap 0M UApE>1 yINO} E auunsse 0 aay pjnoa 94031 Aynsn{ o2 asne22q ‘arenbopeut st ‘saxamoy ‘uoneoidaanut SLL (60s pues] ‘ave amp) suueas wos9yEp ao1Ip Jo 2p uA ese poraid ot aq UED [en s.e3yey,, :21428 Jo wonsonb >tp purawor wim a}qrusAout we ose ang “aorsty pue amon ‘siar] pu we] ay} w99%9q UoNY|D1 Fey NDad s1yp 4]UOI0U Puy 241001 04> “wel tps puy ,22uar=dwo> [eoruypa jo UoNEsapIUEUE E * + + sunpodoud aind yo ‘dios xp ysqese pur ‘aie Jo uonouaxp quae Suopeo¥ ypryas ‘sayfa aq ssonddns ose samy “soyoa2— Azeurad 1019 —somod rey “sae, utioy ypu 'ssouddns soja ‘Sse -tunig o2eds jo sutesisuo> snowses a4p am Jo Aasoteur ajqstaur ayn 40) SunMansqNs Sq sve] 242 wos; ‘sdeysad sm 3943 —sae] aeesoxd—swwer,, saa smep oy>ueyG ‘sn pr 02 sunpas ays 2]e2 241 Sq. pops st aeyp wiisspseU Jo oamonas >4qissodunt xp “Buyntson>joouds ur pros orn sisoye aorsiy seamisisy se sn 9430) {oxp aeyaN Jo Bunpowos Sussososd oun owes a¥p Apstsoud ze ‘ose apy u2soudos 01 ute oq wey 242 198304 tory ‘uononzsuo> aanezseU Jo sosn Aq 4940 pax9900 24 asnU ave] 242 4p {Ps ‘ors aqyssoduur sup soonposd axe] aya Yor Ur Sean se1}Mood tp Jo SoM Oya OY>UETG Ose 29g YsPECT fo Jin 244 ‘epus9q sonb>o| “gt 01 uoneja4 siya szqfeusoiu pue az1an2alqns wer 4 a10}0q ,“éuiqisuodso1 9900, ue 24) 220)0q 2Iqysodsos ‘oouEApe ul oIqusuodss1 HuIaq 01 uORUppe ut ep Aes am ue9 atoy ‘Kydzeys.s0u [Ins puy £94998 a1p Uo paatsse uond sey oolqns atp 220J0q ‘2Iqsuodsox Apeoyye ‘s>Ko 9yR Aq, poureP Speosqe se snssi>sEN) Jo yeads om ues mopy ZouHN assy 9y2 40F sJasuuNY s99s 24 21040 Jood axp Ie Seatsat 94 a40j0q 22942 1alqns OU st 21949 uot} ‘]qIsuOds>3 Kea aULOS USI 9y Tey? 0 ayRO a4p Jo |]e9 24p 01 Puodsas o1 ‘s>4R0 ayp az1UBOD94 01 poptEy sey sms -SmuEN, aeIp Aes 990 ED oY “,>Fpo|moUy oMsjeuvoy>ésd pouteruoD kprasye 11 jE st, ‘spiom saoyouey uy ‘sn on syeods oyqey ayp 31) asu2s o1n4yeuvoyossd 4p UY urstssiozeu Jo Aso89q[e Ue paopur st yBKur UeIpIAG 2xp Jf ZAD4pI0 a4p on puodsox 01 oanyey sty 405 yqistodsou stsnssioze yy ap es 2m uea UDYp MOF] “Ayoueynuns aBuens © ut usai8 o19m pud pur uiBiuo jr se “ye 1e uN ou 9q pjnom o1>1p ‘wewesip sty] pue alqns 242 Jo quaape anewNEN oy UoDAIDG , “2ouELodde “sip sty sung ey awersur we ul Sur>q ov sotto ous apalqns e pue uoAIz 226 00 st oyas soolgns & uoossi9g papuadsns aueisur ue ‘Suu papuodsns & 24 Pino soolqns ay saai8 wey worrussosdos sin jo awn ay, yweop sSuuq pur soytaad yeqp wioy © ur ang ou say 24p 405 JJasuNY O2 snssiozEN’ But ood ayBeaj¢ Jo 2>eyans oy) wo si9x0y Jaye Nq— saqpI0 94p JOU snssIoZEN, OUpLOU —Sunpou stuasasda4 veqp puesuny sj aeep aSeu we 4posuy Jo JOU 1oypou Jo saynoU st ep aBeuNE Ue ‘oHeUN sp st ano] Jo eas yp UI spuES 1eY AA VINIVYL AO SAIDOTOIOL, SHIThe Catastrophe of Narcissism 149 the other, he is also guilty for failing to respond, and even due to be punished as a result? For this is indeed the harsh law that the Ovidian myth proposes in a story that unfolds in two stages, two scenes that have been admirably detailed by Claire Nouvet: one (the first) in which he fails to respond to Echo, and another (which comes second) in which he is given to himself in a first reflection.” In the logic of the myth, which clearly defies the linear time of narrative, Narcissus is already guilty in the first scene, before coming into being as a subject, before his “constitution in the mirror stage” of the second scene; and the second scene, which one might wish to read simply as the moment in which the subject is constituted, must in fact be understood as a punishment for an earlier, archaic or prehistoric crime. For it is his crimein the first scene that destines him for punishment in the second—his encounter before the watery pool being explicitly presented as a punishment for his failure to respond (according to a logic that enchains the destiny of Narcissus in a story that has already taken place with Echo, who for her part could not be heard as another, having been deprived of her voice for earlier crimes against the goddess Juno). The very advent of the subject, narcissism itself, in its “inau- gural” moment and prototypical staging —a single figure suspended above the watery abyss—would thus have to be read, not merely as an inaugural moment, a beginning or constitution, but as a punishment, an extended moment or “stage” which therefore only takes place against the background of this divine Other, this Law that “already” destines the subject for exile and death, as a punishment for “earlier” crimes. This is the archaic justice of the myth, the harsh law that holds Narcissus responsible for an event —a relat or nonrelation—that occurred before any reflection took place, outside his- torical time, in a primordial or mythical moment before the advent of the subject, in a past that was never present, and that Narcissus will never remember. The moment of the look that is staged by Ovid, and by psycho- analysis as well, must be read against the background of this law. Indeed, the very look itself would capture the essence of this law. As Derrida says: “This look that cannot be exchanged is what situates originary culpability and original sin; it is the essence of responsibility.” Hovering for a moment before the pool, Narcissus cannot remember this “earlier time” that brought 19, See Claire Nouvet, “An Impossible Response: The Disaster of Narcissus,” Yale French Studies, no.79 (1991): 103134, 20, Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, p.94-aSnyou aye “ayrave soy ‘s194J0 a8"9] 1e aed su 104 “yous ‘aantesseU Aq waN08I0} 9q sheanpe [1! wey voNnados jo a18o] v ut Bers Gono ae soesouas vay pur ‘siuosy -uo9 tusissiozvU Jo 2aMaNUIS a\p ey ‘UMN [eHOIsTY apisino ssNI0 yy auano, stp ‘Keave soyey pur Soa ayy quaspe snonsesip sup ‘ae oulaIp sup st ay ‘poysrund sp 24 asnmag Kasra ‘sn soy Kupqisuodsas jeuourannnt sty [feoa4 [LM snssioxeNy 9ey ay saye pu AueISUE Ue oJ ‘sy “29eN vimoyim seaddesip pjnom—ruourystund sp pue ave] step anoyta—yoryan uonepas [eHOMFOUTUL Ue SoxpO 9xp1 02 VONEI>Z sIyp sMOYs aUOTE IE IUD asu9s aya ur ‘s2a18 ospe uourystund sip ‘pu Aasrem & 01 1yBno3q pur ‘vatp ,1>9/qns ayp o40joq,, 228]d 3oor 1eyp aw v 40j poystund st snss1oaeN, J] 290] UIyEI sey Zurpouros rip jeuoUsU v se ‘paaput ‘aauaptaa se ang “Kayjeansg Arenique se 10u sowo> ruawystund sty sypAuy ou Jo oxo] axp Uy “Taxa jeuouDUTUE pue steqpse sip ut ajon sty soy 2ousnl of 1ySnoWg st 2y asneo2g smoUy, pure joey ayp sayye 2UITID sty Jo smouy ay 1eYp afpayNouy>e ose IsNW am “paystund uuaaq seq 94] Yo! 4oy ouILZD 242 ZoquADUIDS JADU [fEM sASsIoFeN opm SST |, uods s121p1 40) sn asn Aypsaur jou op—sinyge uno sty Aq parwandes 4999 -moy pur ‘9q Keur Aaxp snojoauy 192m04—spoF axp ing Suonsayar soy aun sean 9494p 230J2q a2e]d oor yrs aquiatuos 10UULD 944 S9UITID Joy sn Ystund eur spo’ aip Jo ate] 24p 40,4 “ 2100 eYMaUHOS snsstosENY JoruDUUTYsTUNd ayp 29s o1sn Suravoype ‘ave] 2xp Jo voResodo ay 01 waWE]2 [eUY e sppe st | “aua3s s94].89 auf 01 “I>ey aup aoype SSsUNEA savaq au295 puodas a1p se ‘snd pruouauuut siys oF Kison OspD jum a2uatiadxa sy 98paymouyae ospe nu 94 se 494 puy “pus pue UBL10 Jo a2"/d sty. OV MANY VINAVUL dO SAINOTOIOL ost8 Trauma, Repetition, and the Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis Linda Belau Translating the Symptom Insofar as psychoanalysis attempts to address. impossible meaning at the core of traumatic experience, its hermeneutic activity is founded on a trans- lation that is structured as an open practice of reading rather than a closed system of interpretation. Because the signifier is always marked by an inad- equacy, psychoanalysis can never hold itself upas an idealism. For this reason, the “truths” it tells, and, in its clinical application, the hermeneutic practice it engages offer nothing to the analysand other than the awareness of the signifier’s fundamental incompleteness. And even this final truth it embraces cannot be guaranteed. Psychoanalysis, then, does not tell the analysand the truth about his problems. Itcannot excavate the original source of his troubles, hand it over tohim, and suggest appropriate changes. Thats, in addressing an analysand’s particular problem or symptom, psychoanalysis does not make interventions at the level of the signified —an attempt, sit were, tocreate a content correlate to what the signifier cannot represent —but rather, it works at the level of the signifier—that it is inadequate.' Psychoanalysis, in other 1. Fora further analysisof the relation between trauma and the inadequacy of the signifier, see my essay “Trauma and the Maternal Signifier” in Post Modern Culture 151Aaeuonoip ay Moy St sR—JoLAIN Is0W 9y J, YoUDIUT 9x UL aUuasoud st LoLIaNXD aup, SOIL 01 Fupsosoy “Zg—42 “dd “(y661 ‘S84q{ AUSIOAIUP) YO MON 210K M9QY) “peas soypeag eyy “p> ‘haav0g pu ‘sunimug ‘ralgng :asunoasiq fo kuooy.], uowune ur sueadde ,, gauuzg., papnua xa stip Jo uontsodxa pasuopuo> V “9g61- > uonear -sns ¥ s124Jo 94 YIM Ur (9g—CR6I) ,AXeUMNXY,, PoNUD seUTWIDS sty Uy pam -nsuod st AANDolqNs Yt punose faus>y aweuINXe dxp st stYT, “S899 UE ue ype] e yzog syzeU at aos a|qussoduut pur panqryosd yrog st a¥-Ad2kqns ay apisino pu apisut yiog st “uaqp “wordwais ay 1, i20lqns axp jo tap 242 osIstx> no perpountad ajqyssodun atp Jo sopureuras aatssaaxa uv se ‘snorasuosun 942 yovonewioy vse soyzes ‘wordusds ayp Soalqns ay) apisur st opuretios sipaeyp ‘uvour 4jdunis 200 saop sti, ,/passaadas snorpsuooun aya Jo wuoy sup UI Dolqns aup Ur suumaay ‘spaom 910 UF ‘eave IND SE EY sOYLUss a¥p Jo Ind 2x Kq paonposd sopureuias 2x st zolqns 942 ut y>e] SH, .z2ytUss ap jo 120lgns oy 40} 20uasoud Kuueoun ue st sjasit swsoytueur weep Puzid pUzzw aandalqnsaid jo puny sores Aaranaaiqns jo suonepas Surs94ytp a4p 02 s9yOU 4p UIA UoRE|as onoiqurs yoquidsoad axp woay aBessed ay |, “opya x2 oup20 ySnonp afessed 24 Woy) a0a1d J9A0-Y9] B ‘999%9 Ue Ay]eDI St IHOGUIAS oyp ONL JayrUsIS ay &q poanansuos st 9Y se 19a/qns ayn Aq pasayyns ¥>e] 242 IeYA sn smoys woxdUIAs 24) tpalgns aip uo 9ytUsts amp Jo 99 SuNeHou axp 10} 9yeW aansod ¥ Sy yon sodoad st Aoenbopeut styp reyp Soupes ‘Ing qwaruo> , Bury>ey,, 30 pargiyoud awos se aalqns a4 02 jeusa1x9 Ajdunts 10M st soyIUHIS oxp Jo Aenbopeut ayp ieyp sn smoys tordusss ay o2uIs stsKpeue Jo uIod Hunzes yp st ey wordurds axp sit Soytusis ayp Jo 19edw axp Jo 1nposd snoraqo aso a4, ‘sootsquu 11 eip Suipurrszpun Asd ayn uF urnyjds B sosodxa pue syseu! y2oq AF “11 01 $59998 sno1osuoD 2AeY YOU Soop rUaNed 2p pur possoadaz snorssuosun atp jo uorssoudxo ue st wordwXs axp asnesog, -suroxdurds sauaned ouorshy axp 40} uoneurydxo eo -1Bojorsyd ou st ax0qp “euaasdy pur eumen wo saipms sty ut UO Ape J9A03s1p 01 seas pnaiy se Ang ‘wowpTE seMoned v Buuayns ag keuy Toned ¥y “YuDTUOD su &q pozuarexeyp rou st wordwiés ayp osne>9q uondunsse uayesitu & osje st sty, ‘uonrasdsaqut sadoad 2tp ayeut 01 spaou ay speuoreur aves otp soreysueN sip oni8 [pa aano Sunyer ayy pue Yorepsuen poyprys v 01 yoog usdo uv 941 si ‘uoqp duoned 9y,1,satfojonze paring pur sosne> uappry Jo Aze]ngesoa a4 our parypsuen 2q aysrur wordusés ays Soxpour ows afensuLy uBi2104 e sory] -sues) U0 se isn{ “JeuaeUE ,UsidJ0J, oy) MUSUEN O YBnoUD ojdunts sseodde 1 JouuPaL stp Uy “9pma}>4]0s Jo JayseUL v 9140294 02 ‘9499821 Se LOAFOpUD 01 puE wworduus atp jo [etso1eur a4p 01 2antstias 2g 01 spodu ffpsoU 9UG) “swords Jo tuootx9] Jo puny ese quaned ayy wean o1 st uays BuLsaygMs 24p [Jeo voRMNjOs 94, puvissopun pur pur s,ou0 uado o1 <]uo sey au0 “wi29s pjnoa 11 ‘wordurds 24 Jo Wonoq dy 01 298 02 49ps0 UT “wHOrduA4s xp ‘es:n09 Jo ‘st word urs 211 pur uone|suen uaemiaq YoRE|Ps 94 s9pIsHoD or Y>iyss tu04y aanv0dst9d 40 Uo!suoUp 29410 24, |, 9posap ued WORE|SUEN ey “Koenbopeut sit o1 SoytUss aq 0} UDIvOD dus st 194 WEY soHduM UoRIsod stip asne30q ‘1axa Moy ut -pea]stur st SH, “Yana ssopua8ua Kayjopy reyp st 2194 uoNduunsse ay 1 -pood Aoenbapeur sip ayeu ve voNEsuEN Jo Ie nye] souINxo ue sdeysod ‘soyrufts ap or Aoenbopeur uwu> v sr oxoKp J “sipdop su Suquinyd soy [002 40 poypouu Jo pury v sour029q vore|suen pue ‘soyluiIs o1p jo uorsuoUNp aqp st 2494p 8114] “uone|as siyp jo suo|suaUNp J0 sIx>1Uo>IU9L04s%p O48) WA9DsIP 01 ajqissod st a1 aouis worduids ay Sunesuen Jo w]gosd ayp or uonepos ‘ul 2oyrults2tp Jo uonsuny axp anoqe aystsIN0 Yeads on ynoUsIp sty :possados snorssuosun 9y1—01 aienbope ou st saytusis 4p weyM oztfoquuss au ueD mop “worduids 24p axpsuEN Or oY 9q ILM Pras] 40} Uaxp “UORsoNb oy, “swrorduifs aepuane s1oqp pue susajqosd asotp ssosppe o1 J9pso wt dojaaap pjnoas ay anbyuysor ayp sv jpoas se visaisy pur vues jo {soap pv s,pnas Jo siseq aYp SE UON>UNY 02 awOD Jfosi plnoas ayfisur sty, ao Surwe95 51 Jo uoNe|sUEN 10 VoNeIOAdaaIUT a]duNIS eury) woxduds op Sut seqpstp wt poafoaut aso Ypnuu sean 2121p eI 99s ov atu {yypinb pnas.y'sny J 29¢4d sit ut sore soypoue 91049 a se ‘poroudaoaut Aquewuns ‘yfnoyp payer sea wordusss auo se woos sy “sisKjeue Jo 1utod 21p 10U Apps1oad sea Syeads 01 os “uiBH40 sit 1 uDUN a4p Jo tHoNog a4 or umd “use9] 01 vos sea pnaiy se “Ing “eaNe 4194p Jo WONog ap 01 198 o1 VNAVULAO SAINOTOOL +s1Trauma, Repetition, Hermeneutis of Psychoanalysis 155 repressed “content” which is pathogenically active (the symptom shows us this activity) is not consciously accessible for the patient. The patient, thatis, is not able to symbolize the origin of his symptom because it is repressed —it belongs in the register of the real. When an clement of “experience” is not psychically registered or elaborated, itis, properly speaking, not yet symboli- cally mediated—it remains embedded within the real and, thus, wields a traumatic, pathological impact on the subject. This pathological force, of course, is nothing other than the symptom as an expression of the unconscious repressed.* In order to understand the symptom in its relation to the mecha- nism of repression, then, Freud would have to invent the analytic strategy of construction since any analysis, interpretation, or translation of the symptom must necessarily engage a level of meaning that the analysand has not been aware of. Construction: Accessing the Unconscious Repressed There are, Freud tells us, certain scenes from infancy that are not reproduced during analysis as recollections. They are, rather, the products of construc- tion.” Since we have no direct access to the time before the time of the subject—a time that nevertheless marks him in the most profound way— construction is the only technique at our disposal to access our unconscious recollections. Freud would turn to the phenomenon of fantasy in order to approach this possibility. In his 1919 essay, “A Child Is Being Beaten,” Freud offers an analysis of the various stages of development of a common fantasy. The significant thing about this particular essay is the introduction of the strategy of construction for an analysis of the masochistic second phase of the fantasy since the child’s fantasy of itself being beaten by its father is unavail- able to consciousness. Freud is able to discern this second phase of the fantasy 8. According to Joél Dor, “the identity of a symptom is never anything but an artifact to be attributed to the effects of the unconscious. Diagnostic investigation requires us to find our support on this side of the symptom, in the intersubjective space that Freud (1912) described in his famous telephone metaphor as the commu- nication of unconscious to unconscious.” Joél Dor, The Clinical Lacan (New York: Other Press, 1999), p. 14. 9. Sigmund Freud, “From the History of an Infantile Neurosis,” Standard Edition ofthe Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1955) volume 17, pp. 50-52. Hereafier abbreviated as SE.poripour st as SunpSsoag ‘Joos a2e 1eyp weDe"] 02 Huyprod2e ‘SoUDHIXD 4N0 ‘ursquotious asoyp Afastoad sty “Joos wetueae"] amp jo 2aueysur we or Hunued Ase9]2st dy oouistxo [eau © pey s94ou,, aseyd siya eqn sKes pmo uaKia “6S “A “PIAL “TT “ogi —tt “dd *z1 ay ,uowog Surog 5] PHYO V., ‘Pmaza punuuitig 29g , uo Buryooy dyqeqoad wre 1,, 2429p Ajpensn pur aBeas sp wiosy avesedos Sjasnu> se Sapsusyp 205 Apeaidéa swuoned ‘pnoiy 1 Huipsosoy "wosoad sue uospysy> Jo spquna v dqjensn pare (ase puooss 242 ut se) Ssewury axp Fupposd st oun py a4 {ou so4p.ej ayp so¥poU surAED ‘snoPsuOD ospe “sseyd PIN HL EY | WO PIP yp Suneag st zauaey Kp, asezyd 942 6q poruosoados st ses pnoag ‘oseyd tL “PENP ‘ptpour Suteoq anpe we jostsnorasuo3 st yoras “éseauey atp joaseydasiy 24.1 “OL Aoyp ueyp Aepor aotpo aun axe anbruypor snspeur-oypasd Jo sume sep aur a4 weyp a]nsoa s1oqa sv pey aavy sox asuDrUT Jo sreaK oALf-{IUDMT, ‘ponoesd onnauauuz9y MoU sttp 01 [09 © LM apdtrundg 2onsvo}e 248 puotog jo ¢ sadeyp suado pnasy ‘anbruypor onspeur jo wowdo)prap axp Jo uono8s09, stip J0j 1un09De 01 UNITS {yooun ayp 2 ssoURISIs94 Jo UOLEIDId {NDIATOAO POUOISTY Jos0s & UT He -uoo soonponut prasy ‘passoadas snot “sour aqp uo stseyduro ue wiosy Sunyiyg “sauoUDU a:>Kp JO ed Susur o4p sionisuooas exp 9anseid Surpeas e aS eBus 02 aAey [LM pnas.{ ‘]euURIeUL sNODS o> 430 Burssoyy “JeUDIeUE ISO} a4p1 $5909" 01 J9PIO UF VOTIONANSHOD 01 SuM pony —ajdurexo 40) ‘ousuodsa oneuimen v 40 wresp Surqamastp e—von Squuosoados sisiso4 weep AOU aatSMp> UE JoquIdW2 o dwone Ue UT soyrutits op ur wrordurss ai Surssouppe soy anbruysor arenbape wow 2yp se 9890 yp veyp ‘sane Bou aip Surpeas yo sonoesd ese “uonanistos st ‘sny., "W999 2]q}ss0KuHt 40 380] © \ydnonp pue ut posmmonns “Karansatqns 404 stuno> rey ose stat puy “AstaUE] Dap 404 sino rey st aseyd puo22s styp “Aunanesfou sit Jo asnedag_,,,1uN022e qetp uo mersodua sso ou St 11 nq ‘sis4jeue Jo YORINsUOD e sta] ‘sTOIISHOD uru099q ut popaazans 49A9u Set At *POsDqUIDUIDS 49A9U Sta] “POUDISIND [EH E pet z9aou seq a1 eqp asus ueII99 e UL UL Jo Avs KeuH 998 ang “I]t Jo sHowUSLUOL \souu a4 pue 1uersodust sous aqp st aseyd puodas sup, “pnos.] 01 Suypso2y Aseiuey stp Jo aseyd puoods axp jo ‘passoadas snorasuosun axp Jo ,1ua1u0>, aanefou ap jo uonezianisod & se uonsuny or pres aq urD “worduiks 243 dy ‘uonsnnsuos ‘o1uis ouput de oxp oy eposs09 st des sip asnesog “des stp jo jeuaiean aso] a4p 01 230} 2tH0s 2418 02 Jops0 WI 2s pjnom 24 rey LOR -snuisuoo Jo Bavens anéjeue ayp stat pury “éseauy 2snUD 24p1 Jo asuDs EU O1 {ppao urssoappr or 2ary pjnom pros, rey ssusnor2suo> Ut des esspso%s 49430 ut'st asa4p,,,"sized snor>sto> oA J9tPo 24p UDa.9619q YUH [EHS] Kuo aqp se YIWAVUL AO SALDOTOIOL 9stTrauma, Repetition, Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis 157 were at the outset. At first the analyzing physician could do no more than discover the unconscious material that was concealed from the patient, put it together, and, at the right moment, communicate it to him. [This is the early function of the talking cure}. Psycho-analysis was then first and foremost an art of interpreting. Since this did not solve the therapeutic problem, a further aim came in view: to oblige the patient to confirm the analyst's construction from his own memory.” Asa practice of reading the unconscious, construction would jettison Freud beyond the art of interpretation and the efficacy of the talking cure. The analyst's construction, however, insofar as it is remains unconvincing to the analysand (as it typically does), opens the space for a repetitive acting out Freud continues: The patient cannot remember the whole of what is repressed in him, and what he cannot remember may be precisely the essential part of it. Thus he acquires no sense of conviction of the correctness of the construction that has been communicated to him. He is obliged to repeat the repressed material as a contemporary experience instead of, as the physician would prefer to see, remembering it as something belonging to the past.'* ‘The analysand recoils from the presentation of the unconscious material, Freud claims, precisely because it strikes a chord. There is no negation in the unconscious, and any time a patient exclaims “That's not it!” the analyst can be sure that it is it."" The analyst’s construction, Freud tells us, always hits the analysand with an “unwished-for exactitude.”'* Perhaps this is also why the analysand always recoils from the analyst’s constructions. In them, interpre- 12. Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, SE 18, p. 18. 13. Ibid., p. 18. 14. In a footnote added in 1923 to an earlier essay, Freud writes that “There is another very remarkable and entirely trustworthy form of confirmation from the unconscious, which I had not recognized atthe time this was written [1901]: namely, an exclamation on the part of the patient of ‘I didn't think that’. . . . This can be translated point-blank into: “Yes, I was unconscious of that.’” See “Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria,” SE 7, p. 57. See also Freud's essay “Negation,” SE 19, pp. 234-240 and the first two sections of his “Constructions in Analysis,” SE 23, pp. 255-265, for a more detailed discussion of the lack of negation in the unconscious. 15. Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, SE 18, p. 18.sonboe{ 29g “uorezise Jo y20spaq 242 jo assedunt Surtud9s a4p puosog aA0uL or age st oy 2suds sity U] ‘2A1yp yp ano aay E> XserUEy seq SOUL S14 pasoAeA sey OYA aDaIqns ereyp Smum Ursey] sIsKppupoyr%y fo sid22u0y pourunpUny smog 24), wy -kserUeY Jequsurepuny oyp Jo URNS yUOas 10 Sujss9AeN wae sis4peuE Jo snUTUD 9yp swUtE 2y sev sotizeq sty puodag soxour wear] soyzsny ou arenoUad UeD sisAyeur Y>ryAr puosoq spospog v‘parsasa st LIE Jo pury ewoEnse> SuaAoostp Joautod axp on pueséyeue ip sung siskjeue 200 wy Yoromoy ‘sumpe jjpsumy pros “Gnuapr {490 sty go Soeuruuorpur ap 02 dn wry vad a/qns up aaus ase ayp A[tuesssoau 1OU st sip “sIsKjeuR Jo UIOd yeurtUIDa atp se ,toREseD {Jo 3orpaq,, 2 Jo UONOU sry Yaa asseduut TumuD9s e 0 SUMED Pros YAN “ZT “ssid (2661 ‘ssarg Assoatup) paeasepy 2yy Mpuquiey) anbrayo2y pur Cuoayy :stsXppupoyatsg pwun20r] of uo2mpouuy oid) ¥ {BI PNA 2g 11 1020 $0 yan 21 Ny Yona 05 sou soop 11*[e93 3 SHY VOReIDsdsaIUT se IeJOsUL, INO suid YULY 2NUY SY “OT aup st sty, ,x9{dwo> sndipae ayp pue uonense> ut paesngneus sumonns Jenuosso uMO Sut Jo UoNTUBoDa4 5.220Lqns axp Ut soy sisSfeur oautod peurwa91 ap ayp songse pray ‘s]qrunusoUy pue o]qeuUs2 sisApeuy,, papnus Avsso /¢6] Sty Jo voIsn|su09 ayp UJ “Butueour axisnpp sp premor sn Sunuod {Jo ssoz0ud snonpse atp suifoq phos, ,“uoreaase9 Jo 204p9q axp, []e2 01 9109 Joie] [[!a1 9y YAH 01 L49A09s1p joapowu ese aun9 BurypE a1 puosag Tursopy sayruais 2—p puotoq Surueow saeunen pur oatsnya si 01 “wordurds a¢p Jo—urSu10 ayqissodut ay1—aamonais fesskqe 2p 02 puesKjeur sty sasodxa pnasy ‘ASarens susp ySnosy,1, -uonnados jo 2180], {a9s ayn on dn aanzesd ondjeueoypisd suado syperwuass> pray ‘uonsnarsu0s jo uonanpostut axp pray ‘S's ]eueoy>sd owus 2an2ead yesmonas mou Joya e soanposiut uononnsto> jo ABarenis on fjeue axp voy 998.9% 9495] 01 aeMbope ou st saytuats aup yoyan ‘St ey) ‘BuruPaU jo Jaa2] v or—s9y1USIs oxp puosaq Suruvow Jo [2n3] s9poue OF axnuaNe purscjeue axp soyeu UoNNodoa ‘snyf -yeax aup so1eq 4 foou9uadxe (neuen) possiut siy Jo 2sm>nNS ondapeiout auf 02 purssyeur ayp sosodxo quasoid oyp ut ased uono8y0j tp Jo uonnnadas sty, “wuasoud oup ur peusreur possasdas oyp weados ‘peaisur asnur puesdyeue ay.z “22efd assy a4p ut posoastos Aypeorypésd uo0q s9A9u sey AF 20uI (KzourDUE Suom ayy 40) Axou1su aspey v 2q []tav at Soop ay J1—Ksow9U v se A I>eaIgE 30—uanps JIL signop Sura8uy “saop ay st w9A9—a9a1200u1 se AY asny>s {duns youues ay ‘ised ax ut peusre passosdas ayp ind rouued “oxoyas0y1 ‘puessjeur ay,1 ,,"1Woa9 ased awos Sunosdsowut weys uasosd ay ut ourvua2s e Suna. yu pous92u0> ax0u! a1 Kays aouts Auod a4p 10U {JastDAd st 0u Jo 1991409 948 SUONINNSUOD S,phaz{ J9PIy\, “eos TneuNL ap sUy YORE VWAVULL dO SaIDOTOdOL, 8sTrauma, Repetition, Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis 159 impossible origin of the symptom that the analysand comes to: the structure of the subject and the inadequacy of the signifier. With this development of his theory of the talking cure, Freud has thus come to the realization that one can move no further in analysis than this impossible origin.'® This position is radically different from the notion that the talking cure might return one to the source of his troubles. So, while Freud never abandons the talking cure with its emphasis on interpretation, he docs envision its function differently, suggesting that the treatment of the symptom should revolve around the repetition of the subject’s impossible origin. This will be the essential point he makes, at any rate, with the introduction of repetition and the death drive in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Freud would have to make, however, a number of adjustments to his theory of hysteria, in particular, and to his understanding of the notion of the actiology of traumatic experience, in general, before he could come to shift his practice toward a sustained analysis of the level of meaning that is beyond the signifier and the logical limits of speech: this will be nothing other than the traumatic meaning of the death drive. Freud’s Turn According to most accounts, Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle marked a revolution in his thought. In the 1919 text, Freud radically revised his theory with the introduction of the death drive and of his understanding of trauma and dream interpretation." One can read an account of Freud’s turn in Paul Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Pyychoanalysis, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Norton, 1981), p. 273. For an explanation of Lacan's strategy of traversing the fantasy and how it relates to the terminus of analysis, which Lacan calls the “pass,” see Bruce Fink, A Clinical Intro duction 10 Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 212214. 18. Concerning the efficacy of this analytic strategy, Freud writes that “It would be hard to say whether and when we have succeeded in mastering this factor in analytic treatment. We can only console ourselves with the certainty that we have given the person analyzed every possible encouragement to re-examine and alter his attitude to it." Sigmund Freud, “Analysis Terminable and Interminable,” SE 23, pp. 352-253, 19. Inhisintroduction to the Norton reprint edition of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Gregory Zilboorg, for example, comments on the development of Freud's(paansadsoa p]d pur | -u'9t d 61 ag 2ydiourg aunsoeya 242 puotog 295) ‘po sua yey v pur suo ‘sn s|]a1 ure pos se ‘sea PITY 9p UYA C16] UE ‘auin atuos pjoyasnoy pri. 24p Ut parsasqo isiy axp Syqeqoud sean ‘pdiounie 26n802Iq 2yt puodog wt uonnedar soy ajdurexa onewiiquia ap se posvadde ysrya ‘sured JC] jHog 24 YeYA 298 RD UO ‘plo siea{ sugUIENb-ad Pu aAty sea P[EYPUEAT sty ‘apdioutig 2unsoaye 24s puoXogy wi a30U v Ut sn spr JfPsuNy pas se “Uy QZG] UE AED poip 94s 1eip Surmouy pur a1ydog soysinep s,pnozy sea ured jrcy joy 24 Jo Aqeq snowy 2ip Jo s91pow axp aeyp Sumouy ,-ySnosy.f, Surpsoyy pur Tunvadey ur -roquisuay,, Jo 2oueseadde atp Jooumn s,.e94 au0 uryias “C6q Se Ae se DAU IPLDP. 2yp pure uonnodas yo {soar aiou sty Joy syeuareer aves ay Surdojanap Apeosye sean phos wip wTeEP Ue> uO ‘Saaamoy ‘uoRDanp [earydesSoxg Jo pury e ysnosy L “OZ cxx ed “piqh ut ‘2fr7 foug p pnagy ‘hep rang 99g ,em soo Aue Yury on a{qeun jposuiry punoy 94 ‘soreury | “ypeap Jo s9040 axp WHOAyHOD KyjeoneUTEsp ‘SOx, *aju] yo son10y a4p yoryas Ut Yon nsuoD step pardope pry pnasy 22u0,, ‘hep or Supso2oy ‘aynou siy poroedun {]qes0aaus1 pey axup qpeop 21p Jo UoHnposu yp a9uIs 404 s,pnas, oustudopaap 24p wi quiod Suruam e se apdiuiig danse ays puotogy or sywiod ose uormnponnut jeorydestong s,kep s019q “MAXX “d (1961 HOUON, 30K aN) A9y> -eng sure ‘suen doug aensnojg ays puosag ‘pnos4 punudig ur ,vonanponuy,, SCI ‘B300q117, Kao%a15 29g purus sty FuBueyp Jo sem s,pnoiy UE syzeUpUE] aeoaS say atp Jo 2u0, st som sup rey SurureuTeUt ‘axa G16] 24 or de aySnoy aeyp sonpead aanosdsaiu! axp moy aas or st sayres ured ay 1, (T6T) ENON, Surpogy ‘Sunvadoy ‘Buusquowoy,, 10 (6161) dung sensory ays puolog Jotpio Jo 1x91 aup jo safed o4p ur 194 ssatt10s— usm 4p Jo du 40 D418 1291309 dip puy 01200 st ‘soaamoy AuIod 9y,f "830A. s9H]Ze UE POGryRe stuDUID|> [emionas asayp 22s skeanye pinod suo ‘sisf{euvoypssd out aBuey> yesmanns 242 paonpoaiut pnasg wy aydioursg amnsoayy ays puolog yr stax YSnowye Seyp ‘peasut ‘Aes pur Aes pur 3100q117, mojo} 01 a5004> astas9Y10 Pno duo ‘9ssnoo Jo 194] PUY “parundneur ,ySnomyy Surfs pur Sunvsdoy Supaquowoy,, 1p) worduis yp pue eumen jo Surpeas [emsn.ns Jo Pury ay yen Sunary Speasze seas Som sty ur siutod s9yse9 Yon ye pros soy aas sKemye ue> duo ,ysnosy y Surys0M pure ‘Bunvadey ‘Bursaqurowy,, 191 bI6L 2p UE J] pnosy or | nosy wosy yrs sep sare20] Kypeaypods ayFoeys, DNA 22uessmnof jo uamias sHEUINEN ap Kq paziuEsso st ‘ ‘pue Aaqiqissoduy yesmonans & Jo uonsanb atp punose ssowa> Ajjenussse ‘oyfoey -39,, 01 Zuypsoo9e “ysrya “euasdy Jo As004p PuoDds s,pnozz{ jo woUdopasp ayy or siuiod aysseys, I] prose or | pnorg wou yptys ap Surmoyjog “(1 prog) pos Ase oyp yo yanan oxp se (IF pnasgy s|qe> 9y Y>HyA) proze] sore] 2tp sproa aysaeyso, “euasAy Jo Ssoaxp s,pnas{ Jo wuouIdo}DAap 242 Jo Supeas aanoninsut pue npYssur sip uy gata uowoy ays s90¢q 8, 9yB>LyI2\, VOAVULL AO SAIDOTOOL olTrauma, Repetition, Hermeneuties of Psychoanalysis 161 Freud abandoned for the more sophisticated reading practice of construction, was, on some level, always marked by the later practice, although Freud may have been less aware of it in the early years.”" The 1914 text, however, does mark a certain development in Freud's thought where, among other things, his understanding of the function of hypnosis opens onto the possibility of accessing a lost memory as present to the scene of analysis.”? Freud’s realization of this particular point will be monu- mental for psychoanalysis, since it will show him the way to understanding the abyssal logic of the symptom and, ultimately, of the practice of psycho- analysis itself. What Freud will essentially come to recognize is the traumatic dimension of the symptom: that the repression of an eventor memory does not precede its return in the symptom. This, essentially is the logic of repetition and of trauma. This insight will also undoubtedly become the foundation for 4 more sophisticated interpretive practice in relation to the patient's resi tances. And it will not be much longer (1919) until Freud will be able to claim in Beyond the Pleasure Principle that a successful transference will allow the analysand to embrace the validity of construction.”* Insofar as construc- asa strategy for addressing the symptom —makes the lost memory or tion the “portion of forgouen life” present to the scene of analysis, it engages the symptom on the level of reading rather than interpretation. And it isa success- ful transference that allows this act of reading on the analyst's part to take 21. This, however, might also explain Mladen Dolar’s clever variation on Freud's title “Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through as “remembering, repeating, and reconstructing the repressed.” See Mladen Dolar, “Beyond Interpellation,” Qui Parle? vol. 8, no. 1 (1994), p. 85. 22. Sce my comments concerning hypnosis as (failed) strategy for returning one tothe primal source of one’s troubles in the introduction of this collection. 23. According to Freud, “these reproductions [constructions], which emerge with such unwished-for exactitude, always have as their subject some portion of infantile subject life—of the Oedipus complex, that is, and its derivatives; and they are inevitably acted out in the sphere of transference, of the patient's relation to the physician, treatment. He must get him to re-experience some portion of his forgotten life, but must see to it, on the other hand, that the patient retains some degree of aloofness, which will enable him, in spite of everything, to recognize that what appears to be reality isin fact only a reflection of a forgotten past If thiscan be successfully achieved, the patient's sense of conviction is won, together with the therapeutic success that is dependent on it.” See Beyond the Pleasure Principle, SE 18, pp. 18-19. . . The physician cannot as a rule spare his patient this phase of the$20: d'L AS 9803 IN ap yo Aojonay aip wt Aaxpenxag kq paxeiq weg aypuo smarty AWX,, 29g, AUAMDE [ENXDS umo s ,o0lqns ayp Jo souowur yo Surpusy ae sidurone se uononpas yo sotseaueyd Jo Joquinu & ureydxo 01 pauzes] avy | Uap aaUIG “s1uDA9 [ead Jo ssoe PuE PooYP|Y? 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According to this early theory, the analyst could rectly address the hysteric’s symptom: hesimply had to return the hysteric to the traumatic sight of her attack and show her that all her troubles emanated from this unfortunate incident. Psychoanalysis was then primarily an inter- pretive technique that allowed analysands to understand their problems in terms of their origins This theory began to seem somewhat improbable, however, especially as it held to the extremely limited claim that only the rape of an innocent child by a sexually predatorial adult could be the cause of the neuroses. If sexuality is so foreign tothe child, then why or how isa seduction experienced as traumatic? There must already be something inherently sexual about the child, Freud surmised, in order for the affect that is associated with the first stage of a hysterical trauma to take hold.* This is the point Freud will come to in his essay “Infantile Sexuality.” Here Freud writes that “seduction is not required in order to arouse a child's sexual life; that can also come about spontaneously from internal causes.””” In this essay, Freud was also beginning to develop his theory of the Oedipus complex and the notion of the infant as polymorphously perverse. Freud’s adaptation of this excessively sexualized prehistoric period of the subject’s adult sexual life put an end to the preponderance of the theory of “innocent victim” hysterics. And along with the hysteric’s status, the possibility of an external and readily locatable cause for the hysterical symp- tom would also haye to be abandoned. With the possibility of an internal aetiology for hysteria, Freud began the first turn toward an analysis of the symptom that is grounded in the abyssal structure of the subject. Interpreta- tion would no longer stand as the cornerstone of analytic practice. From Infantile Sexuality to the Death Drive Through the demise of the seduction theory and, with it, the possibility of an exclusively external cause for hysteria and the traumatic neuroses, a new 26, See Breuer and Freud's Studies on Hysteria, SE 2, for an extended explanation of the splitting of affect and meaning that inaugurates the sexual trauma that will be so important for the analysis of hysteria. In this carly theory, Freud essentially argues that a sexual experience without sexual meaning or understanding leads to a regis- tering of affect without meaning. Itis precisely this unanchored affect that returns in the form of the hysterical symptom. 27. Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, SE pp. 190-191.s pnozg joaunosse npaysisut Speisodso ue s0,f -asiBojosnou po|tey e sv sisjouvoy>dsd ut soaze sty ueiiog snyp of (FutuLEN sty Jo pppy axp) s1HFojounou vse josuny Yst|quIs ‘01 ajqu 4949 sess pas ‘(o1n|tey {494 stIp Jo Ino AAU pjnom pnasy Youyss 2on2eId e—sisSyeuvoypisd yo 2an2ead sou 9yp 40y sos peurws 2xp suL029q 1030) pjnoat «ype -uaprout exp pur Cunnuds eoiojosnou 0 dn puvas ou pynoas aeyp s9se9 a4p) s9940 s,uoroisdyd sty yo Suruutsog ayp 18 ws 2y sose9 feurdizeur Syauronx9.qp YatAy “paysesop sv unifog s99109 2s0yas UPUE E yMoqe dyEUI O2 UNEP aHUENS v st ‘SUII9S I SHLL “OE (4861 xnon pur ‘sneng ‘sess :3304 M9) Kooy. uotampag ays fo wowsauddng 5 pnaug :ysne], wo rpnvsy m1 “wosseyy Ka1yp>{ 998 “62 (6861 ‘S524q AUss9MtUD PUD ‘AN “PKUAY UIAspPPed PHEPR pur 200Y YUpH “po ‘asKyounoyaKey pun wsturuay Ur ,dUD95] 94p pue “WIsIURLED, ‘sskjeuE -oypésq gtu044 aU10) ArasIPY 24p S9OC] 2194 AA,, “9804 DUT[IIMboP{ Ospe 996 “fh—Zh -dd (796 | ‘xnosiE pur ‘sneng ‘esse 3204 MON) “spo ‘Prydey WD pue susp Asvyy “opstsy tiny ysio suounsi2au0y :pnaig fo synods yrrry “YpIry WDUHNA, “87 og 39489 SIY [Resap pynlom ar s094 405 31 pouopuege uatp pur wows[9 2arso(dxs Ayjeontpod & passsooun pnos.y ‘swTe]> vosseyy ‘Asoatp uononpes axp yaLAy “sis4[euLoyDssd Jo poy 241 UL UONeANdos sil axes 01 s9ps0 ur a8po jeonyod snp pouopueqe pnasy ap sonfae vos -svyy Bursayns s,auno1a ayp soy ajqisuodsos ssowepaud penxas 4p yo Asuv0déy aypasodxa or Sea Suo] & oF osye aysiu Asoo" uonanpas aya syysU s.uN>19 ae uo snooj sit yyy ‘edoang Asmuad-syp Jo-usni ur dn sump ayeys 0 jenUD0d [e91 pey wmnota ax Jo smeis ayp oy UONUANe sup ‘Apuasedde ‘pur ‘wna aq] Uo pasn2oj 1] ‘poBzeyp Aqyeonjod sea sis4yeueoyadsd s,pnoay ‘Koay von -onpas aya yp setp sane uossepy "pos joqwounsiput jesnyjod v siduusr -ae ‘Kuoay., uousmpag ays fo uorssauddng § pnauy :yin4], wo ypnossy 244, Yooq sty ut pourpano ‘pnoa.g jo onbnuza dieys sty pur doxomoy ‘ysioy ueyp soyzey iq © S908 uossey “Azoayp uoNonpes ayp Jo Suipueuusip s.pnosy yp ansst Soyer ospe uossepy KaxyJa{“uontsod s,ypray Jyo Furpso,y “sososnau 942 104 21415 -uodsox age srueurunaaiop a1yossd weep Joye [e1208 1eUp s9Aot|aq ‘spyoM J9y1 UL “Ypioy ‘asne> [eusDIx9 21 puL UoNINpas Jo aprs ayp uo AjpzeNbs jjasuaTY sooryd ypioy “unep siya yiiAy ,_. 249m a|doad a1 9x94 ano no Waa | ‘apIsUE woy, sows {osiu 2Yy.L, pres y>Iya Los~P wUNSUL-tpeep siy_ padojrap pnazy 2], 1eYp parsvog YD! OY T2ISIY MY YAW UoREssoAUOD ZG] v UT SS -osnou ay Jo anewnes Jo Suipurisiopun poouenu a10ur © pur euarssy jo Azoay mou ve qnog padojoaap ay se pas 40] Uonsonb penuDss9 ap 9q Pjnom IY], gwOIy aulod {sast a4p sop a:94a :siskpeuLOYyD%sd soy asIue or sem OnEUID|Goad VNAVUL JO SAIDOTOIOL, +91Trauma, Repetition, Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis 165, Where, then, does the misery come from? Although these words are uttered by Reich in the 1950s, they willalso form the kernel of Freud’sconcern ashe abandons the seduction theory for the psychically more nuanced and less socially determined theory of fantasy and the part played by infantile sexuality in the subject. Despite Masson’s claims to the contrary, Freud’s interest in the role that psychic processes play in the development of the neuroses is driven by his concern for his patients, especially as he comes to the problem of the traumatic neuroses. This question concerning the source of misery certainly parallels our concern with the aetiology of trauma: where does trauma come from? Is trauma the effect of an external event, some unknowable and, therefore, “unrepresentable” experience, or does it come from within (which, incidentally, would not make it any less unrepresentable)? How is it that we are able to undergo the experience of trauma at all? As he moves toward the Oedipus complex—that universal family tri- angle—and the part played by the subject's prehistory in the development of the neuroses (and, thus, the development of the subject), Freud will embrace the very radical idea that it is the internal structure of the subject that is inherently traumatic. This structure is necessary to the experience of trauma. Without it, it seems unlikely that external events would strike us as waumatic atall. Traumatic events do not strike usas “impossible” or “ beyond represen- tation” because of anything inherently transcendental about these events themselves. A traumatic event that persists beyond representation will only emerge as such because of our relation to the signifier, to the way the signifier inadequately covers the cut it makes on the body of the subject. External events, therefore, are what one might call necessarily contingent to the experience of trauma. Some sort of event is surely necessary to provoke a traumatic neurosis, but what this event, in particular, turns out to be is entirely contingent. The external event emerges as an experience of extrem- ity—as traumatic —because of an internal structure; the external event is merely (necessarily) contingent. Freud makes his first step toward an under- standing of the significance of internal and external causes as he embraces the cornerstone of his theory of sexuality and of the subject: the Oedipus complex. With this move, he allows a place for the unconscious in the theory of trauma. The full force of this realization will not take hold, however, until he revises carly career status as “a neurologist without a job,” see chapter | of Paul Verhaeghe, Does the Woman Exist?: From Freud's Hysteric to Lacan's Feminine, trans. Mare du Ry (New York: Other Press, 1999).-nisqns snewiordurés yo pury ayp Afpstooud st sty, “2210s oures xp on Burzoous 242 Jo -asnte> aif age 01 Kea ou st auatp “SuryuUp aA1ss99x9 01 parngenne aq wysHU YBNOD2AY 4p 3A Pains sea | UeYp Surzs0us 24 poydde s9400s ow | soy *SBuIpYon pue ‘sostou Jo 240s ayp sasmnbas ouresy uewmy a4p Ut Jops0 jo adiourad ayp soyaya sopuom | SSurzaous oyp poydde | jun ‘ossmoy Sou ‘fskvs soueydorstay] au08 st ysnooo1y 2p, ayo tp aoeydstp 40 aan on susd9s worduxds auo ayp ‘soaiasqo soueydostay ‘SW ‘Burzaous jo ay v stuordurds yso4y v soutoos9,0 94 [AUN 10u YBnoIp “uEBaq 01 {peas st soueydoisiny ‘iosomoy “ued siy soystuy snypeurtxdssy 2000) “Bump & Yons a39%8 auayp sana gt wrondunds jeouaisdy oissepp v st stip :soueaytuTs s1ypksd sit Jo 1utod 9x1 sassttt 9y ‘pouunstio> joyooye jo rumour axp 01 Speutoue atseS siyp aquose o2 sidurone soeszeu ay aya “yeads on Aupiqe sty Buuapury sem wey YEnovo1y payjonuosun tue oF onp snypeunxdrg oy wim sty 241% 02 pauyput sem saueydorsiy “s|pe99s 940 ‘uenssoduukg 24 U] ia\pour Jo a>e]d axp ur spuras sKeasye wordurks avo :suuordurhs Jo aumieu aip poorssopun oyar anFoyeip sore] Ut s9[>A04 240 4p sem soueydorstay ED auaplooe ou aq eur “(s.of2g passndstp aq [[Ea Y>Iyas) 2a4p Yrap a4p Jo Aso>qp. Sty 403 pur Aupenxas apuezut Jo Ksooqp1 4p 10) Pog 440M spar UF axey o1 9LHOD PIO Burg ueuny suornasd oxp jo pseu ssoueydorsiay wyp aoefd ayp UO “TE -eydura oup ‘os0josoy,1,,"o8ne> feusaIXo Cue Jo IUapuadeput ‘uryEA twos} pare -s0ua8 aq pjno> sworduuds rey) Aaypiqyssod ayp a2ey 02 pey prose ‘aano Suryper 2qp pur voneiasdsowt ySnosyp porsypes som yeyp swrorduuds Jo a>eId ay Ut asore shee swiordurds mau 20u1g “aALUp Weap ax PU xa[dut0D sndipro) 24p Jo sapmussiors jeusoiut ap 02 Kean anv aosnos jeusarxo uv jo Aaypiqera a4p se x9[dusoo ax0ur yonuu se aDalqns ayp aves pnos.y “sassoo0xd aures asaxp1 UO 1229 Aue Sunyew jjsiriou ang s2os0y peusarxa £q uodn parse auate aaissed Appioyd -wo9 & aq aba{qns ay IeYp spuEMIap KypenUDSs> UNLE|D sip ay{eUI OV UO spuEAS 294 punos K499 ayp se saayy42eq 104 Zunysy yLiom pur snayredurds se avolqns yp 99s 01 autsap Buruuo9s s,uossepy ‘9suds siyp UL “sass220ad a1ypXsd UO SIDOY> banip sey apisino a1 “uonsod s,uosseyy 01 Sutpsoo98 “yoypye sasoanau ay 40 vumnen jo ksd 5 09/gns auf Jo suisiueysou! 24,1, ‘ppoa apisino 24) wos UoRIsodurt ue se As9stUE soos uosseyy ‘(s9yrulis aup sxaygns rDa/qns aya) ava{qns ayp 02 sodoud se Asastut Suraara ueyp s9(pey “poxyoaord Aypeusona sfaatsnpoxa st 9ouauadxa neue aeyp surequreun Ajenuasso uosseyy “uonanpos Surw29U0> uonsod sty PLA -souauadxo sneumen Jo asned jeusoiur jesskqe ayp ‘oatap yaeap seMNEN sup st siy.T, “2DUHadKe DheuMeN Foy LURUIAIEP [eWIDIUE UE Jo Ksoaxp ay 2>eIqUID AIRY Or IgE 2q [11 pas “SiudUUT|YINY YsiM se UORDUNy r0U Op rep suIaIp Jo As0Ba1e> sau e 10j Surmoypy “apdioung ainsoayg 941 puodog ut susvosp Jo k4oaxp sty VWAVUL AO SAIDOTOdO.L 991Trauma, Repetition, Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis 167 sis on the origin of the hysterical symptom would necessarily shift from conside! rernal source. This shift would initially be reflected in Freud’ turn toward the significance of infantile sexuality, the theory he specifically works out in Three Essays om the Theory of Sexuality. ‘An unconscious and internal source of excitation, infantile sexuality would emerge as much more traumatic for the subject than any external event since itevokes something of the subject as the root of its problems. Pointing the way toward an analysis of an “earlier state of things,” Preud’s theory of infantile sexuality would pave the way to his later, more ambitious theory of the death drive. In “Sexual Aberrations,” the first essay in Three Essays om the Theory of Sexuality, Freud suggests that deviations in respect of the sexual object have everything to do with the sexual prehistory of the subject, the polymorphously perverse child. Because infantile sexuality is not directed toward any particu- lar object, it is possible that any sort of object other than the customary one might become the chosen object. Introducing the notion of a sexual instinct as biological need, Freud begins this essay withan invocation of Aristophanes's myth of the original united human being, the tale Aristophanes tells when it becomes his turn to speak of love in Plato's Symposizem: “The popular view of the sexual instinct is beautifully reflected in the poetic fable which tells how the original human beings were cut up into two halves—man and woman— and how these are always striving to unite again in love.” Freud will take this same tale up again at the end of chapter 6 of Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Commenting on the fact that science has so little to teach us about sexuality, tion of an external to the exploration of a Bie ee ee ee eee tution that Freud was faced with in his practice. (See Plato's Symposium, in Lys Phaedrus, and Symposium: Platoon Homosexuality, trans. Benjamin Jowett [New York: Prometheus Books, 1991], p. 120.) 32. Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, SE 7, p. 136. Aris- tophanes’s tale begins as follows: “the original human nature was not like the present, but different. In the first place, the sexes were originally three in number, not ewo as they are now; there was man, woman, and the union of the two having a name corresponding to this double nature; this once had a real existence, but is now lost.” ‘One can quite easily see that the earlier state of things Freud invokes is represented in thislitte tale: the original human nature isa primal myth, Aristophanes's myth is also instructive for our understanding of the prehistory of the subject—the symbiotic relation with the maternal—as lost. (See Plato's Symposium, in Lysis, Phacdrus, and Symposium: Plato on Homosexuality, trans. Benjamin Jowett [New York: Prometheus Books, 1991], p. 120.)-sishyounoypsg pun ‘ssoyrksg ‘ounoay,:22uvssinof Sursaqunasiy yoo Surus0s4110} kur yo Z soxdeyp 29s ‘oBengue] Jo auaape ayp se szayjns aoolqns aryp ssoy 2]qissoduut ayp Jo our syruTis axp jo wotudoJanap soyaNY JO “CE ‘96d “PIT “+E Dudteg 2unsraje 34% puokagy ‘pros puntusis. “¢¢ us dsl as 24 YM Jo TUDIUOD eIsads ayp Surus29UO9 Uayer pey ay LOLsod ayp Sasz9s93 Apuqnd pnasg —apdiounag aunseayg 241 puokag jo voneatiqnd 2\p Supnposut “6261 Yoquioidag ur onSepy 94,1, We ssax8u09 [eonspeuy-oy>isq [euoHeUDU] 24 910 )9q posaatpp ssosppe ue— sumac] Jo soy, aI 01 siuata2yddng,, uy “vonrardaaiu yBnosup ajqissaode si wey wa UOD v Aq pozuasEEYD ose ‘snyp ‘pur siuouyy|yyny Ysia ase sureasp [fe IY sisayp snowy ay2 porssaqns Sqjeotpes reyp sureasp jo 4gofae> mou v aejnsdrous pjnom Kzooyp pasta spnaiy ‘sureosp ur uonsuny su pue uonnedss sgeWNEN Jo {4094p sty so2np -on1UL IY pnoig d9yA ‘sIn0D Jo ‘adioug dnsvajg 248 puokog UL OS|e 11] uonnadoy pur eames, surpptyy wioay sowiog Az9s4py OU, “wioxy sowioD AzastUN yp D49yM SIE PUL “sIsoUdT d[qISsod UT UNO SIT Jo 2180] axp se suayjns 12afqns ayp uorspnduios axp st sty, “sBunp jo avers so1se galqns aya SaAup Yt uv ‘Anpiqissodun soud v qwadai 07 uorsjnduroo & st 4eadas 01 uorsindwo> ay. worduiXs ap jo asne> jeusaiut newNEN ap sv Anpenxas apnuezut jo Koanp sty Yara apos1> [Ing sauios pas wey aydiounge ainsoaye 2y8 puokag UI St ‘SnY.L, ., 9AUP Lop neUINEN oMp Jo wre a staeyp ,sBurcp jo areas soypsea, ayp wrogy appx saza{qns axp 09 Saxpour yp (aL uonejas snowquids yeurad oxp jo ssoy a1qissodunt yp 01 ‘a8enSuey our Anus uodn szayns yolqns 2y2 Nd JneUMEN ap 02 VOIsNI|E Ue UEY 2410 aq aoUKIs -qns 2py aya jo dn Suuzear sup aySrus rey, ,.,.Z8uNSUE penxos axp Yor auunas 01 posoavspus douIS Jona aay Yorya ‘sopnsed yews owt uede uso sem apt] 01 ZunO> si Jo wn dyp rw aouEASqns FuLALT reIp stsayOdy 4p uodn asmuaa pur Soydosopyd-rod ayy Xqsn waar wry ax Mo][0y 2 ICUS, snunuos pnozy ‘9[e1 ap Jo (seuruns oud & I9yY ,,.sTays fo aze9s sayiva up 2401521 01 p2au 9 01 DUNISUE UE Jo UISLI0 Mp, “2di2uLey BuNsDaIe 2yB puolog. ‘ur oun siyp ‘sn s]fo1 pnasgy ,'S90e30 a], “Yala PoUsd2UOD Ose St aatsp Yeap ap uo uoneupou s.pnasy wip somads oxp jo uo aiqissodum ayp jo Sunpouros sn smoys A[panoay9 os a4 2ouls yur ssourydorsury o1 sum ureHe pnosy VIWAVUL AO SAIDOTOdOL 891Trauma, Repetition, Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis 169 had discovered as “punishment dreams,” as he manages to subsume what at first glance appeared to be a new category of dreams under the general category of wish fulfillment.*® The fact that Freud was able to include a category of dream that was characterized by an unpleasant, punishing expe- rience in his theory of wish fulfillment already shows how well this interpre- tive device can appropriate any content, regardless of how paradoxical or contradictory to the theory of wish fulfillment it might, at first glance, appear tobe. While Freud knew that there is nothing overtly fulfilling about being punished, or that most normal (only mildly neurotic) people do not actively wish to be punished, he pushes beyond this commonplace to another consid- eration of fulfillment that might be constituted by a kind of substitute satis- faction. Thus, he only need to remind his audience of the functioning of another agency of the ego (what one can easily recognize as an early articula- tion of the superego) in order to show how any new psychical discovery can be appropriated by his interpretive strategy, reflected in the theory of wish fulfillments. Freud pushes beyond the systematic and seemingly closed theory of wish fulfillment dreams, however, as he introduces a radically new kind of “trau- matic dream.” These traumatic dreams will become the basis for the theory of trauma and its relation to the death drive in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.” Here one sees the traumatic experience determined both by an external cause 36. Because the essay is supposed to appear as an external review of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud refers to his findings through a strange kind of parabastic ‘gesture: “The speaker explained that, alongside the familiar wishful dreams and the anxiety dreams which could easily be included in the theory, there were grounds for recognizing the existence of a third category, to which he gave the name of “punish- ment dreams. If we took into account the justifiable assumption of the existence of a special self-observing and critical agency in the ego (the ego ideal, the censor, con- science), these punishment dreams, t00, should be subsumed under the theory of wish-fulfillment; for they would represent the fulfillment of a wish on the part of this critical agency.” See Sigmund Freud, “Supplements to the Theory of Dreams,” SE 18, p.4 37. In the “Supplements,” Freud writes: “Another class of dreams, however, seemed to the speaker to present a more serious exception to the rule that dreams are wish-fulfillments. ‘These were the so-called ‘traumatic’ dreams. They occur in pa- tients suffering from accidents, but they also occur during psycho-analyses of neurot- ies and bring back to them forgotten traumas of childhood. 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There is something unrepresentable about these dreams. As such, they suggest to us something of the impossible structure of the subject. ‘There is something of the subject, that is, which is not available for interpre- tation and which returns in the material of the dream." It is precisely this return that will become the touchstone for Freud’s new theory of the death drive: the “earlier stateof things” the driveaims toward is no state atall; it does not exist anywhere or any time in the subject's past. Itis, rather, an impossible time. And itis precisely this impossibility that the subject repeats in traumatic experience. ‘Traumatic repetition means that the misery comes from within, and a simple interpretive approach will never bring one to what is essential in traumatic experience. In order to access that lost or forgotten material, Freud would have to turn to the strategy of construction as a means of reading the unconscious repressed. A reading strategy that essentially is able to positivize the negative, construction would become the very approach Freud will utilize in order to articulate the text of Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Thus, it is no surprise that Freud turns again to myth to lead him into a theoretical space that is concerned primarily with articulating an impossibility. As he reaches the limits of scientific inquiry, Freud turns to the literary, to myth, to teach us something about impossible origins: science has so little to tell us about the origin of sexuality [and the death drive] that we can liken the problem toa darkness into which not so much asa ray ofa hypothesis has penetrated. Ina quite different region, itis truc, wedo meet with such a hypothesis; but itis of so fantastic a kind —a myth rather than a scientific explanation —that I should not venture to repro- duce it here, were it not that it fulfills precisely the one condition whose 40. With the discovery of such dreams, Freud once again sin a position to shift his, practical engagement from the art of interpretation to a strategy of construction. One already sees the stirrings of the impossible structure of the subject reflected in the fabric of dreams as early as 1895, however, when, in a note appended to his analysis of the dream of Irma’s injection in The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud discovers the hidden, abyssal truth of dreams: “I had a feeling that the interpretation ofthis part of the dream was not carried far enough to make it possible to follow the whole of its concealed meaning. If I had pursued my comparison between the three women, it would have taken me far afield. There is atleast one spot in every dream at which it is unplumable—a navel, as it were, that is its point of contact with the unknown.” (See Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, SE 4,p. M1, n. 1.)+24 “Pq ‘Ze “26-481 AS ‘diouug eensnayg 241 puokog ‘pros punwutig “Tf pur oanresany aaey ‘sispuom ays 41 st sop{ “sishpeuvoypésd pur osmesox] usoaiiq UoNe}as ay1 UO VOREUpaut DeduIo) v st Kess> Jou s,uEUIPD] spalqns ayn Jo sumonNs oy UF QAUp Tpeap ap Jo UONDUNy a4p PUL passosda1 snorsuooun 9x jo Surpras s,pnaiy sj wuesytuss st rey 2ouazayIp sty Jo quiod ap Ajastoaud sta] ‘ssosppe Aarenbape rouur> s9yrusis ayp WHA se [Jom se oy azenbope rou tog st s9y1UBIs axp ey ‘St Ip 3 [9811 01 aouaZayIp $194 1UTIs aup se sivodde ‘snorssuooun ay []8> p09 9a yor ‘9499s Sty J “BUNS s9"IO Ue. quo suado sKeaye ‘dses8 aansalqns sno spa9ox9 1 se JeJosUt‘sNoIDsuODUN >tp, weap “ype soxge ‘onan Kyures99 aout stay uoNNades Jo JuDWIOAOW aU © pare|Dz Apreurnur Surpras st Mopy Z2>e aarssnosip Aue uF wuos9YyUr AUOype [eoIpes 4p Bursodxa “(sts teuvoysssd Jo aua2s axp ‘2494) 2U998 9G UE Jo Aarpiqissod yp oquo uado Surpeas soop sop] Z2staz9{po pvo.01 ueDULE I ss0p IBY AA ‘voHsoNb aip sudo uewyay vueysoys ,‘uonsong) ay) usd oL,, popAuD Avs 94 UT uoneiaidsaiuy jo aunyreg 1p pur Surpeay ‘uonnodoy sonmnauautsoy jo 2onpead preaiopystens v 40 50 Suruuniag oyp we s9wutEppstp sty s12}j0 pas. Ayas st sty | “astMD4p0 Sutpea. jo 2onseid e ySnostp ‘92uaisix9 pur Surpurassapun jo apts supAur aup saequio qeyp oandvad Suipeos v ySnoy ponsind aq [uo ued “UaIp ‘sno1ssuooUN 4p Jo soot spas. “uaaosd {yjeuidurs 9q ouurd sno1ssuosun ip ‘o9eds aaneou v yp] ‘sno_suosun stp Jo azeds ayp roass91UT 1 safeUEUT 9y MOY SLE OyWY ~ypeordde sry ur ssouszam v tou st siy.J, “>]qissoduu oy noge auDuIDIS & sv tpcui sasn pnaig ‘949p] “Aupiqisuas Aaeaoayy pur wpdus Aq ang eaep peousidw> ue 22u9198 Aq 10 papi ‘oare|noads Ajaund st a4eas stip yo Sunnisod s pnoay, y SBunys fo arvas xoyena uo 2401524 01 po2u DOL ATUNASUL UE JO UBIO atp $99" JO,f “241S9P 94 WUIL|NY VWAVUL dO SAIDOTOIOL ztTrauma, Repetition, Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis 173 psychoanalysis come to be read together and what, exactly, is the significance of this relation? Rather than thinking the relation as one of subject to object, Felman invites us to think the possibility of reading literature and psycho- analysis together, not as different forms of the same thing, but as different from each other, insofar as each compromises what Felman calls “the interi- ority of the other.”"*3 Here Felman calls for a reading of the movement of psychoanalysis as a reading of the unconscious (or limits) of literature, while literature can also be read as the borderline element, the unconscious, of psy- choanalysis. Thus, shecalls fora reading that might address a level of meaning to which the subject is not always immediately attentive. This, of course, is nothing other than a call for a reading of the unconscious repressed,a practice which Freud had devoted the entire field of psychoanalysis to. Asa kind of materialist mystic, suspended between the rigors of empiricism and the wonder of myth, Freud forged a practice of reading the unconscious repressed through the strategy of construction and the movement of repetition. Both Freud and Felman are looking to open the relation between two different types of discourse—science and myth or psychoanalysis and litera- ture—in order to consider the function of the unconscious repressed and, especially, of repetition in the life and language of the subject. To further consider the function of repression and repetition in trauma and for the subject, we can turn to the field of literary theory and to its earliest represen- tative: Soren Kierkegaard. In this turn, we should also remember that Lacan compares Freud to Kierkegaard in The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psy- choanalysis. In the final chapter of the first section, entitled “The Unconscious and Repetition,” Lacan points out that, while Freud had painstakingly come to the solution of the problem of the unconscious repressed —what Lacan here calls the Vorstellungsreprisentanz —through his theory of repetition, Kierkegaard had already covered that ground in his little epistolary book 48. According to Felman, “each is thus a potential threat to the interiority of the other, since each is contained in the other as its otherness-to-itslfitsunconscious. Asthe unconscious traverses consciousness, a theoretical body of thought alwaysis traversed by its own unconscious, its own ‘unthought,’ of which it is not aware, but which it contains in itself as the very conditions of its disruption, as the possibility of its own self-subversion. We would like to suggest that, in the same way that psychoanalysis points to the unconscious of literature, literature, in its turn, is the unconscious of ysis.” See Shoshana Felman, “To Open the Question,” in Literature and Psychoanalysis: A Question of Reading: Otherwise, Shoshana Felman, ed. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), p. 10.Ssynuaios ayp ‘oy onyjai aewixe ue sey sHd0d ap eip Avs 2194 yt am ‘UEDe?] FULMO]|OAT “Of (€g61 ‘S804 Aus =OAtUA UOIRULAY +{N “YoIIUEEA) Tuo} “H CUpA pur “A premopy po pur sues ‘uo naday ‘preeBoys01y uot0g 29g, ABojouypcsg Hunusumiodyy Ut SumyUEA Y,, Ax) sty 40] 2panqns s,preeTaysory jo Surursur sep “dav sgido‘urejdxo djoy aysiu siy. “ch 19-09 ‘dd (1961 ‘wor0 yy 34304 may) wEpLAYs UELY sue ‘Es{prunoy rq fo ud22u0D prguaue “vpn og YL, ‘1X Yyoogy “unr sanbr0| fo rmuuag ay “weary sanb>e{ 225 “pf ‘saypes ‘1 yy ‘passaudos snorssuosun ayp Jo wa 09 ona o4p Jo sydap 193998 941 01 Buiquinyd inoge au st siskjeueoy>isd ui Suypeas Jo re ue Aya Aosto3d st sty, Surueowr pue uoneisudiorur Jo sun] A494 91p sUOHp sty, “powe1 st sno;psuosun atp yo yny oy2—Tea4 dtp Sut] VOReIeAdsoVUT UoYys—BuIpras jo2De uv Uy ‘puesdjeue ay 01 sSumpeas Saskjeue oxp jo yan oyp Sun wsuEN Jo apour Areunsd axp sauros9q a2uaz9ysueN se Ayperodso ‘sisdqeuroy>Asd ut sed aouasaysuen 1eYp 9[04 94) pue UOHLN.ISUOD Jo 2sn §,pno4.{ Jo sn spur! uonnadss yo 1usur9xoU! axp Jono soHsawHa rep Burpeos Jo donead e yong -uonnadas joaustu>aour ay ur poss aq isu Y>ran 2x91 JO pury 2qp sipua8ua sarensuowop preeSoysory weys aod ayp pur s9A298qo aq, taaMiaq HOREpar JPsi-uetp-s10ur-Jp>sut-ul,, 241 “possosdoz snorsuosun oy {pun pur ur wuowoseSus sty pur nosy yin spuras use asni ‘puy ‘vonnades Jo WIO§ a4p st ‘S1 1eyp “UOREAPI SHYLT, “1X01 S,preeBoys9Fy UI Neds jo UONOU aan tp sasseduroouo ‘ane aysiu auo ‘uonejas sty,| sn20d ayp jo ssoupeur 24 oruy sasdeyo> s9ar98q0 ayp jooze Hurdyno0lqo amp se yNUD!s oup Jo.mLUH| aqp Apasiooad st (aBeas peonya ayp syje> paeesioysoryy rey) sosduuys uew Sunok spaeesaxzary wey Aayiqissod ayp vey Aes plnoar am ‘osuas stip uy “2yHUdDS aip 40) Surueaur yo Jaaa] s9youe sasodxa rexp ‘spsom s9yI0 UL OAE0d oy St] ,, 1101 oreumUt {{punoyosd 194 ‘puokag A[peo1per st rey 9yNHU!DS a4 Jo 2p! ay} Uo uoRadss v s19puasus an20d ay, 2ynua!s axp fo aousiaffip ays se os[e ang ‘synuars ay wosy 1UDLaYIp se AJUO OU Jf9su1 BuIDeIA “soFZ9UI9 oNO0d aip Synuaps axp jo ainpiey 20 asdeyjoo axp uy “snd0d ap Jo situ] stp ySnomy 2YAUI!S ay Jo SHUN 941 sosodxo 11 se seyosuL possosdo4 ayp Jo WIMIDI si siensuourap Kpueypyg woruadey spreeSoysary -ased 24p 02 r0U “(sissqeue Jo aua2s ay} 02) 1uasasd ayp 01 BurSuojaq Suryiouos se passosdox snowsuosun ay siopuaSug i Saou ay soqvas9 a1 se quasasd ayp ur ased oxp sorvos9 uonnad>y gp 8A[eueoypéed Jo pjay axp pue pnasy soy uornadas Jo 2oursytutis dup OSTE St SHY, “MoU ay NOge st af -2]qeUA1 BuIyPoUIOS Jo UsMDI 94 INOqL 2ou st uonnadas weep sn smoys preeBoxsary ‘x91 sup UT , woruad2y popnus VIWNAVUL AO SAIDOTOdOL telTrauma, Repetition, Hermeneutic of Psychoanalysis 175 about engaging the extimate limit of the signifier and the abyssal structure of the subject. In the movement of repetition, the hermeneutics of psychoanalysis opens up the possibility for reading something of the unconscious repressed. This is what psychoanalysis teaches us as an open practice of reading rather than a closed system of interpretation. This is precisely why psychoanalysis is neces- sary for an adequate understanding of trauma since the very mode of inter- preting the trauma is disrupted in the movement of its representation. Since the subject repeats rather than reports the traumatic event, translating the experience (in the sense of remembering) itself becomes a kind of exercise in withdrawal, While the traumatic encounter emerges through the withdrawal of the identity, the subject engages in a kind of impossible reading or a failed translation of the event. As the subject attempts, and fails, to understand the truth of his or her traumatic experience, this very failure stands in as the true experience of trauma. Through the failure of understanding, the subject succeeds in accessing something of his or her traumatic experience. Some- thing of the repressed returns, aprés coup, to the scene of this failure, and a certain knowledge is forged, It is precisely such knowledge, however, that strikes the subject as traumatic and, therefore, is not directly accessible. The subject must engage again in a kind of impossible reading or failed translation in order toaccess this knowledge. And thisis precisely how the forgotten —or missing —past is played out in the present scene of the analysis. In repetition, then, nothing succeeds like failure. This is the meaning of traumatic repeti- tion and the essential logic of the hermeneutics of psychoanalysis.Part IIT Working-Through2 Inthe Future... : On Trauma and Literature Petar Ramadanovic There is now a substantial body of writings focusing on the intersection between history, traumatic memory, and literature. Yet in few of these works has. basic proposition been interrogated —that there isa narrative of trauma, The question I would like to ask, then, is simple enough: what does it mean to say thata literary work is “on trauma”?! If, for example, there is a traumatic event in Toni Morrison's Beloved, how is it that it is there?? That Beloved represents, or repeats, or transmits, or actualizes a trauma is nota given, buta 1. For their generous help in the realization of this text | would like to thank the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Center for the Humanities, Univer- sity of Virginia, where I spent a year (1996-1997) as a Rockefeller Fellow (“Institute on Violence, Culture, and Survival”), and the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, where I spent a year (1997~1998) asa postdoctoral fellow. Special thanks to Catherine Peebles and Roberta Culbertson for their help in thinking through the problem of the representation of trauma. In memory of the year in which we have enjoyed mutual challenges, dedicate this text to the fellows at Cornell's Society for the Humanities: Teresa Brennan, Jonathan Elmer, Bruce Fink, Maria Antonia Garcés, Max Hernandez, Mary Jacobus, Biddy Martin, Tim Murray, Herman Rapaport, Mark Seltzer, Suzanne Stewart, and Lynd- sey Stonebridge; the Society's director, Dominick LaCapra; and the Mellon Fellows: Sarah Banks, David Brenner, John Carson, Eleanor Kaufman, and Joseph Reed. 2. Toni Morrison, Beloved (New York: Penguin, 1988); hereafter cited as Beloved. 1792 Inthe Future... : On Trauma and Literature Petar Ramadanovic There is now a substantial body of writings focusing on the intersection between history, traumatic memory, and literature. Yet in few of these works has a basic proposition been interrogated —that there isa narrative of trauma. ‘The question I would like toask, then, is simple enough: what does it mean to say that a literary work is “on trauma”?! If, for example, there is a traumatic event in Toni Morrison's Beloved, how is it that it is there?” That Beloved represents, or repeats, or transmits, or actualizes a trauma is not a given, but a 1. For their generous help in the realization of this text I would like to thank the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Center for the Humanities, Uni sity of Virginia, where I spent.a year (1996-1997) as a Rockefeller Fellow (“Institute on Violence, Culture, and Survival”), and the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, where I spent a year (1997~1998) as a postdoctoral fellow. Special thanks to Catherine Peebles and Roberta Culbertson for their help in thinking through the problem of the representation of trauma. we have enjoyed mutual challenges, I dedicate this text to the fellows at Cornel ‘iety for the Humanities: Teresa Brennan, Jonathan Elmer, Bruce Fink, Maria Antonia Gareés, Max Hernandez, Mary Jacobus, Biddy Martin, Tim Murray, Herman Rapaport, Mark Seltzer, Suzanne Stewart, and Lynd- sey Stonebridge; the Society's director, Dominick LaCapra; and the Mellon Fellow: Sarah Banks, David Brenner, John Carson, Eleanor Kaufman, and Joseph Reed. 2. Toni Morrison, Beloved (New York: Penguin, 1988); hereafter cited as Beloved. 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For Sethe, she is a lost daughter. For Denver,a sister with whom she identifies almost completely. For Paul D, she is both a potential lover and a rival in his attempt to gain Sethe’s affection. For some readers, she is the embodiment or the symbol of African-American suffering. But, whatever she may be in the eyes of people around her, Beloved is also always the tension between the absent and the present, between that which we project onto her and that which she (it) reflects back, between the same and the different, the aliveand the dead, the human and the inhuman. In a word, Beloved is a reminder of a certain past. In terms of this analysis, the ghost can introduce into the house at 124 Bluestone Road only what is and has already been there in some form or another. With Morrison and Freud we have the possibility to see, then, what it is that gets repeated in the return that the spectral appearance both provokes and is a product of, Where does the path back through the ghostly place of “Sweet Home” (the farm where Sethe was a slave) and through the haunting period of slavery lead to? Does the coming and going of Beloved allow for an opening onto a beyond of the compulsion to repeat the traumatic experi- ence—for Sethe, for Denver, for those who come later? And what would it mean to say that Beloved helps its contemporary audience work through the trauma of the past? And, in light of that question, is a truly critical essay on Beloved possible?"” An essay which would, in the terms Freud made available (presuming that Beloved transmits trauma), narrow the neurosis and allow for the remembering or reinvention, as opposed to the repetition, of trauma?"! To ask these questions today is not to devalorize the extant essays on Beloved. The essays are “truly” critical toward Beloved in the sense that they show —in one way or another —what seems to be the crucial point: that the haunting in Beloved bears a structural analogy to a traumatic experience. However, I do find that most of them overidentify the loss; that is, they are too quick to name the ghost, thereby covering over or disavowing its disturbing character. Because of this, they miss the juncture between Beloved’s haunting, Beloved'sliterariness, and historical trauma. We still have to ask, for example, 10, ‘The implications of this last question reach far beyond the ambition of this essay, since what it asks concerns racism in America and Beloved’s place in respect to it. I hope, however, that my analysis of the possibility of detachment from trauma may offer a basis for a detailed pursuit of this problematic. What is the meaning of “true” and “critical” in a context which is racially biased, unjust, or discriminatory? 1, See the second and the third chapters of Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, trans. James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1989). Hereafter cited as BPP.ut aSsauo ue Aanuopt jo pury wy yse uO Ip sousaad parojag Ur S93.s9UN9 yoryas Aanuopt ue st aaatp wey asoHTBns OL, “st aE aIMINsqns jo pur] ey PUL ‘suminsqns ue parojag. wys Buyproap ur nyase> aq 02 sn sofiyqo ose YoRN -nsqns siq,J, ‘20vanadxo aneumedt e soy aamansqns ( puoras ay2 ur sisa88ns FY “4819u9 Sunvoy 4]2243 ‘Fuqumasip ‘punoqun Jo apis ay vo sureuras y>tyar quaro ayp aresodsoout 01 ofa a4 Jo Aujiqeur (jeuoNMAsHOD) & PUR UOREYH -uop! 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Similarly, the notion that Beloved reclaims a memory from oblivion requires us to stop and ask how literature can claim, and who would be claiming in its name. 1am not proposing toembark upon a full-fledged detour into the nature of literature, but rather to take a shortcut, For us here it is not necessary to claborate what literature is, but to raise this question on the occasion of reading Beloved as a narrative of trauma. The very gesture of raising this question should in itself suffice to bind one’s writing on Beloved to a certain responsibility toward the facticity of this work (as a literary work of art). And then, if in reading Beloved one’s task is to attempt to bind the underlying trauma’? that evades naming and appears asan excess of signification; if this is what is at stake in reading a trauma narrative, then this attempt to bind has ethical and aesthetic, not merely psychological, implications. Haunting Beloved opens with an epigraph from Romans 9:25: I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. In Romans, these words are Paul’s citation from the Old Testament Book of Hosea. In Hosea, the same lines are spoken by Hosea who is despairing over the actions of his adulterous wife Gomer whom the husband refuses to abandon, despite her infidelity. Metaphorically, commentaries often empha- size, God in Hosea’s book behaves like a jealous lover toward Israel. That is, he promises loyalty and patronage despite Israel’s betrayal. For Paul, on the other hand, the same words offer guidance (for Christians) on how to pursue righteousness. Not all who follow God’s word, Paul claims, attain the good, especially if they follow the law blindly as Israel does. In the New Testament version of Hosea’s words, the emphasis is on the idea that the now outcast will be gathered to God, whereas those who follow the law to the letter are not guaranteed salvation. The difference between Hosea and Paul, then, consists 12. To, in Freud’s parlance, bind the surplus energy.(6624) .241] papunos punos rey wey waUy [Te AYP PUL Jaq aya UY spun ou 219s a4atp FuruUrBoq atp Ly], *soIuas ys Huruurog otp Jo Tutuutog otp Jo ssyeads uostusopy pazopagy Ul Yay JA2NOH] “pL “¢z'd ponopg “El ‘Spunos oy sem uu posoquiowiasun ay) 02 jppswt saeaipap pasojag “(uensiys-oapn{) Suu 240 4q pojje> aq rouue> 2eIp uoORNpen sip o1 92u9:9}95 Uy , “TuturEU Jo Ie 94 UE Plo atp yo uonvaso sip 21 pu sores4E aIp YpEAY IULUDA0D [PUTO 9xp OF Ajnsar wip spsom— vasoy Jo spsoas ap pasn oy ‘[neg Jo spsom aup Hursn os opr aduranex puy “sureu reyp Aq pajfe> 2q 01 9u0 you st asayp as9y ,9|d0od Aur, o1 asts aati osye uo a se Bur ‘suo ou st az94p 22944 K40asIy v 21891901 9.N0d atp SEY Paad}ag]*24NS 24 OL ewe Sup © weoU aUpEp 41 uaya Wopaayy Joy aavF oyss [JEL] 194 2a uoxp pur Pip 2H PuE“pIP 3H pur ‘pip 9H Puy “pres [sBiing Aqegl] ays “pfnom apy IY 201 poo, , :AuEAIL s888ng Aqeg ut Ajpeisodso pur jasou ayy moysnonp paruoase st “ydessida 2tp uy sanesado ‘pod jo puey Suryey/Surs8 axp jo som ay, (Surureu-jp9s ¥ a49m 1 Jt Uana) SuMpatuos Jo Kpogatuos 1 auIeU v SuLAid Jo sso201d oy ‘Ur quasoyut st uonesou Jo pury ureud9 e reyp :sKes ydessido oy wey st tY.L, -pasojaq 40U DUT 9ypIOU se paxoaul 4juresse29u 2>uD4 a30 2[doad Aur pur parojag “uoyper st ydessida aup yoryas wio4y axa1uo9 oup Jo ‘93ueEY> [NgI]A6 94 40 “fexenog axp 2394 Suipnpur—ekenag jo Aupgyssod ay wosy a}qusedasurr St ypryM Kapiqissod y “Auownsar Jo Aaxpiqssod S390 1p or apnype ‘p20}29 v pue adoad du or pororap ‘spsom asoyp ‘siuaueass|, MN PUE PIO > tog ur se ‘our aures ap ay “o]doad wrouyy Jo wauraarjsus ou paurewureut pur ‘paztuesiso ‘pasoudde yorya uo yp ‘aBeauy] UeAsLaYD wrEUsD9 v sUIETE uIEp eAdey Ur soyeUE— ydendo ue ospe st yorya— Yydessidos paaojag LOSOH] Jo Yoog oup pur suewoy ut aso wosy 1Uos2y1p A[ferHosty puC Ayeontfod SI wip axaiuo9 & Jo ued e Burwos9q uy -aJdoad v Jo aanvuss0} sout0D>q SSuepucosop s1oy2 Joy Aparepaq “PTY AuNsop UousLUOD v poses Aoxp ey 26u2s ayp UF AaIUMUTTHIOD v aIMIISUOD parestpap st Yoog sup WO oF 240 pur vor Saas, ay] “2Idoad uesupy paarsua uorpur Axis ueM sour Jo siaeap ayp o1 ssountas e se poxoaut st a]qrg] ay “ydesSido s,uostIOWY UY ‘ussoyp ‘snyp ‘sue pur Avan (ueR “stay ‘st yeUp) HELD v UE SLY ansind Kaxp asne>9q ,s1H},, 2u40D9q a[doad Jo1payps 40 ‘feaenoq UI UDA? ,s,pOH,, axe Kou asne2aq Uasoy> ae KaXP JPY st uonsanb aya ‘uonens aip Jo aesn seq Jo surs9y Uy “UasoyD “St IeYA ‘StH, sotor0q a{dood v Kear ay pur 20] s,pos Jo sButpurass9pun 1U239}}1p 0M JO 1a st 940 9x04} uy [e>LzOASI v 98I0J 01 40 VAAVULL AO SAIDOTOIOL 981In the Future On Trauma and Literature 187 past of sixty million and more. The dedication here stands asa promise of the present the past and as an invocation of that past in the present. It displaces both (past and present) yet also brings them into a relation—into a ghostly, haunting relation. The purpose of the dedication, then, is almost clear. Atany rate, the need underlying itisapparent: the need for the symbolic burial of the slaves whose lives and deaths, loves and sorrows, birthplaces, names, and graves remain unknown. I say that the dedication’s purpose is almost clear, for it scems to me that the beginning of the novel is necessarily situated at a crossroads between the symbolic and the literal, between memory as repeated experience and memory as imagination, between past and present, a crime and its haunting effect. Neither here nor there. At this historical crossroads, Beloved opens, raising questions about the past, justice, and inheritance, and alsoabout love, community, and the place of literature vis-a-vis a historical event. Raising them, in the sense of raising the curtain of the past and letting its return bear upon the present. Raising, also, in the sense of the raising of the dead whose strange return is prompted by the dedication itself. The danger that ensues when the gates of the past open threatens primarily, Morrison suggests in an interview published in City Limits, the way America is used to remembering.’ One can expect (only) the unpredictable. The novel begins with Beloved’s return wreaking havoc at 124 Bluestone Road. With her arrival, Beloved brings memories that the ex-slaves, now living in Ohio, resist being reminded of. She brings pleasure as well, to Sethe's daughter, Denver, whose sexual awakening takes place in Beloved’s proxim- ity, to Sethe whose terrible memories of Sweet Home nevertheless overflow with beauty. Beloved leaves just before the closing pages of the novel, when Sethe is sick and Denver is forced to leave the house. After Beloved’s depar- ture, this novel which might have been about a crime and its redemption in a communal gathering ends with a scene at least as puzzling as the legacy and the covenant that the epigraph alluded to. Morrison writes: By and by all trace is gone, and what is forgotten is not only the footprints but the water too and what it is down there. The rest is weather. Not the breath of the disremembered and unaccounted for, but wind in the eaves, 15. Toni Morrison, * pp. 10-11, -iving Memory,” City Limits (31 March-7 April, 1988),‘s£0 "4 ‘panned “91 au pur ‘pus axp st yprys “Turuurfog axp woosiag “assedunt ue ou st paso {Jo pua ayp reyp Ces osje pjnoys 21 “Buspeas puosas v yo Aayjeqyssod axp os pur uormadas jo ozeds ayp suado Surpeas assy ayp weep WarK Dp 01 ‘jJastt ISMEYXD rouues ang josut sivados ysous axp Jo Sumtuo assy yp eR WER 2 OL, guaypeans aup Jo 20u9s03d ajqumnuopur oyp ur sreaddesip poaojag Jo azesi ype ‘24a 4 se suonnedos oxi uaamig ‘a[iyaueat ayp Ur “uoyat pue assy 2tp jo uonnedas v st uonb -asqns atp puoaas axp vaya oxotp st uondo weyyy <228]d UOyer auG) spoaopoq yt —pasopag {ArunWUOD y>ry— Arun “wos :yse 02 Sutavy osfe Moya ay Jo LrousSUT ~P YALA soay| KaruMUTTO a1p ey 10 ‘umouy aueU s9y ‘pa:oquiouas st pasojrg TU Avs uLD uO OU ‘kppios9u0g “Sututsoq s11 105 a9eds axp Suuredaad £q pus urese pur “uono#0} uuaaq, sey porojag asnesaq “uiaq urese pinoy wey SurusnoW ar2{dwwoour ue Jo sors a1 ‘Asors posoquiouos pur pjor kprasye ays wreBe 490 soovn aurew 194 jo uonneds: ay], ‘wee poBeis pacojag yo BuruusBoq aya Boys dup Jo seauze quanbasqns ay a1e ‘pug s,j9sou ayp ve “uae SUELO IY Ay _cparojag, :9tueu 194 Jo Kuo Zupststio> aouanuas e “Dey UL “St Yoo ai Jo prom ase] at 4 Sunuasosdou Jo 38198 ayp 01 2u109 2ouay pue ‘Bums -s0} pur Surzoquiouiss sir wso}s0d “Tu9A9 auOS-Buoj wv az4penIse 08 st ‘sps0.s% saypo UL S2op paaopag wy sed 42 01 soaLps-No Jo AULUMUTLHOD stp |]E994 01 st op wea aoueavadde sat 40 s9y weyy ‘sed 9qp qesodax at UeD Suryp ures aif 0 sunowre Y>ryas Sou ‘pauaurdey seas yoryas weyp soyped 40 ayesodno94 ay ue> 20U ‘paseidsip sem yaya rey Apradosd aovd rouueD wsM24 5, prop Jogf -astauatpio U99q 2AeY IU Pod w eI ‘FaAsmoy ‘swD9s ay ‘sdoas Ajuap -pns ydesfido op pian uedoq erp Surusnow ayp jt se ased passquiouos-un ayp jo Gaxoosip ayp wosy Aewe Kys q[e Jt se SOY © sea duay WEP >BUO] Aue jngpurur st auo ou jr sy Is0Y e Jo feAtse Joyour soy a¥eas ay S198 194, Jo Sumna¥s0y axp pur ssvoddesip 2981 s,panojag “sunsoad Kew am “pu 2\p IV of PPAOP> “8p 40} Jour ou ApuIEUID sayREIM IsN{ “APPIN oor Turweyp 991 Sursds 10 VWAVUL dO SAIDOTOIOL 881Inthe Future... :On Trauma and Literature 189 end, which is the beginning, we learn of Sethe, Baby Suggs, Denver, Paul D, and others living in 1873 on the outskirts of Cincinnati. They do not come back. Whatever the structure of the narrative that the strange ghost shapes and reshapes, Beloved also attaches a sense of finitude and of the impossibility of the repetition of human life. This is to suggest that there are two stories in Beloved, one of return and one of the impossibility of return, one of a crime committed in the past and one of human mortality and the forgetfulness into which human lives sink. One of the “disremembered and unaccounted for” and one of the limits of memory: “just weather.” Not separate stories, but two stories that cannot be played out separately. Each needs and implies the other. Ifone of the stories tends, through compulsion repetition, to suspend time, withdraw from the world, and regress to the immemorial, the other one is about the impossibility of escaping the discontinuities and breaks of world! ness, Judith Butler's understanding of what repetition performs is quite helpful here. “Perhaps,” Butler suggests in a text on Freud’s BPP. repetitions “serve in part to bind the past and future together, to provide ritualized and sensuous occasions for the invocation of the past and the convocation of the present. Indeed, what other route than repetition instates the pleasure of temporal continuity between the irrecoverable past and the unknowable fu- meant It is the devastated past, the impossibility of its repetition, the fragmenta- tion of identity, the silence and forgetting that make possible the invocation of the ghost and the resulting “pleasure of temporal continuity.” Heence, if the return of the ghost—the ritual, the novel —brings pleasure, it does so in the face of the past that cannot be brought back, and faced with a future that cannotbe predicted. Which is also to say that haunting, not continuity as such, is a link through which a lineage and tradition are established. A haunting tradition speaking in the voice of the dead. Along with the story of inevitable death, then, there is also, in the proso- popocia, the story of endurance and continuation through haunting. Jt comes from the past asa ghost and will return (in the future) as a ghost. Which is also to say that when repetition, as Butler says, instates the pleasure of temporal continuity, other repetitions and repetitions of repetitions, ghosts and ghosts of ghosts, are unleashed. The conjuring of the ghost in Beloved, then, is both 17. Judith Butler, “The Pleasure of Repetition,” in Pleasure Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Robert A. Glick and Stanley Bone, eds. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 259-276. (Butler's emphasis)“9g -d poaoprd “17 og “4 paacpg “0Z GLt—¥7 Ad) ,panoppg,, savas Kydus ypanoy a4p pur , “uo ssed 01 Kaors © 20U SE STYL, -spros uonnadas paryaat 1 ,,uossed or Lxo3s e oust a], :paaojag Jo sodeyp ase] aep UL aouatuas paieados satu soy s,uostusopY 01 st 2294 uOISN TE AyL “OE “dl POPE “OT “aoupafion ispxo s9qe ay ‘yng uins ayp 420 19409 40 aimansqns 204 Soop umn axp jo a>u yd axp UE BUYPLEN nou a4 J, 298]d atures atp UE paroa19 940 Mau aYp UI poszosoid UDs23d AoyDHIOS 23 sBurpping sorpseo oyp yp asu9s aup ut ,CsouounD, Jo wondinsap s,21R95 ya KPpsoP auinb soreuosos ajdurexo wo y snowy 94,1 “61 (661 “YOUON OK MAN) AOYPENS sour ‘suen ‘Syuaquoos¢] sy pun uowrztiar5 ‘phat punuisig sus) jeuoId,, ur uoR -equasosdoa ¢ japoutr ayp sje> pur ,strsai jeneds ur 2ouanbos jeotsoasty,, vse sossaooud purus siusssadox pnasy ‘seuauooacy 514 pun wowstiary yo Suruurdoq 2p WV “SL dtp stoups ‘nog sureswe at se sejosut yeaa st Czowrou Jo 20¢]d ay puy “(wseueyd) sous sit pur Asowrow yp st req) ok st 11 “Udy “asus WHOS Uy “spas AzoWUI siyp wioys ‘00 or susddey 1 pur ,.,“2s]2 Apoqoutos o1 sBuopaq rep Azourouu9s v our dung nok uayar, ‘spiom s,2y9g sosJ0q 01 ‘22eId soxer UoRNEd>y ‘awwo3aq (s04u9q]) nox rey uoNnadas stip Ysnomp stay pu "ureTe,, st 29y2 —ouin jo oSessed sip painpua axey [Itai y>ryan (UOHNSap Jo) Arorsty 9xp 40 suseiueyd atp ‘ormard ay “nos soy sean Ry ey, urERE,, siya st 2394p 08 nok woypa voddey [p10 14 A\ 4... OK 40] Bun Tess ‘nos soy 2294p 9q [A8.AE ULE uaddey gus 2 ‘seav at aayae ooejd axp UE pris pue x94 O8 no J1—239\p sem soaou oyar nok—asoxp of nos jt ‘uur szeyar pue 249Np Ips st osmID1d aU, “Soup at Jo apeyq sseai pur az Kaaao—uusey aJoyas op jt uaa “Aeane Suro8 s9sou say feos st 9ae|d yp ‘Soy aurED ] 240}>q Sea | 494A, 1°AU2CT sy]21 aup2g ,,"2tuN wes ayp we wo Sutssed you pur uo Surssed uisrrueyd & st ey ‘se , peoy ktu apisino sasKp no punose Sunvoy * * * Kemer Su1o# s900u,, se aovjd jeas oup sureureur Aqessazou uy paagjag ‘ames SV y, 22614 assy aup ut ajqissod st WO 199mg INOgE J2AoU B rey UO passed Bu19q s,Czo18 ayp 01 ‘st e4p ‘s9ppeIsqo auf ‘sane[s Jo Saat] JoLZoIU! pue ssouauadxa 211 But -jon.nsuon9s 01 sa}>eisgo ax Jo asned9q SHU PUY “1De} ese —[aAou ap UE PayTe> strse ,‘20ejd (eas, ay —auaao wed e [e994 01 [rey A|poreadas s9aamoy ‘ss9H sey) “Ij NOK 41 unsea|dun sounseazg ‘sansvojd pis Joyp8o oanseojdun Sunvasur pue ased op Suneados ospe sXempe anowpuN wonejay snonunuo> & out asmany axp pur sed ayp Suusq pur ased se ased ay e994 10u sop p220)251 “soy yizo7 vowunuruo> & ang “uorsty 1yZinNO JOU ‘sisoYs Jo xUNUE -woo wx, ‘suonnedas sa4p10 2010 ypIy ased tp Jo (no Sunde) onneda esv pom se ased up jo Buroquiauros ayp soy Aayjqissod ayp Jo voRspuoD 4 VWAVYL AO SAINOTOOL 061In the Future... : On Trauma and Literature 191 witness to its endurance, Without you, this memory would not be, nor would there be a real place. But neither would you be if the place, the memory, were not there waiting. The question is open as to how, and as whom, you will emerge from “there.” For how does one distinguish between the repetition which instates temporal continuity (Denver's conscious acceptance of a heri- tage) and that which instates temporal discontinuity (Denver's unconscious acting out)? And so there is no sure way to disengage the you from the haunting, or, for that matter, the haunting from the conjuring of the ghost. What does seem certain, by the end of Beloved, is that there would not be literature if it were not for this confusion as to what the repetition of a traumaticevent repeats, what identification identifies, and how this story and experience pass on or are passed on. ‘Thus far, | hope we have seen how Beloved duplicates, repeats on the level of its structure, both the haunting effect of the ghost’s appearance and the revenant’s trajectory. Beloved’s trauma and legacy are, if they are anywhere, in the very fact and effect of repetition—in the real place that endures as a picture—namely, in literature. And this is precisely what Beloved is, this trace of the past which passes and does not pass. Can the historical specificity or context of this narrative be located anywhere else or be anything else but the real which comes back and is there, in its return, for the first time? I will return to this question. With the suggestion that a literary representation of an event does not stop with one repetition but calls for other repetitions, including unpleasurable ones, we have reached the convergence point of haunting in literature and of trauma asa historical experience. There is a convergence between the struc- tures and the problematics of literature and trauma in the sense that both are 22. Ina recent essay, Walter Benn Michaels criticizes the tendency in contempo- rary discourses on traumatic experience to idealize “cultural identities” and the past. A continuation of such an analysis would, however, have to take into account that, for example, in Beloved, ghostliness of identity points to an underlying, irreconcilable duality; the fact that slavery is, at least partially, a documented historical event which its memory does not necessarily either counter or deny; and that there are various kinds of memory (affective, cognitive, imaginative). What is at stake in “trauma narratives” is not so much an attitude toward history, as Bean Michaels seems to assume, but the nature of certain experiences which I call traumatic only because of the lack ofa more precise term. Walter Benn Michaels, ““You who never was there’: Slavery and the New Historicism, Deconstruction and the Holocaust,” Narrative vol. 4,no. 1, (January 1996), pp. 1-16.‘old aad “7 ‘uonaa|]o291 Jo ssanoad Huryuryp, 1 se sovsousout jo [eaousiDs a1eUBsop ‘puey sap ayp VO ‘susyIMPID puE weyUeP2D -pxout pp yo wi0y uieyi99 vsi“yons se ‘pur vorno{onut ue 40 uonezzyeusoruy ue Spur, Bumouuncy unow ap pue wou “udyuopad 201 pue wauuus s| {routou 30 ss9201d sup pnosg 20 reyp 2985 xp moge pres 9q 02 Sunpawios st uy “61 “d UA “EZ -avaddvos sat apy ,,‘0-0-0-0, 3nd-uaesp-Buo] ‘pno] eo 1u9A,, soars Koq ay Ip atp. puryg ssvaddesip joods ayp sy “309 atp Jo ano 3>2q 21 s]224 puE OPIS a1 uo Sursuey jaa aya puosog o> poureasns sty out joods & swvostp ISU s 1p 20‘Joods ay. eat sed uospuess Sly aured joc jog 24 :3n0 Bunse Jo swi0} aj.qns 210u 01 soxeuNysTU or suo -vupnyjey wiosj 3urBues wonsvosge ue sv ‘st wp ,‘9ouauedx> Krexodusaito> we sv euarewt passoadas ap [uazoqiopaton] spades o1,—Bunvadoa “pury 49110 ayp uo pue—, sed ayp 01 BuiBuojaq Sunpoutos se ut [wsouunsa] Tussoquawued,, —auoAo ue Jo vorssaa v Jo UoReDID Jo PUT v_9q 01 Sr9pIsuOD ay Y>xtH “But -soqurauios wo2anioq oRDUNSIp e smeSP PNA ddd] UE “PauonUdU 24,1 SV guonean Ares>1t| oruonypas sit st eyan pur vonnadas uossjnduos st wey ‘st wou wonsonb 24,1, uonnaday -uorssnosip 1asoud 24p 40g aanonsrsut Aypetoadsa st 22U99431P asoys euunen Jo Zunpunp ay Wr sopuapuar own Jo SuIPMO we dais wou TL pue ‘uoysjnduio> uornodos pur uoneiuasosds Aawsowy woaani9q 29092241P d¢p uo sn20y tm J Aesso sup Jo sed 1xou otp ur ‘siuneY pur steadas oaNVeAoI rey surour i aeyas éjasop 220Uu puesssapun orsn Jo§ Jops0 Uy “2809 Y>EO UE PUL sfesape uonnadas jo pury ures 242 9g 200 ews ysNoypye “donn=do3 Jo sus} YWAVULL dO SAIDOTOIOL zolIn the Future... :On Trauma and Literature 193 ance is accompanied by “a joyful ‘da.’””* For Freud, this way of playing with the spool repeats the coming and going of his mother. Ernst is staging the game and in doing so, like the director of a play, is mastering what is most painful—his mother's going away. But the child is also merely repeating, not remembering, her absence, since he is unaware that the cause of his gameis his, mother’s absence. If he were to remember this original point of trauma, we can surmise, Exnst would be most likely pulling the spool behind him as if it were a carriage. Freud notices that the game consists of two moments or movements, thefort and the da, and adds later that the game usually contains only the fore move, implying that the game can be considered “complete” in the fort movement only if this move somehow carries the other move within itself. It is hence a going-coming, end-beginning game regardless of which of its versions is staged.°° For Freud, trauma, child’s play, and transference are all characterized by a compulsion to repeat “which overrides the pleasure principle.”” In the Fort! Dal, the child who compulsively repeats is returned to an earlier stage of development. The hypothesis is that the game allows Freud’s grandson to withhold himself from further advancement and to regress toward the “in- animate state.” What is unpleasurable in the game is, Freud contends, the compulsion to repeat the initial event of injury, the mother's absence. But the 25. BPP, pp. 13-14. 26. For a longer discussion on the athesis of the death principle and the thesis of the pleasure principle, as well as on the status of the opposition more generally in BPP, see Jacques Derrida, “To Speculate—On ‘Freud’ in The Post Card: From Socrates to Freudand Beyond, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1987), pp. 257—410. Derrida shows that what is doubled or divided once is doubled and divided again: that Freud himself plays a kind of Fort! Da! game with the death drive (and pethaps with the death of his daughter); that psychoanalysis as ascience collapses into psychoanalysis as speculation; that this discourse folds back upon itself and haunts its own legacy; that che task of psychoanalysis (the advantage, advancement it offers) consists in thinking this fold, the impossibility of maintaining the binary and of continuing Freud’s legacy without haunting. In the wider context of BPP, the game is ncither that of life (pleasure principle) nor of death (unpleasure principle) but of, as Derrida puts it, “life death.” Life in death, death in life, unpleasure in pleasure, pleasurein unpleasure are waysor formsof haunting which is itself one of the possible names for what Freud is trying to come to grips with in BPP, on both the autobio- ‘graphical and the scientific-theoretical level. 27. BPP, p.24,-peap ay wiosy suzmaa 2u1s2p. jo wolgo amp ponojag uy “ypeap jo Huryunp sso8¥opropy 01 1 sove|>y pur VOIysey UO ‘at ut Ajuo aip ov soysia ust 10 a4p 1eYpL UoIsNIU0D s,pnazy dn so3yea epUsaq] 24249 “(gog—ec¢ dd) , pea yo ssouunog,, kjjerpads9 ‘puny a30q ays, ‘epuaq] sonbre{ 25 “tnwap *Apoureu ‘pazeys ag 1ouue> y>ryas weep 105 ‘sisoHIns epusdc] se sHsp V “OF “id dd “62 “61d geld], wuawHDsaIype JeampNo w943's pry 9Up, st'Sppe Pnaig SHEL “RT Suryea sasusg pur sso] s9A0 Asorseus 40j Sumojye q popu wr :GosnUD sit UE poked uaaq pey sured oxp jt j0c7 j2éo,f 942 Jo Surpeas v ansund you pynom | 21 SuneSou aya UIAD WE YAU sappy ang ‘ajdpuud osnseo[d 2Yp1 apiuiaao 10U sop “28UEs SIP UF ‘AUP Yeap ay] “WY UEP WOU! pur s9p s,pnaxy oxy 20u Stmandap 9q [Joys | ‘SNY_L,“SHAJO pnasy wy sures 2xp Jo sisKjeue ax Jo vontpuod atp se pur ,‘euunes peUrsLs0, 24 Jo worIpua? ayp se OS|E ang ‘uonoysties aanminsqns ssayjo sured a4 YoryAr 20) (uoRsedas yo une eurS1s0 ue) uorrems ureLs99 & Jo z2mpoud oyp se [uo you 2194 pansind aq jf ‘saypo yoeo ut uonnedos soup ‘souasqe pur 2Duasoxd Jo Aejd ay Apases ut puv ouied oxp ut qiog aannesado steep aimansqns tp jo 2180] axp st soypsny owt auinbur js [ey ,,"UOUNposstp psvaor suum wyp s1s9p v “941s9p JO 12"po yp soupres ing “ystat v Jo ast9s a4p UF astsap & LOU st SIYLT‘YoTMARSGNS Jo ssa>03d {soa axp ui soso antsop soypoue se pareo4jduyo. auor9q 394 ur aansvoyd sity pu zotpou aya 405 2s180p s og atp 1e4p 92s 01 sn sMo}pe axD2 $,pna1 “worDaLo3 sup joands Uy ,.,pUIU 942 Ur 1980 pax]z0% pue pax29/JoD94 9q on aLqNs vou! [ajdurexo 103 “Apasien ur] a[qeanseajdun jasit ut st zweyss,, a3feu ue ‘suosear pnory ‘ojdioutad oinsvojd ay somaypsse Jo uwiarsis atuos 4q uaxyeu9pun 2q pynoys, wonanposd oanseayd sit out Gamnbur ue sey sordey> puorss ap Jo pus oy we Surppe‘uonesapisuo> saying wosy potesy sossttusip ose PNT “sume oyp taias sotpo¥o ],“aaup prop a4p jo uonersojueL ese sI9aLo4 PH9sg surg 01 uonaepsnes aanminsqns & sBuug sures jog joy ap asner>q gee WORDEJSHeS [eMIIUASUE, 2aUTOUDS O1 S| TeYA “UN YO aALY sHuIOe pu sSuruoo s,s9qpow sty 9ouanyUt ayp sUHOI39A0 01 SUA SmO|fE ose aU YWAVUL dO SAINOTOdOL 61In the Future... :On Trauma and Literature 195 revenge on his mother “for her going away;"" if, also, Beloved were not a haunting novel. But, to put it simply, of wi! were entirely sublated in gain? In psychic life,or in reading, what would pure gainor pure pleasure be? More seriously, there is something in the dominance of the pleasure principle, in the completion and stasis it brings, that is itself other than mastery and pleasure, for these both come through, and we may add, pay the price of, compulsion repetition. This is then to say that there are at least two things that the Fort! Da! repeats: the mother’s absence and, as that absence is compulsively acted out, repetition itself. Now, because the throwing and reeling in of the spool offers the possibility of a substitutive satisfaction, we can say that this game isa more complex form of symbolic activity than is the compulsion to repeat. The loss of the mother is the beginning phase of the Fort! Da! and is represented in and by the fort move. (This is a phase of interpretation, not of the game itselfand my claim is analytic, not ontological. In the game, all the stages defined here overlap, preventing one from separating representation from repetition com- pulsion.) Once the representation of the loss takes place and the attachment to the mother is mediated by the game, Ernst seems, on the one hand, indifferent to her comings and goings and, on the other, forced to repeat the game. Why is the dominance of the pleasure gained through substitution so unstable as to need to be repeated? Perhaps “unstable” is not the most precise word since what takes place here is nothing inconsistent, but something which speaks to the nature of pleasure. What happens when the loss (of the mother) becomes a symbolic loss is that the game itself is played to lose. This is perhaps what is most difficult to see: that the Fort! Da! game is a losing game. An impossible game that can be played only insofar as it can never be finished. Or, at least, a game in which to play means to recognize that there is a loss. It is played as lost at both ends: in respect to the incomplete symbolization of the injury;and alsoin respectto the outcome of the game, which returns the game to its beginning.” While yielding the pleasure of mastery, substitution also yields the unplea- would one be a master if loss 31. BPP, p. 16. 32. Since I am analyzing representation, it is worth noting that the loss in repre- sentation is what, historically, Plato’s theory of ideas insists upon, referring to an cconomy that is not substantially different from the one discussed here. See, for example, Plato's Phaedrus, trans. R. Hackforth, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, eds. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 475-525.es ouue> 2m ‘pousosuod ase suoneruosoidas snszze se 28y sy uortnedes XP twosy funjnsos 1alqas ayp sjsnoourayrus st ‘owes ayp Jo soupy ‘savados foun notqas ayy exp Hurueayy 2akqns a4p HH s9prouso> 199KGo 24 HP! oY yuoixa atp st 9194 sas0dand sno oj sure ay} anoge aweisodtty Bours! EAN uoneusutsa so utd fe pur dagyqyssod ayuyur we 2ag0 est ey “PPE PIs | ‘gpssine UV -PIng ue *puofog e ‘s9tpo auf uo “pur sures ayp ‘puey uO aep Uo ‘SE OM spoteyd jou survuras 42 asnesaq wep Aes 07 osfe st YAN “Burypey 40 “passttt 380] st ‘Suny yeas ‘aveuntweut tp 40 ‘wonewuasosdos yo 1994q0 WEA [> spoked 2100 yu se “uonoegsies aanimanisgns t st 9494p ‘Ure 2p WEA Surdejd Ayrodosd donou ‘ar Tuyypeas Aijeuyy 4oAou Ing suonnadas ssapuno> siz weas Buy Nen Ip preaon sproyun sured aq, “24am ase ,‘puosoq, ‘sure ap Jo oprsino suas vaeas ayeuirueut ue o1 worssaasas psemor Souspuds stp prose 40} 5! 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Now, we should reformu- late our question “how come literature repeats?” into a more significant one: how sit that literature does anything but repeat? * How is it that Beloved does anything but unleash the ghosts of the unburied past? Perhaps not all novels or games develop through this movement between fort and da, internalization and setting forth, absence and presence, but only those that have something to do with the death drive and trauma. It is, however, hard to imagine a game,an art work, or even a history which would not have at its core the principle of radical dissolution thematized by Freud as the death drive and located by Morrison in the figure of a revenant. What is a game or a novel if not an attempt to systematize, incorporate, remember a ghostly, haunting experi- ence, doing so always incompletely, calling for a continuation? What would the alternative possibility be—a complete novel? What would the last play that ends the game be—a ghost that does not return? Denver When Sethe warns Denver of the past that is waiting for her, she says not only that there is such a troubled past which persists, but also that it is there for Denver, as if Denveris necessary for the horror to be “there.” For Denver, who sees Sweet Home through her mother's eyes, the there where she “can’t never go” is inseparable from the relation she has with her mother. The image that persists and haunts her is, in this sense, linked to the mother Denver is afraid of. So that the source of haunting is the relation. Not just any relation, but one that is not fully established and that cannot be fully severed. It is a mother- 33. Gertrude Stein’s, James Joyce’s, Marcel Duchamp’s, and Andy Warhol's artistic experiments with repetition come tomind. At this point we could make a link with another trend in the interpretation of repetition in the modern age, namely with technological reproduction. Of Walter Benjamin we could ask, does twentieth cen- tury art repeat compulsively or mechanically? What is the difference?, and what is the “aura” that is lostin compulsive repetition? See Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” trans. Harry Zohn, in Iuminations, Hannah Arendt, ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), pp. 217-252. It would also be interesting to ask whether minimalism in music—Steve Reich's, for example— has traumatic origins. 34. Beloved, p. 36.soqpo ypea uodn sag 01—sonaqps9e 51x23 axp put supe 24. JO suonusiut eanod ay —0an atp sful3g auo soy on se uonsanb ado we s982H0H ‘St ay -paresedas aq uo (sonaups9e 0120 ‘sonygod 01) s2ouedtoyte ana ap EH 29S punb3,uop [pxou op jo Furpurassopun ue soy Ksorsy jenaxaa Jo 2>uevsoduayp nog spurs ayqenyea © s13]jo woo, MAL “T “A “(661 2SROH PUD YOK MON) HOON uo “pa "wood plore 2sitesseu 01 asuodsos paz:oayod,, © s}=9 2x wey S9zPN4> twoo}g] plozepy ‘uaswiopy toy popmus won2sq[o> sty or wonanpondy 2p U] “BE “2a d ‘poaopg “Le “sed paaopeg “OF “12-8 H661 Sdouyy 20K mon) F661 DMIPIDITT Hw BNET HON PHL, “WOSWOWN WOL ‘SE pur vonerosdsoiut ut aaupo st rey 205 Kean some SOU S,P2AO}PE sant uo 10 moge sfuysq 1 Huruvaur jo soxsods ay} yo ouy|nanse poqumsipan tue Jo} moyje aou sop 1} pur uaaa anaysse ue st pazagy ‘ores KUE TY _caBo4 v Bug Jo sbadsns wify woyas ,uewons2zry, ag Jo qanous Uyfinoitp uostoyy sKes.,.,'Stuny aft] 1 Y>eq Burwo> peap Humptury,,"wuNE qussoid v ‘uoneas9 jo vuIneN & Uayp st st, Gorsiy Jo rues UTED? © {aun porerposse sjasopp as0U aq eo y>tyas a0 ayp nq PUNE fe>1sONs v YOU sisup ‘[paou axp ur poreador euunesie st as0qp jt ang] “aveIyIUsIS 9peNED (sno1ssuosun) ue AIpfos rou pure “TeoHOWsHY v axeY OF UDA? aM BuIMOTLE mip ‘ised se uaa otf sxaquioUro4 100y2 uf [>sou yp UDs9 axp Sunuasaidos Lu "qpiog os pue ‘apronurjur ue Jo ‘pooysaipour e jo ‘odes v Jo “CParls Jo—I9A2 sneumeN au (stuasesdas “91) ypeq s92eN pur—Auors soure >yp—Aaois jeursiso axp (sieadas “v1 soveaydas Jpaou ay 289Hp Jo Uunip 210u Sutog q Apo .05 st a¥ ng “tplog ‘94ns ag 0 ‘st panoyag “ewe soud soxpoue aoen o1 sn saoyfe Y>ryas vonnodas & ou wa49 newNE Around, eyo Adoo Arepuonas v soyptou st— aso sur— pooja ‘suns asoup uy (oun Jyonut) apa{qns © jo aoua%sau9 axp 40} pur voRe>yNUEp! SIE JO Auiqissod yp 304 Suravoje suonrezsoquads jo jaa3] 242 01 (Puno 24p) 1f s>Hs30 PUB HAO s,punom aq éjpunua 20U ase aeUp suz40n Oyu! panos aup sorepsuen ads 01 uioysyndusoo ayp reyp Uaoys Sey j2CT jag Jo sssqeue axoge axp retp MOM T e203) Hulpq St 1 wawour {son ap ae sn HuNeD9 eo4pes s PANEHUN ‘aimsmsonry ui auni227] PPAON, 34. 194,81 wornerUasoadad Jo s91>esEUP [APES A yo ssqeads uostssoyy. 28u9s sup Uy “p24983$ Jo poystyqeso fy oyai 99 oUE? paonpoad st Aanuapt ue yous urep diysuorneas aya arna2g “Kes uoKp ue> 298 Sununey sta1oy_p JPY pur jeNpLA!pUE Ue Jo TUTE axp UIDAKIEg ANTS pur jenprpurue waam2q Aao!go sy pue uoREuasosdas Uo9AKI>q 10 yuasord pu ysed usaaing wonepas & SAoge aes a1 se ‘osye pur ‘uoneps s21q8NeP VWAVUL JO SAIDNOTOOL 861Inthe Future . . . : On Trauma and Literature 199 otherwise than interpretation: for a beloved that is not beloved, for a people that are not my people. Makes way for that which cannot be internalized or appropriated but gets somchow repeated, carried over, in repetition. It is precisely because the ghost's unnatural, strange, haunting presence cannot be reduced to one or another moral or historical claim, present trauma or a past trauma, that the novel brings ethical and historical relations to the fore. So that, in Beloved, the elements of a specific history depend upon the mode of relation that can be established with the past. Lacking a more precise word, | call that which is between present and past, between representation and its object, experience and a text,a relation. But this is also a nonrelation, precisely because we cannot say that Beloved brings the past back or that it represents slavery. What we have in the relation’s stead is this novel: “Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name. Disremembered and unaccounted for, she cannot be lost because no one is looking for her, and even if they were, how can they call her if they don’t know her name? Although she has claim, she is not claimed.” ‘Trauma: Structural and Historical In the last twenty years there have been essentially two views of trauma, one that it is a structural disorder and one that it is a historical event. In what follows will reconstruct the general understandings of trauma at the expense of the specificities of the particular authors addressed in my analysis. In spite of this reductiveness, I hope that some light will be cast on how we may approach trauma after Dominick LaCapra, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot, Cathy Caruth, Shoshana Felman, Jacques Lacan, and Saul Jinder, who will be mentioned here. My goal is not to dismiss the aporia between the structural and the historical (general/particular, textual/political), for, to say the least, it has brought about a necessary sensitivity and attentive- ness to various exigencies in the study of trauma. Lam rather interested in the logic of the development ofa discourse on trauma which ends up offering this aporia, Additionally, we should try to sce whether the aporia prevents us from looking more closely at the relationship between trauma and haunting. In Dominick LaCapra’s recent work, History and Memory after Auschwitz, 39. Beloved, p. 274.622d ,suonnadoy yo 23nstaid 24.1, PRG “ZH “65-6¢ “ld “(661 PuUNg/Bunds) Sp -ou you aotuayy pur Kuorsipy ,“yooys 4p Jo Kors] a4p Tunuyy UE “ysinosp Suryioyy, pue Sousioysuery, “eUNeL., 5J9puElpoLsy [neg 2]dUTEx> 10} 99S “Th “(2661 S8%4q Aatsi9atuy, [pu0y AN eee) smyosny soyfo Liowuapy pun Luoppy eade ye] PTMUOC “OF 2g 2g [eNKDS be Jo sno} axp sotuossg ‘paztyeuarxa uayp pazyeusarus “y>tyss Kanlut Jo Asorsty sejnonsed 992 01 ng }DuNsUT o1 10U-uAM e sgsMnbas “O4ISop Jo JoNMS auuyur sip sv Ayssoqpua spas steados wip ‘oxoymou sso8 wey sunseayd snp pusyasdwio 01 Y0YJ9 2yJ, ‘oNDLsnessip Jo Asoxsty e sIedax pur yeadas 03 auisap ssajasn v ino 3e9q s1>e Dnstpes Jo suonnedas Addequn ap sopnypuos pur z2yo8o1 oan atp sButaq sopng “3X91 494 JO PU Hp dy soarains v jo sastndunt onsipes 2xp Surpurassopun ‘opduurexo soy Spenpratpur uv Jo aj] aup sodvys at se asuayo sefmonsed e jo sisyj> yp Jo Surpurrs -sopun uv 30} 2Aey kews 2atsp Yeap a4 Jo UoROU axp fENUDIod a4p “IoNsIsUOD ondeue otp pur “yons se wistueSi0 we Jo Ksoisty ayp BurwUsOJUT se DAL YEP 24 anzsuo> sanejoods sy UosAKI9q HoRL|z Iyp anoge st Syse ays suORSIND a1pl Jo aug “pawenuaz2yyIp 9194 st Wey 1 Yoo] s9sS0> € 324J0 sn djay We IAT {Jo Sutpros s.soping uteie 29uK “Jenaxa1 so “Jerudpud2suEN “JeNUaRsIX pale? 2q |] se asn{ pjno> pur ‘sms feouorstysuen so jestzoasiye ue sey EUIMESD beasqe, ‘jemey pur ‘eoutdwo ‘fepos pour ose st wuINes [PHONY SRUAA “Sfenprarpur ureD> posjoaut pur ‘ooejd ureye> wwe Sou UrENeD ee posne sea wey asuas ae UE [LouOIsHY st cues repMaIEd >| ure sadosd sy Aq at [e901 sanfuratp pasned yoryas wane [esLiorsty ayy auseU on worse go oKp ‘uA sures up ae pure ‘sud k se asUazFO UE OL 2>UAI—}O4 IDaLIp v Jo ADpIgHssOd( tt!) D4) SUID -uo> pur [esntfod st uonsunsip siyp 40y uosvas ay_L, “ss9jaqussu— Kanfut ue pur Sununey e—sewinen om inq ‘astiayjo arasou09 & 02 amp st pry ewe bensqe uy Jeunes no:9U0D & pun eUIMEN DENSGE LE UDI s1299Kp sdeyd ‘dd Wt Suonuaur pnasy WYP WOPHe UE oy Jo aseI ayp UT sv ‘sooUEIS -tunoit9 fq 10 “dures uoRenU22UO> v UT sb uossad Joyo Aq Uossad ¥ HO paraiygurasuiayjo ue‘punom jo 29uanbasuos e si “pury saxpo ayp uo ‘Te|noAsed ur ewnesy “Bunus peorydosopyd 40 Asesoay] Jo onsuarzeseyD & Se UD 2q pinoo jesoua8 ur ewnesy ,,"euinen aejnonaed v pur jesousd wy eumnen W298 -oq uonounstp v se paruasosd sown 1e st uondunsip jeoroIsnyjesMaanns VWWOAVUL dO SAIDOTOdOL 002In the Future... :On Trauma and Literature 201 So the distinction historical/structural can be also seen asa distinction between the speculative and analytic character of psychoanalytic theory, where the accent is on the way in which an analyst or a theorist can in a particular case determine whether repetition compulsion repeats instinctually or because of an injury. Itis not necessary that one exclude either possibility, but the turning point in analysis happens when repetition is taken in respect to events an individual has gone through. In order to understand traumatic repetition, one thus needs to specify theevent the survivor of an offense repeats. Analogously, important not only that Beloved repeats but that Sethe, in killing her daughter, acts out the rape and other humiliations she survived as a slave; Denver, afraid to leave the house at 124 Bluestone Road, acts out the violation of her mother.** It is hence slavery and the rape of Sethe that give (historical) specificity to their traumas."* After having identified the event, the analysis advances, for it names with a proper name the cause of trauma. When LaCapra and Butler argue for the distinction between structural and historical traumas, repetition compulsion is not relegated entirely to a particular event which is repressed or disavowed and repeated. LaCapra and Butler would not disagree hence with Derrida and Blanchot, or Felman and Caruth, on the point thata trauma, a disaster, provokes a return toa previous 43. “Whatever itis, it comes from outside this house, outside the yard, and it can come right on in the yard if it wants to. So I never leave this house and I watch over the yard, so it can’t happen again and my mother won't have to kill me too.” Beloved, p.205, 44. Much of Beloved’ criticism has indeed focused on this specifici single out only a few paradigmatic essays. Besides the already cited Walter Benn Michaels’s, “'You who never was there," sce also Rebecca Ferguson, “History, Memory and Language in Toni Morrison's Beloved,” Feminist Criticism: Theory and Susan Sellars, ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), pp. 1091275 Marilyn Sanders Mobley, “A Different Remembering: Memory, History and Mean- ing in Toni Morrison's Beloved,” in Toni Morrison, Harold Bloom, ed. (New York: Chelsea House, 1990), pp. 189-199; Mae G. Henderson, “Toni Morrison's Beloved: Remembering the Body as Historical Text,” in Comparative American Identities: Race, Sex and Nationality in the Modern Text, Hortense |. Spillers, ed. (New York: Rout- ledge, 1991), pp. 62-86; Helen Moglen, “Redeeming History: Toni Morrison's Be- loved,” Cultural Critique 24 (1993): pp. 17-40; Naomi Morgenstern, “Mother's Milk and Sister’s Blood: Trauma and the Neoslave Narrative,” Differences vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 103-125; and Caroline Rody, “Toni Morrison’s Beloved: History, ‘Rememory “Clamor for a American Literary History vol.7, no. 1, pp. 92-119. 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Crisis is, then, the crisis of a response to testimony, A crisis that concerns the continuation of witnessing rather than testimony as such, for how could we speak of witnessing “as such” outside of the chain reaction that testimony provokes? One should also bear in mind that Fel- man’s analysis of witnessing is undertaken, as a rule, well after the historical occurrence in question and after the death of the participants in the event. In this respect, again, Felman’s question concerns the response to the (reJemer- gence of the event in testimony, including the way a historical agent, a person, responds to what he or she says while saying it.”' While one could here ask whether it is necessary that the historical event be witnessed by those who did not participate in it, perhaps the question that would yield a greater under- standing of the trauma is, how does the catastrophe ever become absent?” ‘Zeuge' literally, “begetter”] in German, after the part played by the male in the act of procreation; so too in hieroglyphics a “witness” is represented pictorially by the male genitals.” Sigmund Freud, Three Case Histories, trans. James Strachey (New York: Collier Books, 1963), p. 88. Given this etymology—testimony, testis—is it any wonder that today, especially considering contemporary feminist thought, there are calls for the examination of the concept of witnessing? 50, Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (New York: Routledge, 1992). Crisis is etymologically a turning point, not an overturning —kata-strophe —asit is usually treated. 51. Scealso Lawrence L.. Langer’s “Memory’s Time: Chronology and Duration in Holocaust Testimonies,” The Yale Journal of Criticism vol. 6, no. 2 (Fall 1993): pp. 263-274. And his Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory (New Haven,CT: Yale University Press, 1991). See also William Wendell Haver, The Body of This Death. Historicty and Sociality in the Timeof AIDS (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996). 52. The turn I am making implies that there is a difference between two basic ontological possibilities for understanding the relationship between present and past: one, that their relation depends on the moment of presence. In this sense, the past is present in the present (through memory) only as absent. And another one, that the separation between past and present, presence and absence, can be drawn only arbitrarily, implying a certain imposition of measure that is not inherent in the relationship past-present. According to this line of thinking, past and present are always in a specific relation that can be neither established nor severed. 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MP sovqous Ssoussfas sat UL“y>rta e4p At 5140, SSN, KfpsoUE HORNA! §, 93157 s] zanisop Jo sonmas ap syje> ays wonnadas ay) wos} Aeave suuzm 2u0 Jt} 1ssod sisJoatains jo uonesous# 341 puosag worrenunuod sit pur Buyssounis Je yse mou pno> am ‘oaoqe povonusut auowmndse spn] Ov poodsos Uy “ayqeysinSunstput Ajqe>tifojaiuo axe Aoyp astie22q J94R0 YP" OTHE asdefjo> {qussaoou eumnen yesmonsis pue jeotsorsty “uese"] 205 WHR Aes ov ose SESE vou aup anoqe Zusspodos Buypeas23 ur paooons euunen eotsorsty 29 sn NN Joypia uo sossmoasip wep urweu Jo suru axp Surztuooos ut Kuo St 988 sup uy “2iqeztoquassun supeuay yryas yey apnpsxo o1 pur “UORE joquaks jo uyewop 242 01 uon2uny sit aonpas or aq pynoas jeauorste| gD 20 [PANO Dp Joupia yates peas atp arenbs 01 ‘oau9p ‘sumonans yours pur UAE Pd sqypou au soandonuns ayoquuds pur Aavursieun o wopusdapur ys! ape nd Sumonuns e 9ay JOU saop [e93 aYp “ued 30g "eUINEN jesmMINAs pur TEL usoaaoq diysuoneps anstqenp ay Jo Fururyp ay Ow UOISIP aanuedin te soonposnut [eas puv ‘s1oquiks ‘Areurseun usoavioq WORDUDSIP S4ET VWAVUL dO SAINOTOAOL 402Inthe Future :On Trauma and Literature 205 As for literature, what would it mean for itto turn away from the structural or instinctual stutter of desire? Would not such a turning away threaten to undercut the very possibility of literature? Moreover, isn’t literature precisely a form of turning toward a catastrophe, an instinct, and a desire—an attempt to face them in the most radical and immediate way possible? In the case of Beloved the traumatic event is of historical proportions. Here trauma is not a specific event in an individual's history; rather, the singular trauma—trauma in Beloved —is that which gives specificity to one whole historical period. So that the “historical” and “structural” bear upon each other in Beloved in quite different ways than in the case ofa patient in Butler's sense. Morrison attempts to represent the general in the particular —slavery in Sethe —but in present- ing Sethe, Beloved falls short of representing cither the general (the slavery) or the particular (Margaret Garner), and manifests only the singular, the unique (Sethe, Beloved, Denver, etc.). By which I mean that Sethe is a literary character that both substitutes and transformsthe general condition of slavery and the particular experience of Margaret Gamer. The aesthetic autonomy of Beloved, for example, its uniqueness, does not indicate its detachment from the historico-political context of slavery. It rather denotes the form in which Beloved can and does become a part of this context as it also reshapes it (in the here and now). In this sense, the aesthetic singularity of Beloved constitutes its historical specificity. The difference between the discourses on trauma can be expressed also according to how the significance of Fort! Da! is interpreted. The question is whether Freud’s analysis in BPP is also, as Derrida suggests, a Fort! Da! Whether a discourse on trauma/disaster is necessarily and essentially a Fort! Dal, that is, whether it in some way repeats the structure of deferral? If the answer is affirmative, the implication is that meaning—and not just the event's meaning, but the meaning of meaning —is deferred, and that trauma is present only through its repetitions. To pretend that the fact definitely names the event would, according to this line of thinking, be tantamount to foreclosing the possibility for a text; a definite delimitation between history and text, between trauma as an injury and trauma as a textual disorder, would erase any bearing that literature and memory have on the events or the lives of survivors; there would be only a present present to itself, a present that has obliterated the future and erased the possibility for a past. Here we could say with Saul Friedkinder that an approach to trauma worth pursuing lies not in attempting to name or delimit the crime “defi- nitely,” but rather in finding ways to negotiate between the historical (factual, actual) givens and its structural (underlying, unconscious) consequences. To‘oweavdos © ut soijen un seadde , suasgo su3s 2] ans saya, “SP30A% 28948 AND) $ IOHPUE|EL Up roypurjg Woy, ases4yd sup Hursoss0g axe dep soy urE|dx2 Koxp op AON “BurwerUt usage Jado yateM plnoss 2Uo MOY Uo uEUILHOD JopUEpeHy 20 J9HUET JPEN ‘uoen oumes 942 Yat spud wT, s,AsowDyy,, 2p>Hse sro ue] 2UDIKE] “+S (6¢-d , sySnonp Surpoyy, pu ‘soussoysuey ‘eumnes,., puE|PIMA “ES -sdeq, 394... fuyuraus wuasqe s9x0 yoess d22>4 01, ps0 s2oUpur|e| SNE ‘Aguits Sjprcunyn Seus, ‘souum sopur|parg ,“ySnomp SuPyoM,, AYPUCT soup a4 uous 1x03 ty jo pud 94 purus UT sey JpuETPaH WY SPs] 9,, unouosd sup jo Suruesw wuosqe ay) Surpnpur—Furwesur ur Sure Jo douosqe 01 pusne 01 pojpe9 28 am ‘pearsuy ‘p2zgn990 WAN 9yp YoY woUTOW ased otf 10Ny ‘anbedo Sopuejpats.y 40g ‘sureusos ypryar zourour dap sit 10u quoas sneumen ¢ jo Surueow oyp ON wwasqe st Suruvous wetp suBsU Wey {yo Suipurassapun we o2 Ing “yeoys a4p 02 0U Jsop 198 UE 2u09sURSSH UT _ased st ey 20 poystuy sey ret Sunypouros 10u “arrMany Jo Pury WICH? & Suun(uoo st au0 wtp 9ztuo091 10U Soop au0 #1 ewe Jo Jo [eouoIstyemonns wor ayp weep soy “2s1oosdumr st ar ysnoypye ‘osiposdunt st fesmionans waar ay weep JOU st d394 aMBzE o1 WEA | IeYAL -suuepp jeantjod ‘9ssn0o Jo ‘pur [e180] -oquo ureyi99 soxeur Aypess20u asinossip eumeN “yans sy “voneztuEsosIp tou pue uoneztueis0 ue AF [[e> UD aM eI EIN 2p c1—LADPD0S E JO pur wistueSs0 ue Jo uoneziuel so pemusurepuny 242 Jo [a9] axp Uo suoReMtA [euonmnsuo> yunoose oyut a3fe1 o1 a4oj2s9Kp spsou euINes o1 asuodsos Vy -eumnen uo wapuadap moyptuos st (Crorsiy e so“uoNMansOD aMINNs) sudALs {yous e2eyp pue nauaacad ouue> Koy veip ang ‘eure Jo ane 24 230 S40 Jeuonmmnsuos rei Turdes ou we | "euMEN uLysneD 9q Avan SUUOs ws KEL sopue [pats Aq porsoMiins sonout peatBojouroasida oa axp womaDq ysNBUnstP for sn smojfe ystya aes wep UeUE T YpIyA q ‘voReZtLoIsty pur Burssourtn (0) suonenumy feuonmansuos op asmosqo Keus soxour oauy 2824p UdoWI9q BUE -uneua sng ,,, S95nsop puke suoneszeU [e>LOWsIY paansse-yp>s PUK snsy|dus or Buipeay wistanisod jeouoisty aateu v jo 22uepione axp puesaserury [eousoasty 4s980]>-s949 40} Ypres tp :SoA0u {JoI2ypeNIUOD O41 Jo aurAdaD2" snosUT -[nuts, 9¢p ‘spsoa s,s9purTpoeL ur ‘soxjdust aouoy sner9}oH] Sep az! 40s VWAVULL AO SAIDOTOdO.L 902Inthe Future On Trauma and Literature 207 We have here reached another aspect of treating trauma (and its study). 1 should emphasize that by “constitution” above I am referencing not only the basic biological or psychological aspecV/desire of an organism but also basic cultural or societal givens. By “organism,” furthermore, [ am referring not only to an individual but also toa group formed through a particular history that is/was shared. What I would like to propose, then, is that trauma, which leads to this absent meaning, has also changed what we mean by organism, culture, society, structure, history, and what we mean by meaning itself. To write on trauma, hence, implies dealing with singular, not general or particu- lar, disruptions, including the disruption of the applicability of the terms and concepts we use to describe and understand trauma. Including, also, the disruption of the very possibility of making a claim or writing a text. This recognition of the radical disturbance (of constitutive elements) that is trauma seems to me to be a prerequisite for negotiating the relation between the structural and historical, literary and factual aspects of a trauma. Accordingly, one cannot claim that in Beloved trauma is caused by histoi cally specific events without also claiming that the literary event constitutes if not history as such, then what is most important about it—its specificity. Ina literary work of art, this specificity, especially the specificity of naming, is hardly in the facts and dates. For the name, the claim, the fact, and the date are entrusted to the “unreliable,” because imaginative, realm of memory. What is so specific about Beloved, then, is that it takes up facts, dates, and experiences and considers them as acts of naming, acts that are at once disastrous! pleasurable, redeemable/unredeemable, speakable/unspeakable, creative! destructive. In doing so, Beloved lays out a world as haunted by its own worldliness, by, that is its historically specific here and now, which remains unspeakable, haunting. The stutter of its desire is its poctry as well as politics; passage which stands alone and is preceded by a discussion on what it means to write (“To write is perhaps to bring to the surface something like absent meaning”) and whether a commentary on writing can sustain an absent meaning. The French “veiller” or “veille” designates the ritual wake over a dead body, a vigil. “La veille de Noél” is Christmas Eve. In Blanchot “veiller” resonates with Levinasian insomnia. Thus, a whole spectrum of meaning from ceremonial wake through vigile (from tigere, to be vigorous or lively) to vigilance and vigilante, opens up complicating the notion of watching over. Is this complication, this chain of etymologies, writings, and translations, itself a form of “veiller"? If it is, where is and what is the absent meaning? Blanchot, The Writing of the Disaster, pp. 41-42. 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WED Souvailusa jo 1 ue tasD JOU ADP OU Tey OREWLIZUOD [eUL Se 94.98 PINOm sey 24 qeyp sfuosa ay) 409 svestodiuo> we> Surypou yeep st sauna Sypenau999 94 eyo aK, “dosnt Jo s9]e2s axp d2uETEq 01 $3098 ap UDAd 02 SIEM J>IPJOSX HL “ypoqied v 109 astsap & uewp 2100 Sunpou dn siuyod Jowaws0D a1p J9panuy VWAVUL dO SAIDOTOdO.L zzObstinate Forgetting in Chile 213 the lemma put forth during the transition period in Uruguay, “Neither for- getting nor vengeance—justice,” be replaced by: “Either forgetting or vengeance —no justice is possible”? Or can we track down more optimistic prospects? The second issue I will consider concerns history. The fact that Amnesia revolves around an anniversary scene is not superfluous. Anniversaries usu- ally signal the passage of time. Yet it is clear, in the film, that the characters remain stuck in the past: for them, time cannot proceed since the pastis never overcome, never relinquished. Anniversary, rather than passage, emerges as eternal presence of the same, an endless circle. In fact, we will see that both forgetting (where the pastis ignored) and vengeance (where the past becomes an obsession) block the flow of history, and hence the possibility of transition. But how can nations move beyond this stagnation? Given the difficult issue of military crimes, how can time, thus the transition process, be (re)started after the dictatorship’s fall? The last theme I will address is that of identity. It is apparent from the various discussions of the so-called “new Latin American social movements” (many of which are linked to postdictatorship concerns)! that current politi- cal theories developing in Latin America are both skeptical of identity and identity politics,and somehow unable to think the political beyond the subject of self-representation, that is, beyond identity. Yet is the postdictatorship, postdisaster predicament perhaps a demand that theory inaugurate a post- dictatorship politics beyond —or, better said, at the limit of —the self, the I, identity politics, and perhaps politics itsel I would like, first, to carve out a theory of radical injustice. Radical injustice, as Lam attempting to formulate it, is related to the immeasurability of certain wrongs. Of course, one could say that all wrongs, all crimes, are essentially immeasurable. In fact, compensation for any wrong is grounded on an arbi trary, thus problematic “scale” of equivalence and/or exchange; no necessary equivalence between crime and punishment exists. X punishment balances Y 1. See Arturo Escobar’s fine summary of this matter in The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy, and Democracy, ed. Arturo Escobar and Sonia E, Alvarez (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 78-83.{Us6l “ZLeoupa sonny souang) soam3nf « sexopouog ‘sapjq7y PUE (ER61 seraniinag souy souang) 2ypununs & sov0T] ‘smsHay s,ourLi0s O1 ButssDpos We |Z -ystund ,Jeuonuaauos, 40 ,299209,, axp Jo no Suneut oyp Buncewe “uss ayp sSuosm ,jeorda, yam J] ¢poasas ud9q seq sonsntl fi sp jaoy sounas Kseyrut snore, Jo (2{durexo 409 s2u0 poxo| —ws92U09 sFOALAINS ayp DIBOYN s49q10 44 peinpud suosa\ 40 ‘posnpud soapastuarp ajdoad asarp sSuozas soya) sBuorm atp pantains savy oya asomp ueD :st Uonsanb Kpy AxoUOD diysiorersypasod yp UE paazos ag Aypemaoe ,20nsnl, Ue :uonsanb ayp a puodses 01 asodsnd Au: 10U staring ‘sporstay asea] ae 2outs sisuoatp peontod pur sioydosojyd Aq passnasip 4[snoso8 os ud9q sey 1 se aonsnl 0140 ,“92n8nl an, 01 Pare |>4 24, you ews so Keun .asuas, sty] “(aSuaaay sof ou] way s,urereasLry OJJOPY PUE 2aSSORUOUINSAD, Jo SUONDS|IOD OaN s,oULLIOS OPIEASO SPAY 2UHA suRUDEIY dup se ypns swowN20p 94,0 AueUE Lod, Se [Joa Se ‘Apna st UI psuORUEUE soanwaseu pur suupy a4 UL yoy and sjedesuod wiogy poatssp st ‘ppe prnoys 1 ,{uNDIA, ay Jo Zuipurrsiopun Aux) susesadxo wystur eausqors peonyjod jo stunsta rip a2usnf fo asuas axp ut ing (aonsnl Jo ,Su1oq,, 24p ut 40 ABojOUD -wouoyd v ut) 9s Jod 2onsnt ur iow porsasoiur ure J “2ansn Jo adaouo> featydos -ojiyd wast v wioay ued 40 asoddnsoad you soop aonsnfut eorpes jo uonou Aut sary ‘suis Suyusem jo aed eno and 01 Asessa20u st 11 39A9M04| 19H -ajqussoduut se uornnans9s Jo ov Aaaaa ‘osoj2a942 ‘pue—aoejd pur oum s9ypoue 01 Sururersad se—a19]0sq0 se saojans UoRUaao? 44942 UdYA Ing ‘sNogHOM JO/pUL WDIOyMsUE se saeaddee ie] ap uayas 10U pur ‘ponrurtuo> st auAD e wayAs 20U S>BIINU'SE EI ‘oonsntur jeotpey “po8s0y 9q ued 10 udDq sey IUDUFAsNsLOUT Jo 2]qeI OU “ISI uv 40 astx9 suonuaauod ou Soxrmoy Sonsnlut jesxpes yar “QuowYstUNd X poarooas A]feuonrpen sey sum9 X) uoRnedas pur (gq 1uourystund ueIp ,230U, sty auowiysiund “8) souas2y1p YBnosyp :reUT aq isn J9yzUs v) uonadas pur (1e9 10U st eq) 2DuEI9}]1p YBNOs pytusis ‘uani3 oyp 01 ss2Jo4 s9y1UTs o4p :Auwssooau OU ‘AprEAGTe PorpTUsis e Or IH s1 Joyrugis eaeyp sn soypear sonsinSuyy ueaunssneg “odensTue] voy] paanaonss St we] ayp ‘suas sty Uy “(Gatpo ax uo ‘pasuadstp 40 peatooas wuouuystund at pur tpury auo ays uo ‘Joys v se {100s Jo so JenpLAIput uv jo Buuoyyns atp) euawouayd quasayip A498 oma arenbs 01 sv os dn yas ud9q aAKy S>IqE pue poursoj 2 ey suonuaauos asnedaq ang ‘Teno (KJaniepp4 ward 0) AyporzUas%2 aye X pue x asnesoq iow ,22nsnl on,, sorenedaad ay SurBuug snya ‘ou VINAVUL dO SAINOTOOL #1ZObstinate Forgetting in Chile 215 ment, feels as if some kind of restitution might be impending, in radical injustice wronged individuals (such as those portrayed in Amnesia) are ex- posed to an inequity for which they fee! no “adequate,” “correct” or “conven- tional” punishment —indeed, no convention atall, and thus no punishmentat all—exists or even can exist. Radical injustice, therefore, is not the result of a crime so heinous and radical that it cannot be measured, Indeed, to make such a claim is to have already measured—by referring to the “so” in “so heinous” —the radical injustice, and thus to have eliminated its definitive feature: immeasurability. Rather, the injustice is heinous and radical because it cannot be measured, because a specific victim (whether an individual ora group), within a particu- lar judicial, social, and/or political situation, cannot perceive any potentia compensation for his/her (their) suffering, whatever the actual crime may have been, and whatever the actual pain may be. The second warning, already hinted at, is the following: the faltering of justice should not be confused with the failure to prosecute fully or even partially, with the weakness of the law. It is not simply that victims of Southern Cone military regimes are unable to perceive equivalency between the distress that they have suffered and a given punishment or lack of punishment. They cannot perceive equivalency —in the absence of an arbi- trary equivalency—between the distress and any punishment, even and especially an ideal, utopian, or imaginary one. They face radical injustice, in other words, because they are unable to avow the conventions, habits, and rituals which allow for the accepting of the crime/punishment exchange: not of a specific exchange, but of the possibility of the exchange itself. And without even the potential for such a “transaction,” these victims understand their victimization as forever beyond restitution. T Radical injustice is connected to the problem of melancholy as analyzed by Julia Kristeva in the book Black Sn: as an issue of poetics.’ The melancholic isa person whois unable to depict traumatic experience. She cannot turn this experience into an image, a re-presentation or, most importantly, into a 3. Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, trans. Leon 8. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989).“opt et “dd (gg61 2UON [pp soUOK IPA FHIN SoNoUeH]) seed” ap oigiunrg “eanzUapeA SIN] “C ‘uoweiuasaidas pur uonesyn2alqo gooneaty 4294 atp stat saupey “ype we 22lqo we s9A9U st 40J SuoEAUDs>sd94 404 1991q0 ‘uv soaou st ured (ogo ‘8824q AAIs4Da1U17] PIOXO “310K MON) PHO 242 fo Tutyouuury pun Suiopy 244 ctang us Apog 24,1 Ui UmoYs sey Kur>g sULE|Y se IDKF UT“ aoaomoy Speads ue> emery “Bunjeads Jo ae axour oy qua “99!04 IPL op on apt sey uonewasosdas-uou siyp ieep aAamoy ‘spurrsiopun vpnzuo[eA sed weyp jo aauasoad Sunvusers ‘ayqissodun ayp yutas sony] 2uDy, pue‘souasoad-91 40 {sowour ¢ ovur sed atp ovutased atp pousm 394 20u sey ays Ssyoypuejou o1sse> aup st eaMerT “Caorsty Uano Joy JquidWIDS o1 Karoede>ut 19y on parejas [fe aaoge st 4oaamoy ‘sudo Azois oy2 se eumnen sop “oandy Grew Aq pasnge Aqjenxos pur ‘postSnup ‘asnoy e ut Keave paso} st ays :21m1201 Jo ‘uso J2yiour s90829pun uoys ayg “pamdvs pue posmsor éjpe>1scyd w>>q sey dstuoioad yp ‘euney csomsue ue sorddns “eunuasay ur dryszoreioyp mnoqe sojer souy oy2 Jo uo ,SeuUse ap o1quIED,, K10Is LOYs s,ejanzuayeA es] gaouepioar s,a]oYDuEpUs 2x mnoge [eIDads os St USK TYAN -ured yey Jo Surpioa 40 Furproae aup soypoue so Kem ausos uy seu sveaaye Aoqp ‘ured 405 ut puras soumauios (soanresseu) suoneruasadas sf “aouatsadxo yew jo Anpytoads axp aseso 40 9pero uoUd v suxdipesed soup ‘sjessoatun se pur Ssuonuaauos Gesuqze pue suiBipesed jessoarun 01 a2uatsadx9 40 Sumwoddey anbiun v anwgns 01 pa2ioy st 9u0 u9A2 enb auaas ue wasoidas 01 Sundurne ut ‘poopur ‘pur siaaaa ryured wuasoidas 01 undone uy ,uoneiosssdos puosoq st ‘poniiar aq pynoo at “ured je 29x “ured stot anioge 3yeads 01 2yqeun uv Afauau Kaya iXpuarodwoo arinb uayo Buryeads Jo ayqedea “ued wou ax soy ‘a1 sasKyeue 294 soseq eaaIstsy| py uodn uatOAs o4p 9ey Uy 2x04 weaUE Aqqussod pyno> ,auososdos 01 aanyre, rey ‘saxomoy “sapuom ayBrUUr 24G) “yey (Sgowou) aouvsquiows pur vorreiuasesdas uonenys uoatd v ul uossod aejnonaed v 40} ‘gsne99q snetNEN oor ssuIOD2q UaAD UE OIA ONeuMEN 601 st uaxa we asne29q 20U Srey UOTUasasdas ‘{joystEfaUE Uy “KjoysUEpU Jo piesaq ues sejuis Sunypowog “posnes aq rou a UN 239498 pure [eotpes OU st spaanseow 2q our Uayp pur ox9AIs K}s980 1834 st eIp 2oNSNLu Ue OU st ooasn{ur peapes wet parsoSns | sxoqy “s2uasoad Suyay ‘ayqvuruuarut sy ang eum stp jo20uasqe ayp 10U siuosjuOD 9Ys/a4 AsOWDUU J0 OREIUDsD1d-94 on ssa02e nOWpEAY, “Prap SE PLEP aYp pur ased sv ased oyp rdao" or ‘ured aup 20,0 208 01 “wnour o1 se ‘St exp ‘2Hoy>tFaUE 94.J, sed 9x UI possn290 2 ap wexp ey 9tp OF ISoNe pinom owsU e se “YHA 2UO :KowWDUE VINAVUL AO SAIDO TOOL gzObstinate Forgetting in Chile 217 difficult speaking may be for her. Non-representation here is instead linked to the arbitrariness of the signifier. This is made clear in the story’s opening passages, where Laura meditates on certain proper names, many of which she cannot recall, For Laura, in fact, all nouns, all language, are structured like proper names: words are signs arbitrarily placed on bodies (referents) which come to designate those bodies through sheer repetition or habit. Laura has not forgotten language, but meaning, or at least the habits which make meaning possible. That is, she has forgotten the social conventions which induce speakers to forget the arbitrariness of signs, and therefore to “remem- ber” the signifier/signified relation: signification, representation. In essence, Laura is prevented from reconstructing the truth of the past because she confronts the truth of language. Instead of remembering her history through language, she remembers language itself —language is structured like a proper name, via the arbitrary relationship, imposed by convention, of words and things—and she cannot disavow this arbitrariness, a disavowal necessary if she is to conceive language as a system of re-presentations capable of re-membering the past: language as a vehicle for marking the distinction between past and present, represence and presence, for mourning. Postdictatorship victims often become involved with problems not unlike Laura’s. Their trauma, however, is not the inability to disavow the arbitrary relationship of signifier and signified but of punishment and wrong. The dilemma is not one of representation but of restitution; terrors remain present not because events cannot be recalled but because they cannot be absolved. The victim has been wronged; he/she desires compensation. Yet when he or she discovers that no object or act can potentially equal the wrong, the debt ceases to be a debt: a debt, after all, isa debt only if there exists some promise, however remote, of payment. Otherwise the debt converts from a debt into pure loss, loss without a possible return. A victim expects payment or retribu- tion, but his or her damage falls beyond redemption, into the abyss of total deprivation. Yet the violation, as absolute damage, does not disappear. On the contrary, it remains eternally present as “the thing” which possesses no account (nobody is being held accountable: thus the injustice). Here, though, a series of questions arise. At exactly what moment is the possibility of equivalence (however arbitrary) between crime and punishment, hence the possibility of feeling a “sense of justice,” lost? At what point in the justice process does justice not merely fail but fail absolutely? Is there not always space for another “appeal” to justice? These questions are answered in, Amnesia: radical injustice is unveiled when the last judgment, the most exaggerated, most extreme form of compensation imaginable—in this case,“9¢7-£21 dd (op6t “HINTUDg 410K MON) soinuoy, yon stunooy Buapuag ‘2201 V 2PEAYY Y I2IYPN UDINE] 2S “9 UL vey ponSze wuowaso8 sry “zea axp Jo sau oy 404 soatssoaqns pojfe>-os ap jo , sow, oyp Jgo pape wuowus9A08 ruonystres oxp :2]qyssod aanap Arsouune [euiguo stp apew! 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The gesture was, needless to say, absurd, perplexing, and disturbing: the two sets of “crimes” bear little relation to one another. But we must ask ourselves, given precisely this non-relation, whether the trade-off was an abuse of proper justice, or a mirror of that same justice: justice’s uncanny double, the aberra- tion which reveals the rule. At the very least, the exchange unveils that if the equivalence of wrong X and punishment Y is arbitrary, then any Y, including another wrong or injustice, can potentially balance that wrong. The very fact that the Uruguayan government opted to measure not injustice with punish- ment, but non-punishment (impunity for the military) with non-punishment (impunity for the subversives) reveals the arbitrariness of “equality” itself. In fact, “equality” here is nothing more than an empty, violent tautology (A equals A, the signifier “non-justice” equals another signifier “non-justice”) in which injustice isno longer measuredat all. Instead, all infractions against the law are deemed the same, not because they are determined to be equal but because they go unmeasured. In this “balancing act,” everything is even because nothing counts and, again, nothing is accounted for: the past clings to the present. Here, however, we are touching upon another issue. Transition is not a revolution or a coup. A transitional government, by its very definition, does not break from its past but inherits it. Unlike a “revolutionary” government, this regime cannot rightfully liquidate the former enemies but must deal with them democratically. The Southern Cone postdictatorship administrations inherited their pasts in the form of a debt or obligation (and not just an economic debt)’: an obligation to right wrongs, to bring perpetrators to justice, and justice to victims. Yet this debt, for the various reasons detailed by texts such as Weschler’s, eventually emerged as unpayable.® This is perhaps 7. It would be interesting to examine the relationship between the national debt and the debt owed to victims. On the one hand, they are very similar, since they both pointtoward thedifficulty transitional governmentsencounterasthey attemptto deal with their “inheritance” or their past. Butthe two debts might alsobe seen as mutually exclusive, since payment of the national debt invariably involves the embracing of capitalism and right-wing policies which impede the payment of the “other” debt. 8. The most obvious reason for this non-payment is that the military never relinquished its stronghold; the army was more powerful than the transitional governments that were considering prosecuting the military officials.foams ay, :x10yy foswai22dg 01 pio} wnd , Ayu, 10 ae] 942 puosoq 20nI8n1 v Jo 440242 5,epusac] sanboe{ uo siuaumwoa s,s9au2.J 492g Aq pautsoyUt dav 9194 SLOPE AW “6 -suen se Sourafusa 194 ,Is~Xo 1u2WUTDA08 puosog pur (jeBoyft st 2842424) oon, ays puokeg—aousn{ duiIp e—aonsn{ auios wtp WED 94 LIA sonSALUE [eorpes moaesip oa adwuone 2p st 9Buaaay ‘papiey aavy sounseour e202, 40 ,[eontqod,, jJe s24ge oansnl Jo aunseaus quo aip se pousod st ‘suatu9008 Aceaqrus yo sumoia ayp soy oHuaaoy -9jox wed ue yans skepd ‘msouay sv ns suyjyy dryssorenoipisod ur ‘souva8uan Sys devas aa wea arou SUC “Aaorsty wano sit qap/asuEoyu! ‘ua sit ppt [eap 02 ArsedeouT s auoUMUZax08 ayp'st TUR *YOo]sIA0 O1— SOULS ed yoopar0 01 2soyy Jo Auyiqesnseauuun a4 yoops20 02 ang ‘S9ULTLID sunt Suryse ou sea uouUsDAOT UEXeNSIA yp speuIUD 1 AsoULTE Sunues3 Aq sip speoras asiaaiur) y pny V Jo Burpers asop> v “sse203d one 20u!9p axp jo Uonepunoy 24p 2” pare29] ssXqe a]qeUIOYREJUN Xp SMU PUL “Ayjiqesnseawun siyp proxe oa podwone wourus2s08 xp Aes aup seas vondns -209 Saypey “soUIL!D s,diysioeioip stp Jo usWspnluou puewatiomseowuOU up 40 ayqisuodsos rou seas 11 “99g aay ew YoRdnazoD stp SE [Nyse SY -aonsnfut jeotpes ayp Jo “sasne9 ou ‘s129})9 se pooisiopun aq rsnur s19e 1dN3409 soup 194 pury “saNSNL Jo ssaoad es9uDs ays pue seu Suse Jo VORND2 -soud ay paxpoyq y>ryan ‘s9]4>s24\ Aq parudumsop dure ‘suondnsso> drys -soweisipisod s uowrug2s0# uedendnyy ay areurysosopun 01 yueM 10U OP | -sansvaut puosog—Ayjeaiype ‘4] 22109 “AqpeaTasJod —9q o soapsurotp moys ssonsnurasoyp way diyssorenrp 2tp josoonsnfur aya sa pnt 4 Moy UO parenyeas st A2e:20Wap diysioerspsog “woapnl reyp Uo soBury Aaeig0uap se uase sed axp jo qusU9INsvau sopadust uoNeNIIs as04 ‘OUUtTI 24 wPYaaso pur AoYs9A0 ased 94p Jo siqop 4p “SIUSWTUIAAOS jeUOHISUEN aug wioyinog 407 De} UY “Yann jnyured e dn autod osje Kay 1K fussy ~[esaqijoou mu ay aowoud 07 pue Yamod ur YSZ OUP UrEWTEUT OF soUT9yIs ‘sorSorens peontjod auosoadas stutep jo stios asayp2ans 9q of Aayiqussodut ay snip—Aoes0wWp premo) uonisuen sip apacaid 01 aavy pjnoar A>es20W19p *oouasso Uy “poouepe no poudaa azom spjay ase yp [HUN EAs O1 dey PIN {py Surdefd pao, & Aolua ayStur suszm1p upseya AoeD0WSp asmmny SUE ‘SSieugeis pjnom watuasow pur auf “posfosqe pur poazosos seam —ypsirased 24 1—s]eLn soup [FUN Pjoy UO and aq pinow ‘sjdoad ayp Jo Su1oq-[om 2NaNy aup Sssan0id ones0uIp ax,L, “SPL ss9[PU UL yINS22 pjnows ‘pou wou -usono8 ayp ‘syeurtuts> Arey! Jo uoRnoasoud :39,4>s2,q_4q pauyprno “Aasou “tie 40 squauingre szuaWUs9A08 ayp Jo uo YsNoIU YUP PINOYS 241 soy YINAVUL dO SAIDOTOOL ozObstinate Forgetting in Chile 2 gression, ultimately reveals not the limits of the law and of government — typically, transgression surpasses the limits of the law, thus reifying or calling attention to those limits—which fail to measure injustice, but the limits of human measurement itself. Or to put this another way, vengeance emerges here as the limit not of the law but of the “free, unrestricted” imagination, of the “free” subject. The victim, no longer obeying the rules of society or the restrictions of the unjust law, imagines vengeance as the most extreme method of restitution/absolution but, as happens in Amnesia, the injustice far outweighs the imagined measure or “scheme,” the imagination itself. Re- venge does not offer to these figures a glimpse of justice but of the final, irrevocable irrecuperability of the damages suffered: of the complete inad- equacy of both the legal and the illegal, the possible and the impossible, the real and the imaginary, the practical and the ideal, the actual and the utopian, obedience and transgression. In this sense, one can argue that military re- gimes, horrible as they are, are not disastrous for the national psyche as a whole (although they are obviously disastrous for certain individuals), since they also invariably hold the promise of better times: the times-supposed-to- be-better that citizens often come to believe will emerge when the dictatorship falls. The national disaster materializes only after the dictatorship (see, for example, novels such as Una sombra ya pronto serds by Osvaldo Soriano),'” when that promise is rescinded, when the time of utopian justice and equality is no longer put off but materializes: not as utopia but as ceaseless dystopi a disaster which snatches every hope for justice, every utopian future, indeed the future itself, into its abyss in advance. as It is no wonder then that victims ultimately accept truth, not justice, as compensation for the wrongs committed. Weschler emphasizes this point repeatedly, noting how today’s Brazilian and Uruguayan victims would ultimately take solace not in bringing criminals to justice—a possibility that, in any case, is no longer viable—but in obtaining the truth about the past. But this “truth” is not truth in its traditional sense: adequation of representation to actuality, of language to real events. Truth, indeed, here has little to do with Debs, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, trans. Peggy Kamuf (New York: Routledge, 1994). Fenves pointed outata roundtable discussion with Derrida at the University of Chicago that vengeance is also a justice beyond the law. He seemed to want to call into question Derrida’s notion of justice for its failure to address the closeness of vengeance and justice. 10. Osvaldo Soriano, Una sombra ya pronto serds (Buenos Aires: Editorial Su- damericana, 1990),‘suntios (seat & Jo 9s04p St {ns soUULAD sasso4ppe 19AaU ays ‘ssouaaiBi0j 01 orn2uU09 UJ ‘Fulop 249m Aoxp AeYAK tou Ivy I0U PinoD pure 0u Pip oy ing ‘sows axp Jo {ajmn# [dood sussou0> ssousati10y Jo woIssnosip sapuaay “smous01s9 YeyMaUOS I9ey UT St apuDSTY UF SSOUDAtHI04 Jo FUIPEDA 5 J9]EPSA\, “1 “ekZ—967 “dd “(R661 ‘S944 o8ea1yD Jo Ausiaatu zoey) wompuoy urunpy 2y, Apuosy YeUUEF] “ZI “pre dd ‘ssuaamy y 2pouyy Y 25 “IL Jo wopsed uo quawipnt suyut ‘ouLarp ku “spo8 ay Xq ‘uaatFs0y Ayqussod ‘poSipnl ag {yuo ue 2a pooipousjoqe| (due YY s9Yye) 9Ys Y>tyan aLANDe ISIUOLIOL Jo 10s siyp aetp spjoy ayg ,,ssurtas Arwayrer Aq ponrerwos asoy2 se yons SouUHID ano si9yaeIq IpUaTY “dey Ur ‘ss9U9A1310) uodn suOReI2qH|>P 494 U] ‘uondo stip paruap 2ze Aoyp ‘pares st Grunusu uy pure sysiund o1 uondo ayy dn Surar8 Kq aa18s0y Aqwo wey sumn91, “Ssauaar0} YIM pasnyuo> aq saAau Ue) sauUtD ased Jo Suruopied ayp ys st sty. y -uan8.10y aq 1ouUe> paystund aq wouues Yay side IP s9aatpoq ose apuasy ‘soiou s9[Y>s9M\ sv ANG _,"2uNINy atp premor dn uodo 01 pur dsed ay woxy soapaswoyp aseajas 01 sBuraq urUY smoypeE ‘aus -uan jo ousoddo asiaaid ayp st ‘puey saipo aup uo ‘ssauaarZiog “2ouapo1a 2) saremadiad 4yu0 ‘sonsntut jeontjod 01 asuodsaa & se ‘ooueoSuaa wey woWares sapuasy uo Bursno0} hq suiBoq apf wompuoy unwnzy 245, sapuosy yeu -ueP] Jo uoRD9s ¥ Jo Suypeas & ySNosp souMbut asoxp sossosppe 49]49s2\ Ayns AINA, axe OYA asoup 21810) 01 Dats Kap Se ss2U221T20F- fas Bury—as Aijems" 2ue pur (yaeap :sansntur yesipes sour ayp 424JNs 10U prp Aayp d9UES ‘SUINDTA .OT,, 9p 10U suojox94 o4v doy) Poatasns Buraey 105 Aastoosd Api’ 92y (eisouuay Jo rstuoSe0d ayp se yons) sarsesip Jo ssoatsans ayn wey a/qtssod 100 St [Ad] 1qioUE Uo puYy Zour SuruUISoq pure ‘uapang sased axp Jo soaposwoyD Suraatjar qnog snyp ‘9a1Bs0y uoy UD suINDIA asayp IEE Os saUNEID say apo -|Mouyppe 0 speUIWHD 94 UEM s[ENpIAIpuT poSuoIm reUp on JOU I S| Zssou -2a180} ing “pe we aoueaBuDA 10M ‘arej a4p Jo aonsnk SUINOIA Yry.ns JosueauU fq , Jonspsed,, [eUL a4p ‘anseaLU ASE] 94 10U st “UOISSay -¥od 10 uD >]MoUy2v-J98 UO siseyduD sip UDAIT :s9Apossno yse ASML 9M ‘sy 1 , "worssajuod S158 s1Ip Jo Jfosut woUTUIOA03 axp &q Jo sjourtULD Aq suse -Spaymouysn ax st ‘syne “yznsy “>8papnouy ayqnd yonut noid oe—yusoy 08 pur ‘os prp Aayp asaya ‘posnz0y Kou oyas ‘sxsm402 94 9198 OY —SyANA JO Spury asaup ‘soveotpUE sa]YPSaAA Se Dey UT “29KIsN/ Jo asuas e suMoIA TULA 20U9Y{ ‘S194MIZ01 ay 9Z1>eNISO PUL sseAeqUID YIU Yoryar asNsop>sip e ‘UOR -PULIOFUI UALOUY{UN Jo JO sfeUIUUEZD Jo a1Nsop>sIp axp 99dx9 IyrU DUO reYAA dU outo249A0 02 dats VINAVUL AO SAIDOTOIOL wzObstinate Forgetting in Chile 2B condemn radical evil. In other words, for Arendt, there exists no mortal or finite judgment of radical evil; not even forgiveness presents itself as an option. Mortals, it would scem, are capable of infinite wickedness; yet they possess only finite means (such as vengeance) to measure or weigh that wickedness, Human justice, human forgiveness, human anything, not only fall short of radical evil; they fall infinitely short. This is what the aborted act of revenge exposes to the ex-soldier in Amnesia: not only the finitude of mortal judgment, but finitude and mortality themselves—the experience of limits, or the limit-experience. Iv Is it possible that this limit-experience might point to a politics of postdicta- torship? To answer, I would like to look at two books which, in different ways, contemplate this question. The first is Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s Heidegger, Art, and Politics, where the crisis of modern politics is examined in terms of the end or limit of politics itself. The other work, Alain Touraine’s Return of the Actor, takes an opposite approach. For Touraine, the crisis of the political does not hinge on politics per se (politics as a general concept) but on certain contemporary political operations. Touraine believes that, while democratic practices and revolutionary social movements are today much less feasible than they were 25 (or so) years ago, these sorts of political possibilities can and must be redeemed. Lacoue-Labarthe tackles the difficult issue of the Heidegger Affair, and of Nazi Germany in general." His main thesis parts from a discussion of dertn’s notion of tragedy; here I will offer only a cursory, reductive summary of this portion of the argument." For Lacoue-Labarthe, Hélder- linian tragedy is, finally, man’s recognition of his mortality, his finitude. The finitude is realized when the tragic hero, touched by the gods, is separated from these immortals, irreparably reduced to his/her finite being, This “con- sciousness (resulting from the impossiblity of “remembering” or representing 14, Lam not directly touching upon the more famous, more obvious parts of Lacoue-Labarthe’s argument: his theory of a “National Aestheticism” and his notion of fiction, 15, Sce Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Heidegger, Art, and Politics, trans. Chris Turner (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), pp. 41-45.-ayqissod Asewey sip apew reyp uorsnyp aip pue—wsypeatdes—aaman , ssoptunt, 30 yessoarun ow! wawoAoU ayp SunMU se porrsosad siuaUTUas0 942 [Hood ayp tpoq 21.46 soaissoagns atp Jog “satutfos sear 2403 wrayIMog aUp JO ,sonIs4aAqNS 2Mp,, PUL _avo otp uaoanioq [2|fezed v aveap 2194 pinos uC “suUH MoKUAS UoREU v Jo Ase] Hep poresousd rey yp uo ,pasoduu,, avof ax wey aru, ay :90efd assy yp UT ss9UDIOA {go Sse1uey siatp poureasns size oup weep maf a4 Jo steous Aq sea 953094 “YL yosueauu £q mata oat souto> re1p 2[d1putsd yuyu! Jo ‘TeusD¥ “Terapua2sueN ‘yst‘sn smoys aypseqe"-2no2e"] ‘(poorsiapun Ajjeuonspess se) valqns wopows sty 1 ‘uoneiuososdos-ypps yo 1polqns ayp ado{qns wopous xp jo anbaL> sty aut -urexa om Jt poorssapuin aq kfuo Ue WsIZeN; Jo Suypeos soypueqe ]-2mn03e"] “mof oup :Xed soyiour Sunyeut Sq vormuoo03 sup jo jppsunty soaatpps staqny jo Ain sonsesey> yp KuUELIIIY ize, Jo ApaSen wuesoqe aup u}—suorssaaZsuen sty Jo) poysiund st 24 Syas Appsisad avou 01 Aarsedeaut sty Aq parsatuajdutos— Aayyeri0ws yo wontwS029x 2qp tim staqny s2Y Jo siy 10) skied oan3y axSen xp 4940 aq pjnos —]]e 1 [eAUDSs2 10U Sear Lopmiiug,, stip ieyp paunsse sueuss99 op ‘Kujewour penussso srt Zunuosy “oo Jo peaisut ‘st wey], “M9{ 94 o1uo apmatuy su Furre|dtp Aq a8p2]aour sip pamoarsip uoneu ap ‘Arenuo> ay2 UO “AypeuoUr ajqesaryeun sv Jo uontufoo93 a]qus9r axp yatas staqny stip so) pred J9sau KueUTIID ‘soDeIEYD orfen peord 4 atp ay[un 294, “>>41]-po8 :Jess9ATUN pu ‘UYU “eruopusdsueN ‘jeusaio aui022q 01 poysFnns Auewuay Zen ‘sunsy oxen 9yrT “Burg a1seN ypns of aauejquiasos Auuesun ue sseaq ‘ainBy a18eN daNd9|]O> v Jo UOIsI9A aos rou sures opyar “Kueaneg ZEN wYp soziseyduia assy oyEgeT -onose'] “wsizeN, Jo uoneuL|dxs Ue ONT VoISSNDSIP siq) Jo. ,uoREIsUEN,, s oypsege’P-anose'y st diyszoeroipisod jo suonesoqtjap wassad oy 01 6294 -yessoatun ‘Aresso2ou Auopusssuies ‘sary “eUsOID “SsofAsUT st JIPS aq jo Sungiou wey) Aayjqissod ayp yatar uoreru0szu09 sup o1—zouUDAsINo AU, “Yes oduiay souysty Jo *AayperzoUur [eRUDSs9 J>Uy/sty Jo WaLUHTpa]WoUD}>e 2]4eI0AI1I1 aypo1 pautiapuos st ays/ay weyp atp 01 pastuaruds ss9] st os>y ayy “uaIp Kpose UL 241]-po8 2q 01 a4Is9p 4p 4Oy ‘StuqNY 0¥ seq IsNUE OsAY oy ZWoWYstUNd ip st ‘spo axp jo jemesprpias a1p Jo‘9pnatuy Jo (js yp Jo wa] HB SyTEUE aeyar Kpastooad st Axpiqyssodun spsiuy wey AUSHUOU DHUyUE “SULAIP ISO] 94 YINAVUL dO SAIDOTOIOL vezObstinate Forgetting in Chile its historical representations. The subject, in fact, pre-exists these representa- tions; yet because it is transcendental, it remains invisible to the limited, sensual, human eye (the human eye is not all-seeing; it perceives only finite objects). Enter representation or mimesis: representation is the finite appear- ance of this infinite idea (the subject); it permits the transcendental concept to be perceived and intuited by historical beings. Or to put this in other terms, representation is a mirror which, possessing a frame, reduces the infinite subject to finite proportions; these reflections then bring the subject into the range of “human” vision. However, in the same way a mirror image is by definition not the actual thing that is reflected in the mirror, the historical representation of the subject is not itself the subject. This statement holds not only because a reflection is not “the thing itself” but also because, as we said, a reflection (like a mirror or picture) is finite, And as a finite object, an object with limits, an image or a representation is a being that comes to its end; as historical entities within time and space, objects/reflections “die.” Yet in the West true Being is linked to permanence. The Being of an entity by definition transcends all the passing, temporal, mortal, contingent manifestations or “mere images” of this Being. Lacoue-Labarthe uses this logic against itself, demonstrating that if the subject can only appear through its historical representations, then these mirror reflections or representations —as false, unreal, limited, mortal, con- tingent—do not come on the scene after the transcendental subject is born, but pertain to that birth: there is no presence of the subject before representa- tion. The limit or death of the subject (representation) always already belongs to that subject. The subject, that is, isa priori marked by the finitude which its representations ultimately represent. The subject of self-representation, then, is for Lacoue-Labarthe defined by a refusal to recognize not its connection but its essential connection to finitude/representation. In fact, the transcendental subject uses representation as a means to draw the line between itself and its own historicity. Historicity, finitude, and representation are deployed so that the subject can disavow its link to this same finitude. In other words, representation ultimately shows the “1° only by revealing the difference between this “I” and the representation itself between the infinite and the finite, the eternal and the mortal, the ideal and the historical —much in the way a mirror image (insofar as it is recognized as such) always unveils the distinction between a reflection and the real, and thus the real itself.as that which is not a reflection. ‘The Nazi subject, as the foundational principle of the Nazi nation, merely acts out the drama of the subject itself. Yet the representation or finite objectten 1g dd ‘rouaay user] tu ssuswanopy pores fo Suiynpy 24,1, ut suresno |, Jo voWsnostp s,seqo38y 25 *L1 2g {[uo p[no> uo] >qe4 sty, AWOUIDAOU! [eID0s v J]asHt Jo Pu UI“IOU St ,s]>q>4,, 24101 Zuspatuos soparu6> (4140} 0s pur ‘Tendsoy v jooy>s &‘Asor>e5 v 40) WOU -us9ao8 atp) yoryp ut uorjaqos v “9[dusexd s0-f “uoneMys a1aui v 2 paonpas 9q yoUUE> a10J 1941 WOWIIAOU! 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The key word for Touraine here is representativity: “Democracy must be identified with the notion of representativity, above all."!* He believes that democracy is a true or strong democracy only insofar as it opens a space for social movements or for new coalitions. These coalitions, while they must grow out of specific conflicts and must form independently of state control (so as not to reflect already existing policy), must also attain “representativity” within the State. A genuine democracy would allow these “non-State” social movements eventually to intervene in the State apparatus. This tells us why ‘Touraine can praise “minority movements” —what we, in the United States, might call identity politics—only with great trepidation. Such movements, according to Touraine, defend either a private space, or a public but nonpo- litical space; they struggle in opposition to, but in isolation from the State. Touraine, as we said, is seeking something else: coalitions which effect change at the State level, at the level of policy making and history. Rather than dwell on the possible problems within Touraine’s theories, I want now to examine his final remarks. Touraine concludes by calling for a return to the subject, dubbing the subject the only possible political actor of our time. By subject, of course, he means the subject who is represented by State policies. Yet he is not referring to any State; he is alluding to a democratic State whose practices and laws would be the result of the coalitions we have just now been discussing. Within Touraine’s democratic program, that is, State policy would reflect its political subjects because those subjects would make the policy. The State, ideally, would become the sum total of these various subjects of self-representation. What Touraine fails to acknowledge, however, is the very issue we have been discussing: “representativity” hinges on the problem oflimits. This is not only true for the ontological and epistemological reasons outlined above: a representation is always a reflection; and reflection, like a mirror, must recur to frames, borders, and boundaries. Itis also true for practical reasons, reasons of praxis. After all, no State, however ideal or utopian, can represent the interests of every subject (this is not only impossible; it is undesirable since it would mean that the democratic State would have to make room for every 18, Alain Touraine, Return of the Actor: Social Theory in a Postindustrial Society, trans. Myrna Godzich (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press), p. 151“2p -d (G661 ‘28 p2pnoy SYs0K MON) woHESING) ws KaHTUPT 24, {nuspy Jo woRsang) 24a pUE SOHO 2HeIOWPC,, “NOW [AVEY) 2S “6 aup “uorsuorxo £q ‘pur a2ejd assy ouput suonezedas ysns ourusiap suone>s somod Ava atp suso0u0> sonyjod ‘prarsut suonesedas Jo spur a24p (PUTEINO,L, soop se) auunsse 40 wosy ued ouue> Kepor sonyjod ‘ano swutod ayynopy [eAUEYD se ‘ioey uy, Teonyfod pur onqnd, ap pue ,jesnsjod-uou pue dread, 942 U2) aq uonounsip s,2utesno,], Ul a]qIstA IsOUE St ‘9ssnoD Jo “TesHJ>H StH, L, (SULAHL {jo Sumas ayp aued afar] ur sy ypay ‘sjsu! jeonstod axp azuay pur) jeonod 24p {Jo sin axp s9ptsuo> 01 ‘spsom sa40 ut TesTyD# sty —2pMALUy Jo UFEWOP 2 pur sonyod jo ‘Saranequasaadas siya pur sonrjod Jo diysuoneyas oun yStostp djunp o1 dppsroosd pesnyoa sty Summbris> wre J $,Aayaneiuasoidas,, 0 wis}anoe enmjod Suionpas 40} suresnoy, anbnu> oy wu st ‘uous “uonusruy jy -pouasodas rou aze oy sso13e atp Jo dn-ayeuu 9ep Ut yIYS bP ysnosyp weep sioize jeIsos tou Jo woREUassados ay YStONp Ss>] p>2>d[e s1 foyjod aieag “uayp ‘ouresno,, so, “Aaysourus pareyors“papnypxs ‘pezuasaudoaun {wou sa1eg au ausor9q UIP siO129s jeuTseUE asoyLL, “2I@nNs AsOA Ip Uurqpi sisoaavur utewo9 pur ssoroas ureu99 Jo vonez|feurs sew ay YsNOsA os op Aquo Kau ‘onsse ays st ixayroguoroudoe so snfosut ang ‘Soyod sn" [Pa plno> foxp pur ‘soapsuatp stzaui9aow 2x2 Ut pasjoaut 2jdood atp Jo Aarolews aya Jo seal] 2yp aye [JPA pIno> ‘spyoMm J9yI0 UE ‘SIUSUIDAOW [EIS s,IUHs no, spuewrap ssoysom euro ay Jo mo yp] U99q aavy Meu ‘S2AppswI>Hp s1oxi0m amp kq wioygoad ,reatd,, ¢ se 0 ayp32ds {ys0a0 sv pouldop “rey sm ‘aoejdsys0m o4p urpim sonsst s uous0.M ss2sppe or [ey Kew Aoyjod s89U SHB 1K -Aonjod Saox20} Ayipou Aqqeioaey Keus wau19Aour sJ9330m uaa w ‘oydurex> tog aiesauad Ayjeanatpod sy stuauraAoW [eIdos ayp etp so1tfod (feUONNSUE 430 a189g) 24{qnd axau ayp Kq poruasosdas aq Kyusesso29u OU qIEo4 IAs ‘Sepsis soyfeurs uoao ‘roqpo soapasuuntp UTyt soquey Kpessazdu s[sEn.As ayeIs-oU >eoup “ej Uy ‘suontsod jeuonmMnsuYeruoUTUs9A08 jo woRJaI[e we Or Super] Ayjeapr sioyguos sejnonred wosy a8 s01> ‘pres 9m se yty ss SUDUIDAOUL [E1908 40 suonypeo> s,autesno |, Jo os[e ang sontjod ayras Jo Ayuo rou 2 St SILL, S| Jo SPUD 994p ep 0x p9DU page ‘suossHap ayqssoduunt sdeysod SInougIp yons inoge st ‘uoneuasosdas jo re uv ayQ] ‘ssnyod Lue propuy -Auolew eq} 01 sureuad reyes pu os 2uTWADp anu HurUPoUT‘ajdoad aip jo Aauofeur e siuasoudos Surodpues ueidonn e wo4y u2s2 ‘uoneruasosdax Teontjog “Apogiieaa you ang sparuaszidas 9q 01 pamoype 2g plnoys «pogtur Aovioowsp jeapt UE UnpIA ‘KurEuED “souaIU wELATEO! 30 qpes Jo ssouatiodxo ays AYA St SILL “pio s2ysoun poou j—surouuas ‘usarue? po90s ku fo yBnoys ‘uu prokog (221191) serv ng ‘ua 24s 08 wy ua2g anny J pu BUN Gus 04 2u08 2004 J ‘22."Os24 a9 pasnnyxa oavy J aeap pur api Jo 240 ‘Kjoy>uEjauu pur Joasestp ased Busou go “souaisixo jo ‘Kouafiin Jo Jamew v soneur sgppg yp se sueadde ‘yas ayn puofoq aauds v ‘ooeds ayn we auourow a4) —a9e/d S194 PINoroYm 194 dip sypeap uso si sofieu9— (js 2up Jo algo ue ‘paretsdosdde 9q 01 1924q0 tut se 20u) 191O se JO ap OBeBua pur Yoyo axp soFesu polqns oy, “aati weIp 40} pueuLsp & st az2yp UOYAs [UO J9yO UWL OI s{[P9 2U0 AQNOP o; AUHDIA sitp soluap aonisnfur peoypes rep eyauezuaszides oup “Kam22K9ns Sppsiooad ‘uous ut ‘sumeu jersourunt‘soeds ssp a4p 02 8912 pynoss “99/qo est “yoy pa{qo ue out 04 40 wy 139AU0D ,19UNO, stp aveLsdosdde O1 20H tunota v areanous pjnoss Tey Ay g4[e He ‘SHR Jo woygosd ayR smUp pu 4>INO tv affefuo ypps © pinoys ya 40g JOYIC) 2Kp 49f puruap “us92U09 stIp pUos4 uiono Spur 307 Wa92u09 s.J]9S DXp St 4A2mo4} ‘9494 ans e A|perade st eH AA -(2ueuruiop) urewop 81 apisino ang *w199U00 5 9s SEP St mip 22470 Sumpatuos suonesynoo(qo pur suonetsdosclde sit puosoq uous go Burupiawos ‘ouou pas st 242y2 1oys spusf ing “wuay] yp 01 S908 “yppsut SISNEYRD yps ay voy Squo sofsousa ay ‘uoaid © ou st ‘x94 Ino YOU st JN SHI twp. 22tuSo294 01 zueWodu st ‘sax2M0F] 9422S 18 st LAAP PUL 21 "240}9391p Sua sup yp auoursefu axp uy 92epd-si-aye1-p]no>-oyar-s94p0-24p1 01 Ng satpo a4po1 sjdunis pasodxo 20U st ps ouuy y "voRe|EYUUE Jo warp axp Jopun “qeys Apeosye sKeaspe s| nq ‘sou9ss9 Ue sI se aouEApe UE Uo ‘pooruesEnd jou st Suraq sit quosunuos pur yevsoUr 29u9q ‘SnrULy st j]>S aup jt swonIsodosd Suruanygiuy v st ‘poziseydus 2q pynoys 2 ‘Sy L “su sassossod 230j>2041 Jyps siya aexp pur ‘ye 20u st gps amp ae 2o"y ayduurs oy dn Zunwod ‘yp Dip puosog sseade 3940 we Uay astxa Kuo Ue> 49py0g 40 ILI] E:sNOLAGO 34 pinoy si fanoy a2cpins & uC “AuadTe Jo sonyyod ¥ Or pu “saxIp2 UE OD 94H tue yim uaua8eSu> ue OF peo] ued muy] ayp or aansodxa [uo ANN UT -f4011339) St pusix9 01 99uDy pur ‘ooeds ,s91p0,, 9) Js 99s 01 alqns a4p smoTTE Y>Hy 9 A>a/go we AfosdUr st dys 40 91 ,J0KP1O,, we Aypemase st worewUasoidos-g[9s Jo D2lqns a4p 304 “uossod sipoue uoxs ou ‘sn, oa{qns_ip jo a2uezeadde ayp 40} aavds w sudo yoryas Auowzion yp Afosow stat SBu1ag anoxia st ypsar olgo seep “Bug 899s ang avo sit Jo Su9q ou sossassod yprys ‘oMeunt JosatUE a¥H"T Igo Ue LOY} yo sppsusios uaya pue stsod ypryo Sturoq e st pafqns aypssavoyyoy se 22nn90US VINAVUL dO SAINOTOIOL 4Obstinate Forgetting in Chile 231 capitalism), want to eradicate—might also represent the ontological “foun- dation” of important postdictatorship communal or political activity. At the very least, the recognition of this limit-experience points to an alternative to vengeance and amnesty, both of which, as demonstrated above, impede transition, obstruct any break from the past. For if the limit- experience in fact pushes the self toward the Other, commitment to the Other represents a gesture that neither “forgets” (as does impunity) nor avenges devastation, loss, and radical injustice, Rather, this commitment stands as an active response to the disaster, a means for building coalitions which are the result, even the “illegitimate child” of the disaster, but move beyond it, ing possible future generations, The limit-self, turning toward the Other via a third party—the limit itself: radical injustice, disaster, death— opens toward the future as it “remembers” or mourns the past; in essence, this self “actively forgets” the unaccountable vis-a-vis the production of the novel organizations. Hence, the limit-experience, not subjectivity (as Touraine would have it), stands as the condition of possibility for a (not zhe but a) new political actor, for novel political organizations after dictatorship, for forgive- ness (not the victims’ forgiveness of the military but their forgiveness of themselves) and, finally, for the “ungluing” of the present from the past, a restarting of time: the beginnings of the transition process. My claim, then, is not merely that the limit-experience, for those trapped in the postdictatorship predicament (such asthe characters of Amnesia), is the prerequisite for a better history; for these people, itis the prerequisite for any history whatsoever. No doubt, a reader could complain that this theory of the limit-experience remains just that: a theory. The criticism is completely valid but it is also points to the need to address precisely the questions that are raised in this study. I fully agree that my study might be improved via an analysis of actual postdictatorship organizations (such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo), ones made up of individuals who have actually gone through the “lim experience.” Have the kinds of coalitions Iam discussing formed? Can the Ifthey have formed, are they effective? If they have not, why not? Lalso might have examined the specific nature of the va traumas which expose the postdictatorship self to his or her limit: the experi- ence of torture, of exile, of hunger, of poverty, of mistreatment by the courts, of artistic or literary repression, and so forth. Do these different “limi experiences” (indeed, taking place in different nations), if they give way to community, give way to distinct kinds of communities? Perhaps, too, I should have offered a “demonstration” of my theory: How exactly might the politics of the limit-experience be put into pi jous sorts of experiences or actice?“29E— HEE 1661 TOU ST TOS “42272 moog fo jooyrs many 248 40f pousmof Kydosoprya Kayne svompDAD AL, 78812910N,] 2qs,pusn paesgg © * Xisnousg ssauppy few039>y tp 24 |. 022224 2n9 asodddns uy, “Kesso si ut ysukg saydonsiayc) £q yuucg nd sisoxp avetg axp Jo woREAdepe we ueqp s1ow Suntpou auosoados sydesBesed a9} euys Aur ur yoy and svopy UL “TZ ,soakyeue 1 24 —sontod pu soupo axp 22uoy—apmaquy up susofiod ‘soypeordde puv sourjdiosip Aueu su jo yea Jo sus] ays BuyzquBo293 “orga. poolosd ysiurouoWy uNe'yT “seurdPsipssut ‘TeunuToD e jo Arpqissod 2p. squosoadoy ospe at sonyjod diyssowerstpisod nu v jo ,trorrepunoy, ({e>qpyeue |}) jrfojovo xp Afuo rou siuasosdas a2ustsadxo-nusty oyp weyp ‘soures ‘Kes (on sta ‘de oxp ype ur [py Sdtyssorexoapwsod jo w1a}qosd 4p 24p0s [98 sud, snourea jo soupia8on Susurol ayp wep Spur on yOu sts, -24701 oys0Un OF 40/pun “enjoys fo uos soysoun 04 yyv7 ssn Kya yotyan ‘08 n> so snfs02u08 2004 | (712 ‘gsguats potanod v ‘unuiossty uo ‘s}argz0 uo ‘4st2qurdwa wo 40) isuo2ys 0s sou}d -Dsip saypo Jo pau 242 01 snyp pure “Ny str 1 auydI9sIp {4989 Jo aunsodxo ay st Sonsnfur earpes Jo 40 ‘iasestp Jaye Aarunuw0D Jo ‘dryssonennypisod Jo Apms 9411, “Aijewonipuosun os szop ay pue ‘yseur ayp sossiurt asuodsoy {aaa asnedoq Aessa siup UE possnasip saMeU o4p O1 astiodsas Joyo Aue wed aienbope sso] 40 as0ut ou st {xoD4.Z,"92ASMLUE peorpes Jo am] 2yquAyOS>vUN 9Hp asureSe dn auu09 soypeosdde asaya dn aye aySias au0 yor jo sueour Aq (Ayd ~osoyiyd ‘soupms yeanano ‘osmesony ‘sou2!28 peonsjod *Asoasty) souydosip 2p Joq|eo uonrppe ut'soyproadde snowses asoup “ey Uy voReaseAap 2>yJe sontod Jo/pue Ayunuuuio> yo uonsonb axp aajosos Ue>—uistanioe upnpau ‘ssuods “a1 ao4po Aue sou—Ks09qp Jou ‘stuesFosd eanpead 30U ‘uoneasosqo [eousd “uu soipiou 2eep 29¢y 2tp H:0uFt aaamoy ‘stusworosduut agyssod 29U,L VIWAVUL AO SHIDO TOOL zell Representation, History, and Trauma: Abstract Art after 1945 Herman Rapaport In recent years there has been increasing sensitivity on the part of academics to the experience of psychological trauma suffered by victims of war. Increas- ingly we are beginning to ask why itis that so little has been done about the experience of trauma for those who have undergone extreme hardship and unspeakable suffering. Why has the historical acknowledgment of the trau- matic sufferings of victims of persecution and war sometimes been so difficult toachieve, even in societies that are notin historical denial? Although cultural works can never take the place of legal justice, psychoanalytical therapy, and material restitution, they have nevertheless been enlisted as substitutes. Works of art, in particular, are traditionally given the cultural privilege of addressing what much of the rest of society cannot: the fact that historical trauma exists and that we must remember what has happened to victims, if not literally, then metaphorically. This was especially evident in German expressionist art immediately following the First World War, though instances could be found elsewhere, as in Picasso's Guernica, which responded to the traumas inflicted by the Spanish Civil War. Immediately after the end of World War II, the extent and extremity of crimes against humanity became public knowledge as descriptions and pho- tographs of the Holocaust were disseminated in the popular press and war criminals prosecuted at Nuremberg. The dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, while not deemed a war crime, registered in the popular imagination as an unspeakable act of destruction that resulted in unimaginable suffering on 233anyjno yBty Jo wowuyst|qeisoo1 a4p ‘9sN09 JO “2anany s,2dosng SuyutUNs919p oy9M 1etp soutto3 stWOUoDe pur jeanyod du stp pur at paenurasu ep YOR -eiseaop [eotsyd oxp andsap adaooe 01 nou sea rey eIIq JEITIOASTY & JO qrewnoye otp ut paremats éjsnonsiquue seas agt] uoyas pouod v Hunuasosdos jo sojdwexa onistae soypo ase umnugy visnpy fo aBon4urpy ay.) $J9pUIqsse UIA, souIPY puE saunICT s,ypsiag xepy “s1e94 sea atp BuLINp s4oquious AyruTEY UM aroyp uaa2 pavavor Kapiqisuodsos peortpe Jo ype] 3194) Jo sooyduros9e Buy ss9ptp Suoure Kuews96 us wuswuspafmouspe jo 42x] appns ay S>p>zvosy> ae aeyp Ut pouad zeausod aieipouuu step 01 sosuodsox AzesoM| wsaHuONS oy Suowe st waoyy ayy slog WUUID ‘odosngy Uy -yIPsHt a1UAas 10U Korsty, aeyp 2ops0 ut ised ayepautunt ax Jo SuMI28s05 21GoreIs v aBesNosUD pjnom ey santfeas s1uoUOD2 pur ‘peonypod ‘[eI20s mau YstqeIs> oF PaLTEMY s401916 ay} 2K “pury sup jo azmadns feotsorsty soleus e paysusts wwayop weep Kueurs2 pur uede( 20} e901 ysnoud woDyjNs IGnopoU sem 3e48 9tp. Jo UONDNANSp jroisdyd ayy, "sed op yaa yeosg feuEIsY WY e poumnsse Ie~P oREZt -[ew4ou jo potiod v jo uontsodurt a4p 2[qeu9 01 padjoy sauts> sea uo sn20} pany 2x1 eA POA puorrg axp Jo pus axp Joye SforerpowsU wey moUy 244 “iepuroiur ewinen pur ‘dorsty uoneiuesoadss soy jo Fupuers -sapun uv so} 1ng “uistuONeNsge AeaUsod Jo Surpuraszopun UE 40} <[uo 10 juesytusis st neuen pur “Peouorsty ‘[euoneasosdos 2q 01 pourdap sxe23q {Jo apua8so\uoouOU pur 22usHia\u0D a4 IeYA MOYs O1 THEA | NOTTOS TH eH ‘qunosse aaayp ay) uy ‘hewNEN pur ‘ferTOrsty ‘[euoNeIUasosdos seat Tryp ase. ay yal yeaaq or papuodsos wistuorsensqe ou YAH yp “eu [e>qsOsTY a8eBua 01 Aayjiqeut so yesnyos ojduns © Buraq wosy sey sorImo}{ “49410 snosawnu pur “i[eC] Jopeages Asus xLPY ‘OsseIg Oqed TUYALY Bmpr] “25019 81095 ‘Kes ‘Jo sour 242 Suoye vumen iidop or pasn oq aystur rey jusjuoo Aue jo Aayqussod ayp paresfou zea aup aye ze DeAsqe Yon “vue eouorsty jo uonsidap axp soy ajquuins Ajpeonsipas 23908 wisiqn9 pur “tst[eo4 sans ‘wistuorssasdxo searad seoaay ay Ue Jo Aayjiqesyeodsun ayp. Aq passouppe ag {tuo pinos aors1y Jo Ayjqesyeadsun ay u2yas ae Ur paisua sou ey am rey 491 pjno> 9u0 seo] AxDa axpay “wusIONDeAISAe OVUFIYLY vo Kea £q oj}0) Kpreypourun ssw9k ased 24 01 puodsos 07 pousas ae yonus ea ou Hu aqp Ur ‘Spo “UmoUy ax0}aq s9A9U DAD IHEUINEN kg PaZLIDIZESLYD LOK pry Gorsty “oor ‘21974 “uonezuodea iueasur paatasns oy as0mp1 Jo ued ou YINAVULL dO SAIDOTOIOL vezRepresentation, History, and Trauma 25 was itself central to the maintenance of the historical break after the physical clean up of Europe. That is, art was encouraged to show a representational break with the past that indicated the permanent presence of a historical caesura marking the so-called “postwar period.” Recognition of a historical break should not overlook the fact that popula- tions ravaged by war had experienced what one could also call a traumatic break. This concerns what Cathy Caruth puts in the form of a question: “is the trauma the encounter with death, or the ongoing experience of having sur- vived it?” In considering the historical interval that separates the end of World War II from the beginning of the postwar period, one is necessarily consider- ing such a traumatic break in which the difference between what Caruth calls a “crisis of death” and a “crisis of life” or survival is not an entirely decidable interval. Indeed, the time that separated the war from the period that fol- lowed was largely a formal historical break that was contradicted by the traumatic break that accompanied it. That is to say, ifthe historical break can be said to absolutely demarcate a time that is decidedly different —the time of a decided change of affairs if not of social, cultural, and political reality —the traumatic break failed this test of time, given that the traumatic break was a narrative of belated experience, a compromised moment that lived in suspen- sion between what Caruth calls “the story of the unbearable nature ofan event and the story of the unbearable nature of its survival.”" What I am calling the traumatic break is a temporality in which the subject is condemned to remember and imaginatively relive a past that is sealed off by a historical break whose new political world order insists upon a radical forgetting of the past and a privileging of the present and future. That the historical break was intended to suppress acknowledgment of there being a traumatic break was, of course, part of a realpolitik that had decided society should not look back at the past but move on as ifthe past were unimportant and dispensable, as if it were a past that was, in essence, incapable of deter- mining anything that might happen after the historical defeat of Japan and Germany. Helpful in the fabrication of this historical illusion was the flight of art into radical abstractionism, since this stylistic move was in and of itself a representational break with not only fascism but with many of the avant gardist movements that had been in effect during the prewar period, among them, expressionism, fauvism, surrealism, and cubism. 1, Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univer- sity Press, 1996), p.uo amyno uradoang Supe ue dn dosd o1 pig sip ur quowus9908 weot.9uIy yp Aq pasueape wonanaisuo> jeoioyoop! ue sta wstuorss2adxo essqe Wed “usury Snegying 0 Suipsosoy“adoang wi Sunured wensqe jo uoneUTULsP yp sop wueoqruds soqpes seas [jus 904y pue wsipenprsput yo Aoyoapr sw wey pue sea oyp saye Xfprerpourut enuanyur Aqje>xBojoap! seas wisjuotssozdxo pensqe ursuoury wip pane meqqing 839g “Uy wapopy fo PPL 242 2018 Yoox may mopy ws] ‘uan08s0} Sfpsnu> ud9q pey ELUNE FE SE OU SEE IIS -yeoaq aneumen e Suyyje> woq aavy | reyss aziseydur> {naa 204 pip sisnse pur siosoduioo rensqe Jo Yeas [LoHOISTY 2NDtRIe ayy ‘sonyjad ur sy “cho Puno sdors a1ana0 asoyas put weadf>s APO94Ip 239% sojdioursd asoyan ‘ueupuoyy stg Josanao1d sfoyp ys syeosg [eouOIsy © Ol uonepps uy wwourdoppaap seasrsod s12xp yu2ts0 pjno> ssaruted eS “UIPAPN ayl uistuonseaasqe [eatsmut Jo 4osan2oad snowy v Jo 20s 2yp tear E34 rouoisiy e uodn uonsensqe ov aySty s1o4p W>LI0 pjnoo stosodut09 Aaes0d Puiaiuo) se asn{ “9pIse 19s 10 par29}2e1q woaq Futavy spenuossou yp Te “Ue se aouesvadde Jo 1uaWIoW a1njosqe Sit 01 safes UL 920g paddins st Zunured ‘son “anpoa yewuourasout jo ss9003d & Xq, urosoyan AataneBou oarssousosd Jo auo se $8ojooppi stip pamata aavy ‘warp Suoure Bsaquasg waUID].) ‘SUELOIIY 29S uonounxo st yo att] 24p Bursary" 2uDy “08 s98uo] ou pyno>.: y>ryos puosg uu] s.eumyn tre ypeos Ajduns poas ae veKp stpBue| wersqe yons or Sunuted {yo uripaw ap ysnd o1 aduuone s1es9qypap & sem Qa9yp 4ST Jo 25E9 NP UES -Sunuted jo qpeap axp jo suzso1 ut Buryunp weas ppnow sz9upI0 PuE UTS] S9A% socet 20" yp £q aetp ze os Bunured awensqe ysnd o1 porn ospe sispse wrod cong wap Surstsdans pur sog6l ep Suunp wswwoner -uasoadou fe21s03sty pue uoRENsy Jo s2sn jeoxBojoopr apesos91 2p WALD -yormpen ised quia yeoug peuoneiuasosdas 40 2H>qRs>e ainjosqe ue arensuowap or sea 2isnu sou styp Jo rurod yeo1Hojoapt 24 ‘poopuy sea pauten atp U9so 01 aqesoylioopur Cqjesmonas sea Ypres 2180 Sursodwoo yur yp wstuomensge ow! swysty paruasosdos OUON, Bin] pu “zajnog 213944 ‘uasneypppors ZuIoypey ,wsrueusoqeyy sed, qs Ip opun ws1jeisas ueMoqey sedans puE WIP THoq 09 ssasodwo> wradosng| unos pojqeua stip asnesoq ‘sea axp yo sep asey ax UE PayTDy Yq Pry (srry axp &q s2soduio> avesova8ap e se pauisap) weq2yy Hos YoU WK jua1udAuo9 seas 1] Buisodusos peoisnuu Jo pppy sep sezuayeseY> VoENAts sues DULL ‘Cop ‘wisiBopoypKsd “wsyeanSy “wstuorssasdxa) own Joye UE Jo We {wosy swouray> [enpiso2 urEUo> o1 pauiBap 219% re wIsIONDENSqe seaLoxd jo stoadse asoup yatas 3eouq e paruasoidos ieyp shea ur ogre ‘soanesadat ‘a1 Jo awos Suinunuos Aq use wsapow Jo AFojoaqar vay{o3q 24p Burrows Jo offeaueape ayp pey osje 3eauq [edoneruasoidas xesnisod ayp “Aypearxopestd VWAVUL JO SAINOTOIOL 98Representation, History, and Trauma American values. Although this view is controversial, there certainly was an attempt by Americans to provide the visual arts in Europe with a “new start.” As if to endorse a total historical break, American abstract expressionists argued that the horrors of World War II should not be depicted. They argued that showing such scenes of carnage would merely trivialize the past and turn it into kitsch. As Guilbaut puts it, for American artists in the immediate postwar period, “ithad become impossible to represent the diffuse anxiety and fear that defined modernity without falling into the grotesque or the facile, without, ina word, making kitsch. Dwight Macdonald said it well: to describe was to accept the unacceptable. It was to incorporate an object into an expressive system by means of a code that sapped all critical force and revolutionary significance.”? Behind this phobia of kitsch, of course, lay the communist legacy of the 1930s in which leftist artists like Diego Rivera were in danger of becoming nothing more than the illustrators of propaganda Indeed, abstract expressionism was, if anything, tied to the deep resentments leftist artists had in being relegated to the role of describing oppression for the sake of some very obvious communist orthodoxies. So that when the end of the war came, American expressionists took pains to avoid what Guilbaut calls “the trap of illustration.” Abstract expressionism’s resi on the ills of society and history is commensurate with Theodor Adorno’s remarks in Negative Dialectics that historical trauma can no longer be respon- sibly depicted. “After Auschwitz, our feelings resistany claim of the positivity of existence as sanctimonious, as wronging the victims; they [the feelings] balk at squeezing any kind of sense, however bleached, out of the victims’ fate.”* ‘These two propositions are nonsequiturs, even if the second statement is the reverse ofthe first: just as itis problematic to feel any positivity of existence, it is problematic to suppose there is anything good to be extrapolated from the negativity of inexistence, that is, the deaths of the victims. What is to be had from our feelings about the Holocaust is, nevertheless, something that Adorno calls “absolute negativity,” a negativity that “shatters the basis on which speculative metaphysical thought could be reconciled with experience” nce toturning artintoa visual commentary Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1983), p. 197. Further references will appear in the text. 3. Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialecties (New York: Contiuum, 1973), p. 361. Further references will appear in the text.Aqsoruted jeuonspes paproae ey uoneiuasoidos Jo pour v aysinos foyp Kp Suistadans 001 aq 104 Kews ay SyvO3q [eouOIstY e YALA yeaxg SHeUINEN v PI7|LH sstuoissoidxa iensqe ay ‘ousopy a¥f] Aweyp S4apEsuo BuO JT (11) 24Nse> Jo ue uv “voRes2 Ngo Jo Ue UP auHEDIq Ue opreHaurar,, sind mneqEND SY, 30uD}941put [e102, pa|fe> oUsOPY Tetpa pastas 2xey O1 TUT IL EY JO uontuSooa1 paSeinorstp ose a] “ystiad 01 ajdoad pasneo wetp s101304 [e>UOIsIY esony axp Jo Sumo8s0} pue wos Keave SurwIM v BurTesnodu Jo 22uanbasuo ap pey stuaao [esuorsty oNeUIMeEN Jo SUINIA 242 40} 1adsos [eUoNEIUDS -ordosuou sip 1eqp st Yoxomoy ‘sneuID|qorg “Sunured jo w40) 2p uIysnowp posydeiou oanenaads yrs aouatsadxo oysuos91 o1 Surkaa jo den ayp owt [[e} 10u pjnom aeyp onatpsoe uP jo suvaur Kq ased [eoqsorsty 149223 2xp ssospPe ‘oysuvour e 40) Suryoo] 2100 Koyp ooeyd Buppes sea sen yp apse U9AD ‘St TEU, -vuinen pur Asorsty jo wonerussosdar snsase 24p INOgE UOISN|>UO> JETT © ‘or auios pey sistuorssoadxo ioenisqe ue>uaUry “II JeA\ PHOM JO 5301304 2p JO uoneiuasaidas snsnue ue Jo Aayiqyssod axp pauonsonb pey oy 2604 241] “syeaug jesuorsty pur sneunen v Buype> Yaaq 2Avy | YA Jo 22uaHs9AU09 Dip susaouo avy WoRIpen Yala »eoq [euoNEIUDsaidos v seIMsUT SUI? dip souapy “11 MOUY a4 se ze 40 ‘Aydosopsyd *KBojo1D0s Krorsty Aq podsesd oq youu oud sttp “Yypns se eEp pur asuodsas yesnajno a]qyssod Aue Jo oprsino sey exp 2u> v parenodiad pey size axp exp st suonEM2ods s,oWLOPY {jo suiSscur oy ut Suzo,0y st aetp worsnuo> au auas2yJIpU se sorEadsod ayy jo Gazansa{qns so Zuy99} axp o1uE parejsuEN se suINDIA Jo ssouparen -vasayyipun ayp ,“2902s24J1PU! [eI s|Je> owZOPY Tey yatm feap o1 posedosd 9 01 sey auo Anuopt aand pur 1aneBau ainjosqe awe 198 o2 a>urs “euMEN pur Sunsoygns penprarput jo Axsytoads ayp soBp2] Moura" weyp se we Aq passs22" aq Jouure> wey AANUapr sand sup sta] “(Z9g) ,kpeap se Amnuapt o4nd Jo au9yd0 -soyd ayp paunsyuos zaumypsny,, ,sunseou! DanensturEEpE,, se 101404] 2. jo utod ayp sit pjnom step aouts ‘sioolqns yenprarpur sv ‘ozouxhue ‘sum218 yp auasaidas or asuos oyeuF ou pjnom 31 eA Ava e YS UT paDEnsqe se {ypsu Suypey 242 “spsom otpo uy ,;oansvow 2anensturEape yp podeoso oy asotp Jo SuLAp ays 9} Or punog 1984 e st sty—uauNTDads v ang ‘PaxP Oy [enprarpur ue so8uo] ou sear 1 sdures woneNUD2UOD 2Ip UI,, H2A2MOH{ —INOGE ay8no1q 9q pjno> uonerouosos stya—r9yINg & Aq any Fur9q Jo4pjos w Jo we ‘kes ‘Kouaflunuos kq passe a2ustsadxa ayy se—ou2odxa jenpratpur ue st ajqepuenszopun sea qpeop se Suo] sy “1ySnomp peotskydeiour aanieynaads quest Sneumen so,amoy ‘20uatiadxo Suyjrouosas Jo o]qudeo [Jas 249.4 syi0.4 Jer zuanpsny 210}9q “St rey)—ased 9xp UI reUD st voLotdsns s,ouopy “syeaaq jeouoisiy © qpias saprouo> wtp yeouq neue yin yeauq euonmussoxds e sorenbo owopy WYP stseq stIp UO sta] “(Z9) -|n3— VIAVUL dO SAINOTOIOL 86Representation, History, and Trauma 239 responses to human suffering and historical calamity, a mode of representa- tion that effaces the content of both history and trauma. This observation is relevant to the abstractionist practice of naming a painting “Untitled.” After the war, many abstract works appeared under this rubric, While one cannot generalize about all paintings entitled “Untitled,” 1 think there is an argument to be made that in some cases the untitling of art approaches Maurice Blanchot’s conception of the newtre. It is a notion sum- marized quite well by Leslie Hill in Maurice Blanchot. The neutre is a name for the namelessness of the name, a concept whose purpose is to conceptualize that which precedes all concepts. Neither immanent nor transcendent with regard to language, itis both a word and not a word, modest trace that in its very discretion bears witness to the discretely nameless character of that to whichit refers . . . theneutre is pethaps best understood asa movement of perpetual effacement and re-inscription that is logically prior to all conceptual distinctions.* In painting, the word “Untitled” can have affinities with the neutre in that the “untitled” may have the effect of a perpetual effacement and re-inscription as it reiterates itself in the oeuvres of many abstractionists. Furthermore, “un- titled” is not only a name for the namelessness of the painting’s name, the placelessness of the painting's name, or the conceptlessness of the painting’s name, but it is also a word that could stand for something that precedes all conceptsand that therefore comes before the positing or stating of the work. as a representation of the already conceived or conceivable. This relates to Leon Golub’s remark in 1955 that the abstract expressionists sought “an action that is pre-logical, pre-cognitive, and amoral.” Moving toward what Golub called the primitive, abstract expressionism was to be considered unconscious. “There are no uniform or iconographic means . . . through which the supra-formal aspects of such paintings could be defined.”* Speaking of the abstract paintings of Barnett Newman, Harold Rosenberg has argued thst “the commonsense response to Newman’s paintings that there is ‘nothing” in them ought not to be dismissed —Newman’s meaning lies in how this noth- 4. Leslie Hill, Maurice Blanchot (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 132. 5. Leon Golub, “A Critique of Abstract Expressionism,” in David and Cecile Shapiro, Abstract Expressionism: A Critical Record (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U ni- versity Press, 1990), pp. 90-91.“nog (g661 ‘S844 MOssUURY Jo KaIss9AIUE) ENA SH -odvouuyyy) uosuepy uesng ‘Suen ‘uornsioauog anuyfgy 2y, WOYPUL}E] ENC “L 19°4(IZ61 ‘StuEIqY 20K MON) Uoeumay MPUINg BrquDsOY PIOSYH “9 aup sey 1 ySnoyp vaso oneUNEN Jo LEOsTY SuNPKuE Jo spuspusdepur aasixa yeosq Jeuonewuassados axp A4OYS Uy ‘oRIpen ueadosny ased wos} ede fos 19s 1e4p two) ue seausod v se dn uox[en sem wistuoIssosdxo DENSE uesudUy se IeFOsUE sxL91q J9IPo asoy2 01 puodso1109 sop yeaxq [EUONEY -uasoadas ures styp “PK “2auaLIAdx9 [ENpLaIpur pure 9an22|J09 Jo suONOU Pare] -nutioy Aypesyt0ds yans wio4y saveapynta pue soposoid yeosq fruonerudsosdos siyp aouis ‘saoge po.ou syeoug 2neUINEN JO [esuOIsIY ay Jo Iv? 2 aanSy 40 ureiwoD you ssop 1uDtHOWL & Yons rey UOAIE ‘yeosq eUoHEIUDS2ad>4 suistuowsaidxa apensqe Suruifewr Jo Ava 2u0 ss0joso\p St aun2u OYL -poStueyp oq iow asnun Aap ‘paseadde aavy Aoup 2ouo Se seyost 1U9J9}]1PUE pure aiNjosqe aze syreU Yong “I Suyeasas noKpLar umousun ap Suneaxpur somnus ssopouueu se asixo yeIp sxAeUT se Jo aysnOY 2q 1yStu 10}230"p ‘sBunured dup s_ypojjoq ‘Ppeyyps 220 adosu09 pur ‘sandy spur ysrys ut vonmpadxa jo aes ssoppureu © ,quaAa, UL UEP aBeuN UE sso] st Sunuted “ng pxoy4|Q pur “poyjag Uosypel ‘ueLIMEN NoUIEE UT ‘usouyun st Ys Jo [CALE ap strEAve SpuDoyyTpUL TEI. Uo}suoyssdde 40 Aouenadse jo aims ssoppureU & ‘staqp0 Jo SuIpuersiopuN UE WOdy jos SBE -uasip ypryss aeyp Apestooud si“usqp ,‘papnun, 94,1, Suipuersiopun femanut vo paseq uonepps v uodn porestpasd ore exp Aypedu> 40 “uoneusSeu ‘uonimut jo sarnuatixa 02 uaype st .umouyun, axp o1 ,papUN,, ayp Jo diysuoneyas 9p rey sisoBins sty, 22uasasd Jo uaAo “Aagun Jo ‘Kanuapy Jo Aouairxo £4982 01 ufiouoy sraeya wornp2e v sasoddns esnou 24,1, "ssousnoLaascuu suf Surqamastp anoypian aouasoad sit soiworuNuIWOD ‘umoUxuN 2p Fuyesnas amotpHAs sore “pur 3j20m au Jo voRtpuOD ,paAnUA, ap 22NIU sy pare>tpuL Ng “Pope dy 9q OU [fla UMOUyUN ayp, OY>UR]g Jo, ,,uoIssaxdxa pur oBpopmouy yo souureut |[e 01 psu Bursnjos ‘souspudosuen aind Jo nalgns & /2qemouyun Apamjosqe ay, se a1 puosag 08 01 aq pinom w ueIp as0Ur Aue ‘ouLO9 OF [ns o8papmouy v jo walqo axp “umouy 196 y0U a1p, set asodoud 01 Ava ou UL sr umouyun oyp yur OL, ,"UMOUSUN,, axp sf[e> 1oYDUE]E| IY 230}9q UOTE spurs wip 22uos2qy1puT wuEID2dxo UE st aumou ay, Burdynuopt “Surmouy Suruneu o1 ssauainjosqe pur AuenSurs si ur wuas9ytpur ng “9u1sop>stpod 2q asnf 10u pinoys auznau ay. “Aseauatunutod hq pasonisap “mata UMO S,420]}0d UE ‘19m sfunured s 3pojjog Uosspe{ ‘feuonewasaidosoid st 3 s,weusmoN seas je daURISgns E9408 1 FF SE SSOUNdUUID YIM P32}3O% OY poatooar st Sur VWAVUL AO SAIDOTOdOL oreRepresentation, History, and Trauma 24 capacity of taking placeas ifit were the very historical and traumatic breaks of which itis not, strictly speaking, a part. In the work of figures like Pollock, Mark Rothko, or Franz Kline, the act of painting is often considered the discharge of an unconscious acting out that is, in essence, the repetition of something prior, namely, a break in the history of visual representation which also happens to be a break in artistic consciousness that is, at the very least, analogous with trauma. And yet the representational break that is abstract expressionism always remains something other than and remote from trauma. For the representational break is what Adorno above called an “absolute negativity,” the shattering of any common ground upon which experience can be reconciled with speculative metaphysics, or, in our present context, aesthetics. Trauma, as Caruth addresses it, would be the psychologi- cal analogue to speculative metaphysics, a psychological analogue that the representational break of American abstract expressionism of the 1940s and 1950s avoids or even subverts. I ‘That there was a cultural break in the history of modern art that registers the shock ofa traumatic break of historical consciousness was not only reflected in American abstract expressionism but in a somewhat closely related interna tional abstractionist movement which included artists like Hans Hartung, Pierre Soulages, Antoni Tapies, Maria Helena Viera da Silva, Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze), Mark Toby, and Cy Twombly. In The Anxious Object Harold Rosenberg argued that this group of abstract painters had replaced nationalism and regionalism by means of “mythology, manner, metaphysics, or formal concepts.” Rosenberg observed that “for their art, the carlier requirements of actual or imaginative presence in a given environment had become meaningless. [ . . . | Their works fulfilled themselves in be- coming universal.” Just as serial music had become an anonymous interna- tional style that made it impossible to recognize one composer from another (compare, for example, Roger Sessions’s later atonal symphonies to those of Karl Amadeus Hartman), abstract art had succumbed to formalist devices that reduced all art to composition: Released from place, and the traditional, sensual and political ties imposed by place, art tends to derive increasingly from experiences of art. Repro-“1174 (661 “S874 ofeony Jo Aussoatup, £7] “oBe1YO) 290 smorruy 244, °B32qU>s0Y PIOWH 'S -soqua wosy suis fesmyyn ypns papnpoud eats ep pur “Aqor.‘s[od ‘SaHe|NOS ayy siomured ‘(jpeeyo 40 assneyy ‘9[duuex soy ‘saprstio>) sonontDS [euOLso pur peiydeafong & pey wstuonsensqe wstuzapour-ysry seasouyy “soueINqe? “os [euontsodwios mau Sppsnua qwaaut wep Joyer sus|qosd [euoN|sodtti0> {Jo saquune paroinsss e yBnosys 3308 01 Soin wep UoHONposd [eLI9s {Pears jo pas] & st 29yy pur “Aysupury ‘osserty 27 ssoreaouuL wosy ssHe|NOS se Yons sistuoIDeAsqe jeuoRvUsDIU! savezedos wey, “SHoIseUT astu9poU sour jo reap sassedans dyses aJoyar v se rey Anpenb anetps9e Jo [PAs] F surequiew safejnog Jo 2sans0 snouLLUNIoA ay ‘D4AND0 STEED 10 5,088" jo Aenb Sunemony Appia yp oF wexuo> uF rey} pur UoIstA SHIUPSe ‘sso8ejnog Jo ued v 990 sea aov0f ap anor Jo aoaydsonseur oy WKH pres 9q 01 seq 14 ‘sonaidaaisew po|pe aq pino> sfunuted s,sa8eqnog Jo uo a[rH.a8 puy -wsio1uzapeoe Jo pasnooe 9g pynoaaeyp Ava vu stx2}qord [PuONIsodtti0> tuo pasns0y sa8ejnog “paapul aye auewIOsyD pur uoHEsNsy aatssoutsuEs JO syiom sty paddins sofeynog ‘sSunured sty yo Sues ur 2au2p018 pur xs payout ossratd sto19y4\ “Wst]euA Jo 210g padduns uoNeIUDLIO ysIqN> v sI9Dpox 1 eK sauffe uv> 320% kp1e9 s,sofeynog IAL eHEWUEY 8194891, “AVDII08 Kzesodura1U09 ureumen 1s988ns kfanbygo Aoup “ypns sy “uUANs yp yi sOastUTs Kp PUTS wp —avep snyd ‘szus snyd , Sununeg, ‘129uo8 ayp ut wsayp 02 819J04 94 —SBUL -aured popinun ss9] 40 210 Jo sistsuo9 oyAnd0 s,soEjNog Kp st WeDLUsIS -poweajap auam sizeny ap s9ye Cjarerpaurun Sunured payers so8e|NOS “SAL phog\, puosag ain Sump aured o1 pasnyes oyas asnse UY "SosaUE UE PALA & Surdoluo ud9q sey s1e4 302904 us oY ‘SaBejnog 21491 ‘soured Youd2 2 SEA ustuonsensqe jo jooyps wstfeuoneussrut Mou ayp Jo pertdéa your sdeypod _cAudosoqyd jo ruswoyyeg 242 01 pur KBojouysox pue 22U91s ur sojqisuayasdwioout 01 x0y4 & se, sog6l ap Ut ayqedanre auI0D99 pry AE uy suis0y rstuwanxa,, reyp 2ey Dep wo Pamroyfoy SHY_L “UE Moqu ze se J]PSIt OV popuodsas {jjennou pur Sjaarsanzozieqp ssoursng e o1u pou Seay Ue 9>UI13 -adxo poat] Jo pom ayp 0 Surpuodsos uetp soypey ‘pay pe wistuoNPeENsqe {pots o1ur Auyjesnau jo pury s9your paonou pey Bsoquesoy| ‘spyos J9410 UY] ‘odwar pom souosaq se jo oduron 24,1, “Aa9y[e8 [eqoys ay) 02 asuodsos Jo Sovrpourtay uv owt azoyatue poremas asnse ay avesp “soa. pene JO voRENaI apempliom ayp “2o48ap s9ss9] & 01 pur suoneayqnd ase ‘sopts “suononp VINAVUL dO SAIDOTOIO.L zeeRepresentation, History, and Trauma 243 ing their works. Yet, even in this highly neutral professionalized world of art production where nothing from the life world intruded onto the purity of abstract composition, one senses that a humanist-existentialist ideology was nevertheless at work. In other words, there is recognition of a certain trau- matic and historical break in not only the avoidance of biographical, histori- cal, and regional content, but in the very stylistic flight into abstractionism as analien space. In a review of Mark Toby's 1961 show at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Lyon, France, the poct John Ashbery wrote that “these lines somehow give an impression of the trajectories traced by the millions of lives ina great metropo- lis.” Whereas Toby’s finely meshed abstract structures were not in and of themselves metaphors for the modern cityscape, they were taken by Ashbery and, no doubt, other viewers as architectural landscapes. This was also true for the paintings of da Silva, whose designs suggested cities of glass in which perpendicular structures symbolized architectural principles of angularity and transparency endemic to the office-building aesthetic of the metropolis. Like Toby's, her abstractions emphasized the detailed delicacy and angularity ofa construction that is as anonymous as itis enigmatic and visually inviting. ‘Typical of both Toby and da Silva is the relation between architectural alienation (what in the 1950s was scen as the grid work of “organization man”) and its aesthetic compensation (translucent artifice, the sublimity of glass and metal, the openness of closed forms, etc.). Such instantiations of the international style of abstraction called attention to a humanist understanding of the social subject as part of the very society whose architecture dwarfs and overwhelms him, Whereas these abstract designs do not go so far as to suggest trauma per se, they do articulate the place where trauma is inscribed into the alienation of the social landscape into which moderns are thrown, That there is aesthetic compensation for such alienation makes this kind of abstract art ambiguous in its indictment, an ambiguity attractive to corporations who have put such art on display in their lobbies and mezzanines. Soulages fits more or less directly into this architecturaVenvironmental context. His work evokes the ambiguity of the abstract construction as a metaphor for the cogito’s situatedness in man-made space. For all their massiveness and obscurity, the large black forms in Soulages radiate a light aesthetically comforting, a sublime aftereffect that miti- girder-like structures that block our and umbra that are gates the oppressiveness of the mass 9. John Ashbery, Reported Sightings, p. 189.29° (igo) suresqy uaz S04 M9Ny) Staging Kamvoduotuog Woy WA “OL yeauq [eauorsty v Jo Aupeuourwos axp 4q posredas Buraq sqpasoddns st “uy Sqeaiq oneumen y -vonez1a1 Joy Sed am aoud a1 steumen yey pure eurnes 4Jo susnora ype 93,0 exp UORejosuoD sir spuarxo Pjdom sxexods09 axp 2394 suv ayy ur aseyd ayp st styp, “uonsnpoad sit Jo $2240} {499 ou hq paztpeurs0U pue parezodnas Aq poxzeur soumawos “Jersos aif. yatas 3yeouq sew E 1ayos VOREUD!|Y Jo sossdqe yep ‘310m s soBeynog wy “Katey Jo 2impartqoze Ur Oy VOLTS -uoduroo se 2aey 94% fe st Aanvag asa8Tns saBejnog se yons ssovuted £q poouer -pe soanoesd jeuonisoduios squo1a1 pue sisouypze asiuonanssuoap,, £4 posuvape {jdoued ystarronmsuos jo puny axp tnog ‘sdeqrad ‘ouronxo 2ananpas sour irae uaye [,“saBeIMOg Jo somuOrD9) ayp soztsOdeITYD WeYp aveds OuNTEGNS pf pur snousduoue Jo pur a4p a]quudsor sasmionns pozzfeLs9s Jo soperse> snoydiowsjod pur aruyopur asoyss suuaned jesmoauypse xadusos jaws. -xa Jo vonesojijosd oy ur ayStysp oy —prpeH] PyEZ, “HeMYPS.L, PrewPE| ‘purysoqr [a!tecq—Joouss aanonnsuodap axa Jo sauyse axp Jo IEP APSE -oad st snaypsse sup “paspuy “Suruoiwasy pur ‘noysistus “pep Apstuay aye aeyp a2eds Jo sassiqe ‘syadop a]qeuyaput asurese pautodyaunos os[e 23 reyp pue—ozuos sno jo ano Su1oq, snip 520305 s1a1—uoIsuDI 2uO!IN UE aye Weep su40y snourWO pu snUERES Yat popunosans ase a, “tANIGNS 194 PUE snoutto st pjzom 21u01202 astusapour aya :TunTed yp on sainduut Wo, WK aoueaytusis jermuorsixe oup o1 syeads smut ,,,Buyppay Axeuorsts & pur suo!sUa eneds Buons asnose 01, purysq wos sodeys snounwo axp soveuruimyt at etp skes 30, AysH] Jo 28n ssoBeINog Jo Suryeads ,'sipdop a[qeuyoput WEIS] puno43 uado ue asojaq joquuss snourtuo ue 231] spuers suteaq PEG Burdsoas jo uontsodwos poourjeq a4, sodvos4ap ur punoy sqjeard Aa asvaeyp soamons [pais darsseus Jo suos ay 2zUMDEIEYD plow IY soAMI INNS fesmIIuY>se awunxoadde stusoy ssofejnog yey soumsasd uonduasap sJBo, ,'soystq ei so1pies soatuy anzjed Jo sozis snowea yim uo pre] raped jo yomowesy pros e o1ui ws0y pur sojoo snouea Yara wo prey ured jo ysomouresy pros vom {U1u0} pur s0[09 spuiq YoRINIsHOD UUDJos PUL Bsr] y “suuvq Y>UIq AavaHy Jo pasoduos sassazning jo wiarsés jnysomod e303 Kem ape sey ysnag s soured auf Jo wonse AUOUIDYDA yp, WIP SartsA BOA Ne “C56T YHPIN FL Bumutrd JO uondisosop e uy ‘seaues ayp st 2etp a2eds atp Zurzaquo jo sn aausdap pur wo}sia VWAVUL dO SAIDOTOAOL +7Representation, History, and Trauma m5 which is,in fact, not that of 1945 but ofa prior moment that concerns the crisis, of modernity, namely, the loss of Gemeinschaft and the advent of Gesellschaft. This representational break with the past is most ambivalent in Soulages because it both relies on and breaks with the historical abandonment of Gemeinschaft. Soulages’s representations are, after all, highly commercial in their ideological content and production/distribution. If his flight into abstraction recalls Gemeinschaft by way of negativity—say, his hectoring tectonic bars that cancel out fields of luminous light—it is a break from communal rural life whose trauma is nevertheless collective: the trauma of “modern man.” Indeed, it is an inevitable historical trauma—that of progress—whose historical break has to be accepted and whose trauma will be compensated with the advent of new human-made forms, among them, Soulages's abstract paintings. Of note is (I) that the historical break of 1945 has been displaced and pushed back into an indefinite past commensurate wit the onset of modernism; (2) that the representational break known as “post- war abstractionism” universalizes trauma and denies its immediate historical specificity in terms of social and political antagonisms marked by events that are themselves unrepresentable or unspeakable; and (3) that Soulages’s repre- sentational break is, in fact, a positive affirmation of and identification with capitalism that is itself most interested in a forgetting of the past in every sense except the story of capitalism's transformation of economy from that of Gemeinschaft to that of Gesellschaft. It is here that the self-reflexivity of international abstractionism is directly reinforced by the self-reflexivity of capitalism. I In the early 1980s,a number of exhibitions in Germany introduced viewers to the New German Expressionism which was the heir to not only German expressionism of the 1920s—Ludwig Kirchner, Emile Nolde, Otto Miller, and so forth—but also to American abstract expressionism and postwar international abstractionism. A. R. Pencke’s neoprimitivism and its swastika symbolism, Georg Basclitz’s upside-down figures (reminiscent of Mussolini's upside-down corpse), and Georg Immendorf’s Café Deutschland series in which East meets West with symbolic ferocity were just a few examples of the return of the historically repressed. Among the most controversial of these painters has been Anselm Kiefer, whose early work consisted of a series ofsouspjo8 wag, pur amurng ‘Ieep Soudypse UDG, “2240) [eorFojoyAsuU v oAey rep suondes woyp uaa sey sayry ‘sBunuted sty Suppnun wos sey “(sno satpa05 twos} yoo UE|yD 2aNSy v) HaseB IEP puE (sSuog fo Huog ax wosy ainSiy s,uvja9) ypHUK|AYg or 9>uD9;94 Sq paxseUE st sFunuted Jo soH498 Sut -yLnis © UL ytyas ,9nysopo L,, “udod s,uepaD [neg Jo VonLtadosdde a1oquuss sit] ut se Nsne20]op{ 21p Jo Are[NqeI0A apeUr-Apeas axp pasn sey J2J9ry Opes xxo1purad v vo sysom oa so1ured Kuorsty & se aBeIs Jaa Su Uy -aarsindou pur aanoeme yiog st uorreuSeunt uesdosny, sejndod ay ur paasixo skeaaye sey weqp ased v Sunesowsourw0d Jo ayes 24 40} uonemy quis uonepss jeouorsty o1ur WistuON>EAISqE 1YSNOIg J9}>"y ‘sIsTUOR -aenisqe [euoNeUIaAUT aUp 10 JOOPS YAOX. ati 94] D4 “PasaM920 20u0 pry quan sneumnesi a4otja spuey paiUrEy u9zeq Jo UOESNyI yA soveaLD weyp AaypeNb soa0-poysom v yaia sdunured adeospuey jo uononposd ays st yns9s oy -aured sty o1ut saoueasqns Joupo pur ‘se ‘pea] ‘pues ‘wens Surxtur Kq yuososdas or duione s9ary weep Aaypqesyeadsun ue ‘uonerods 40 uonnqjod ayqeyvadsun posaygns sey a1eis-uoneu se purpayrey oy Soar ss9}ry Uy “AueUAID Jo aeajap aup Joye soupy 21 Aq pasodunt yeo3q [eorsorsty we Jo VoRaAs9 UL a 01 anp ano jjasit 01 [euonepUnoy sautos9q VOIP eH WISIZEN BU uoneoynuopt uv sirusod oy 5easq [eoLsOIsIY stip Sufopun e} ap st Suiqamastp s9}oFy soyeUI EY. “YP!PY P4ty,L 4p Jo Sum7.0) pur emoresip aanso[]o> v ajqeua 01 poaros ‘Kururs95 sey PUL ISA\ YIOq UE Te ChE] JO syeouq [ea140¥s14 a4p Jo ssousNorasuo9 ay opun or dure a4 U99q sey SISIUOIS -soidxg] UeULI95) MON; J9420 DUP Jo WHOS PUL J9FFY Jo Yom ay 01 [ENA “sonfojeue uenp -ouosg saeumes Xq paurursa.ap sea Surypdsoaa pur asuadsns ut sea Suryzow Aquappng ‘stem GorwuueUr uy wstEDoS [euOREN; YUM pareposse soFeut Bursnas Aq euimen peouorsty ino parse Aijensta tustuorssasdx9 UeWIID “OS -sonuoo jemos v se ajqeieyed eumnen peur asta] {49 oe 40 paruep tustuoN -sensqe asi{euoneusaqut pur ‘uoneruosoidos o1ut eumnen Jo oRE|suEN IDos1p atp paptoar wstuorssosdxo ursuowTy Searay|A\ “WISHTeHOS EUONEN sean IEP ased atp yan diysuone|ss a1e4-210] Jo Pury auOs Ut 949 J9}ory FESE “SONI ute Ayqeuonsalgo se siomara su1os yonais sey Krorsty pue KBojoundus 1ZeN; Jouornduasurs as0yja s979"yf Noge UaNNEA Wa2q sey YUL “parpuy SULLIIID TSOQ\ UE pouteg asmVso8 e “Oanpes IZeNY axp Sal ay Y>TYA Ut sueNs0d-j95 VWAVUL dO SAIDNOTOdO.L, oveRepresentation, History, and Trauma 27 Haar, Margarethe” are refrains from Celan’s famous poem that entitle a number of paintings and, in many cases, serve as inscriptions painted on the surface of the canvases. Hence in opposition to postwar international abstrac- tionism, Kiefer supplies historically loaded phrases that reference the tratt- matic ground upon which representation rests. For Kiefer trauma is not only the ground or support for art, but itis the undoing of the historical quarantine of the Third Reich. By acknowledging the trumatic break, Kiefer undoes the historical break. Moreover, Ais representational break is itself a break with postwar abstractionism that nevertheless maintains strong ties to figures like Clyfford Still whose black surfaces have very much thesame aesthetic effectas Kiefer’s. In “Dein goldenes Haar, Margarethe,” Kiefer uses oil, emulsion, and straw on canvas to depict a landscape of fleeing parallel lines that cut diago- nally across the canvas in order to suggest not just furrows in a field but train tracks, if not fences or barriers. The braid of golden straw and their black ashen counterparts painted on the canvas are echoed by an arc of writing whose words read “Dein goldenes Haar, Magarethe.” Whether the landscape is supposed to invoke the site of a former death camp is left to the viewer's imagination, though in the context of Kiefer’s many other paintings (which reference the Fatherland as a wasteland of unspeakable evil and death) the historical allusions are obvious enough. In commenting on Kiefer’s Sulamith- Margarethe paintings, Mark Rosenthal says that “In Kiefer’s view, Germany maimed itself and its civilization by destroying its Jewish members and so, by frequently referring to both figures, he attempts to make Germany whole again. His action is certainly provocative, for some would contend that ui very recently there was a virtual taboo in Germany against even mentioning the past existence of its Jews.”!" What Rosenthal could also have mentioned is, the fact that when Kiefer, a German painter, transforms the history of the Holocaust into paintings with an aesthetic impact that allows for the trans- formation of the abject into the sublime and the sublime into the abject— Shulamith into Margarethe; Margarethe into Shulamith—heis,in fact, using the ground of trauma as a meansto convert political and historical catastrophe into an aesthetic representation that plays with the reversibility of the terrible and the beautiful. This is what the American abstract expressionists and international abstractionists tried to avoid. In fact, abstractionism in general has assumed untranslatability to be central to the notion of “composition” which, like the new critical understanding of literature, was not supposed to 11, Mark Rosenthal, Anselm Kiefer (New York: Abrams, 1986), p. 9.‘ord “pal “eT “06-4 (1g61 ‘Syoog Yor] aN suopUO') s9Uiny Jo yunag uJ oMIPY JOPODY “ZL IW UsEA, UI se SONY UY 2pF] aaNeIaSA Jo Aupqeinuruy yp row ft ‘sane Jo 29u9[15 a1 Sarpoquia 142 ANOUE e Jo douss21d oy Aq poyseUL st feNpIA ~Ipur ayp Jo UORUNUIANXS au YPHy UL snaysE UETUIUTEA © SuInoeId “poy ur ‘st oy aves jo presq v ayy SULT [esnaeU YIM any ayp ssoejdos J2pOFY way ,.c 24MIN Jo aoUDIIS ap Yam AZuNUOszUOD fq Azorsty [fe somNyD rep Apiqeinustur Jo ares v stu ‘pauaddey sey Zunpou rrp sumreposd yoy uo st Suny axp jo wood oxp jo aweyp ayy ‘o1snw uELUseA Jo AAU. 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Ws9POLL,, Jo wen jesioarun yp sowooaq wumnen sv asn{ “wonmussosdos pue eure ‘Josuonsanb sazxeutsou pur soreurpsogns ‘usm ur Sweqp sed yp yt YeI3q [> orsty sup stay Zfeyaqp2%0 ypu ped v pu zfoypsurau2y yaar 4e919 [eOIPEL 8 apeut Survey Jo osuos 24 UE ,wsDpouL,, se ypsit poysindunsip a nq—dsy uea{ yaar Ao]]9] YUOMs|T Py [AEE YHA AqoL, Yseyy ‘Ossertg o|qed AM sofejnog auiaig “Ksuipury spsvo ay Yat UlsTy sag axeduroo—siudU9]> Jendy 10 euonussordos Jo spon parsoamp pey 1ey UousTUOUDyd Semasod 903 eM ‘oti B SE paMatA LUSTUORIENSAE sea <[UO ION “stseydu soU pa syeauq feotaoasty a4 st a1—sa8enog ay ssaruted yo ase oqp ut Aysejnoned pur —urstuonsensqe feuoneusaiu yo aseo ayy up soumasa8 snowITUE [puORpeN Ut afeSu9 o1 ueion ps pur jemdaouos-nuv a19a sistuotssosdxo 9esISqe INP UP St ory stp yeaxq oneWINEN pue [eoLOIstY v Y1oq Joy sOYeIaUE E se Past aq PIN? yeauq, euoneauasoadss ox [yy ‘pareUpsogns 21M euNEN pue {40rs", plog yaryas 02 yeo3q jeuonrUasaidos v uodn siseyduuD Ue paztiarreEyp 24z02u ayp ‘wustuorssoadxa aoesisqe UeoLaWy Jo ase 4p Uy “S391RO 34 DAoqe PUE 590 YWAVAL dO SAIDOTOIO.L oseA Transcryptum Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger I ‘Traumaand repetition, the feminine and art, revolve around the impossibility of annulling an originary repression (Freud’s Urverdringung) and accessing a psychic Thing encapsulated and hiding behind it in an outside captured inside—in an “extimate” unconscious space, to use Lacan’s expression. The ‘Thing is traumatic and aching; we do not know where it hurts and that it hurts, Itstruggles unsuccessfully to re-approach psychic awareness, but only finds momentary relief in symptomatic repetitions or, by subterfuge, in art- work, where its painful encapsulation partly blows up. In psychoanalytic thinking, the Thing behind originary repression is a“woman” —it is related to the feminine “dark continent” and is entirely foreclosed. Lacan’s gaze as objet a\' like Lyotard’s figure-matrice (matrix-figure),’ deals with the figural- ity of this archaic Thing in the visual-psychic zone, by recurrences of present/ absent conjunctions and pulsational scansions correlating to phantasmatic alternations, articulated via the impossibility of encounters of impulse, drive, and jouisance with desire, and the impossibility to find the lost archaic mental 1. Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, trans. A. Sheridan (London: Norton, 1981). 2. Jean-Frangois Lyotard, Discours, Figure (Paris: Klincksieck, 1971). 251(gge1 “Keg 2Wa ‘2paKag) sors0g [EH p> “HOSA PUD WorsTA UT "9% O1 ayndauy ay,p,, ‘ssnexy auyesoy ut aany-xunews s,preros] Jo stsK[eue ay 29S “S “(BL61 ‘PAEUUNED PIN Stsed) 2742590, ePIPPA HPAd “F “gg smyeas>yy (G61 “ueSopy cuopuy) 49-2 dd ‘gy wonpe panpurns 3dr7UI aunsoayd ays puotog “nosy punudig ut kepd s,pyryp xp jo woreuasaad axp 25 “€ pur jewpiqiy qHoq ‘sso sneuMeN e Jo yNsax e se (Y9xD UE 220d UDP pry) adda o1ypAsdeaaut ue yo wonvas> ay aquasap wreyExqy PUP YOO L -uoneoysuais oyoquiss ue Surures Jo}—uonensed jo wsiueypau ayp uo Sura} 2ouss2y1p >H]eyd B—29U9 -snytp penxes 2uQ-A]uo axp 01 pareBnlqns welqns e ‘suonexedas pur S980] sur 3urwinow puv syroyuu ayn utosg ayjds 120/qns v sy>ksd jenpratput orEqua> voy ,cunyp-esjut, s,dureyon¢y uy ay_{ ‘9494 poreas> st soouazsn9os ut 2909 -soy ic] “euswousyd o1ypksdeniut se poorssapun 2q 01 ase orssaadox (seuss t40 pur Suyp oy ‘vonnadas pur (Bume810p) essouuuE su Seu 294% “PP snopsuooun atypisdeaiut atp ut 2294 aze a4 Yanomopy “Suruesuy payrulls-op Jo aoua8saw9 ay pur aoudistx9 aansalqns ou! 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Tam proposing that the erypt—with its buried unknown knowledge, with what couldn't be admitted and signified by the mother as loss and was buried alive in an isolated nonconscious intrapsychic cavity together with the trau- matism that has caused it, the signifiers that could have told the story but remain detached and isolated, the images that could have held together the scene and the affect that had accompanied it—this crypt, transmitted from the m/Other to the subject can be further transmitted from the subject to yet another subject. A crypt, transmissible in a psychic sphere we call matrixial, can become in a subject lacuna that corresponds to an unsymbolized ances- tral event—an event not of its parent, but ofits parent’s parent. Thus, we can conceive of a chain of transmission, where a subject “crypts” an object/ other/m/Other, who in turn had crypted her own objec/other/m/Other, so that the traumatic Thing inside my other's other is aching in me. We are going, to propose that in similar veins the traumatic Thing of the world is aching in artworking. Like a phantom, the object of the ancestor’s desire and loss is buried alive in its crypt together with the traumatism that its loss has caused her, and now [ carry in my internal crypt the crypt of the crypt of my m/Other, like a erypt within a crypt. Thus we are conceiving of a Thing that, although it is treated by my own originary repression, it was never “mine” in any direct experienc- ing. The phantom that is coming alive through me is already the object of desire of its own object, and the Thing that is now incarnated by me was originarily already included and foreclosed by/for someone else who is linked tome—by my non-I. Here, when it is the object who “wears the subject like a mask” while the crypt constructs the internal boundaries of the subject like a castle—is the subject's psychotic-like position not in strange proximity to that of the contemporary artist who, according to Lyotard, is inhabited by the Thing as if the Thing still dwells outside, and who is “de-habitated” out from her own habitat, from her own body and history, by the Thing?" In their relations to emerging possible significance of/for such a Thing, certain IL. 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