Glossary of Terms: Blanchot – The Writing of the Disaster – Flashcards
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a period of time in history or a person's life, typically one marked by notable events or particular characteristics.
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Epoch
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Blanchot's main theoretical work
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L'Espace littéraire (The Space of Literature
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When a fragment calls into question and disrupts all claims of authority within itself.
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Sovereign disobedience
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refers to the grammar of the impersonal but more importantly evacuates language of subjectivity
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Neuter
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They establish complete political, social, and cultural control over people
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Totalitarian regimes
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Ruling or dominant
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Hegemonic
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Leslie Hill is professor of French at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Maurice Blanchot and Fragmentary Writing
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Leslie Hill
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German Philosopher
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Theodor W. Adorno
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A book written by Theodor Adorno focused on the connection and relations between art and society.
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Aesthetic Theory
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the state or condition of being passive contrary to activity, suppresses our reflections, fragmented, interrupts our ability to reason and speak
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Passivity
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gives meaning to what cannot be explained, makes up for the non- present, gives voice to the absence, produces the incalculable impact of destruction
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Radical Passivity
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relates passivity to writing because both account for the paradoxes within a crises: "suffering such that I could not suffer it."
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Passivity - Writing
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the passivity of the past, helps explain inexplicable events, "the disaster defined"
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Measureless Passivity
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acts of historical oppression that possess common traits of "loss of self", "loss of sovereignty", total subordination, separation
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Passivity- Historical Events
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gives meaning to both the explicable and inexplicable in a passive state
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Responsible Passivity - Speaking
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when one enters a passive state they become the "Other", detached from their true-self, enter a void of emptiness, burdens one's true identity, separates one from the present
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Passivity and the Other
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when one enter a passive state they become patient, lack an identity, only supported by fragmentation (cannot ever feel complete)
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Patience
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Blanchot gives these words dual-meaning for both the advancement and regression of the human condition
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Passivity, Passion, Pas
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Blanchot's idea of falling outside oneself, destructive
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Detachment
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Blanchot's concept of relinquishing one's identity, the abandonment of self
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Refusal
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Blanchot's idea that when one detaches mundane things from their true meaning, they become neutral, "detaches thought from its power to comprehend"
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Neutral
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A type of conscious that is always "lost", "forgetful of itself", or trapped in a delay behind itself, cannot bring itself into the present
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Proximity
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a literary device that Blanchot purposefully uses to present his ideas in a distorted, unclear manner
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Anamorphia
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relates to Blachot's distinct literary form via his use of fragmentation
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RĂ©cit
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the feeling that Blanchot creates that the reader is intruding upon someone else's privacy, entering a prohibited emotional space
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The "Thrill"
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The French translation for Blanchot's Writing of the Disaster, means "Death Sentence"
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L'ArrĂȘt de mort
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Something of a philosophical abstraction that cannot be converted into any kind of presence that would locate the other as a name, theme, or definition.
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"The other"
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:Maurice Blanchot's fictional text about a man recalling the instance of his own death by firing squad. Strangely, in his testimony, he begins in the 3rd person point of view. Even stranger, after the moment in which he faces certain death, "In a temporal rupture, the narrator suddenly discovers himself to be free from the aim of the firing squad and alive in Paris, questioning the status of his survival."
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"The Instant of My Death"
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The 1st person point of view.
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"The I"
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French philosopher who dealt with semiotic analysis, post structuralism, and postmodern philosophy and author of the essay, "Demeure".
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Jacques Derrida
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1998 essay by Jacques Derrida critiquing Blanchot's book, "The Instant of my Death"
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Demeure
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Jewish theologian and philosopher. Author of The Star of Redemption
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Franz Rosenzweig
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a description of the relationships between God, humanity, and the world, as they are connected by creation, revelation and redemption
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The Star of Redemption
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French philosopher of Jewish thought, existentialism, ethics, and ontology.
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Emmanuel Levinas
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philosophical essay by Emmanuel Levinas, which deals with topics such as "The Other" and history. The Writing of Disaster is in part a critique of this discussion.
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Totality and Infinity
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a sudden event, such as an accident or a natural catastrophe, that causes great damage or loss of life, defined by Blanchot: an unfavorable aspect of a star
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Disaster
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memory of the immemorable
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Immobile Forgetfulness
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system developed by 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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Hegelian system
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the process or state of breaking or being broken into small or separate parts
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Fragmentation
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the action of putting into words an idea or feeling of a specified type
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Articulation
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a mode of thought authorized by, or elaborated through etymological considerations
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Etymology
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supreme power or authority
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Sovereignty
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a skeptical attitude; doubt as to the truth of something
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Skepticism
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the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way
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Language
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the activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text
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Writing
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the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.
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Rhetoric
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another term for the Holocaust.
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Shoah
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(in Christian theology) the renunciation of the divine nature, at least in part, by Christ in the Incarnation.
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Kenosis
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the largest of all the Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II.
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Warsaw Ghetto
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overall term for the enforcement bodies established by the Nazi occupiers to manage Jewish communities in German-occupied areas
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Jewish Council
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(German: collection point or reloading point) was the square in Warsaw under German occupation, where Jews were gathered for deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp as part of Operation Reinhard during genocides in Poland.
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Umschlagplatz
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an extermination camp built by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was located near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship north-east of Warsaw
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Treblinka
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the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant
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Metonymy
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(French, "likelihood") is a principle developed in the theatrical literature of Classicism in France. It demands that the actions and events in a play should be believable.
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Vraisemblance
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a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
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Metaphor
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a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa
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Synechdoche
