Arts of Address: Being Alive to Language and the World

344 Pages·2020·7.486 MB·

by  Monique Roelofs, Lydia Goehr (editor), Gregg Horowitz (editor)

A RT S O F
DDR E S S
BEING ALIVE TO L ANGUAGE
AND THE WORLD
MON IQ U E
ROE L O F S
ARTS OF ADDRESS
COLUMBIA THEMES IN PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIAL CRITICISM, AND THE ARTS
Lydia Goehr and Gregg M. Horowitz, Editors
Advisory Board
Carolyn Abbate
J. M. Bernstein
Eve Blau
T. J. Clark
John Hyman
Michael Kelly
Paul Kottman
In memoriam: Arthur C. Danto
Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism, and the Arts presents monographs,
essay collections, and short books on philosophy and aesthetic theory. It aims to publish
books that show the ability of the arts to stimulate critical reflection on modern and con-
temporary social, political, and cultural life. Art is not now, if it ever was, a realm of human
activity independent of the complex realities of social organization and change, political
authority and antagonism, cultural domination and resistance. The possibilities of criti-
cal thought embedded in the arts are most fruitfully expressed when addressed to read-
ers across the various fields of social and humanistic inquiry. The idea of philosophy in the
series title ought to be understood, therefore, to embrace forms of discussion that begin
where mere academic expertise exhausts itself; where the rules of social, political, and cul-
tural practice are both affirmed and challenged; and where new thinking takes place. The
series does not privilege any particular art, nor does it ask for the arts to be mutually isolated.
The series encourages writing from the many fields of thoughtful and critical inquiry.
For a complete list of titles, see page 329.
ARTS OF
ADDRESS
BEING ALIVE TO LANGUAGE
AND THE WORLD
MONIQUE
ROELOFS
Columbia University Press
New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
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Copyright © 2020 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Roelofs, Monique, author.
Title: Arts of address : being alive to language and the world / Monique
Roelofs.
Description: New York City : Columbia University Press, 2020. | Series:
Columbia themes in philosophy, social criticism, and the arts | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019025487 (print) | LCCN 2019025488 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780231194365 (cloth) | ISBN 9780231194372 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780231550789 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Interaction (Philosophy) | Communication— Philosophy.
Classification: LCC B824.15 .R64 2020 (print) | LCC B824.15 (ebook) |
DDC 121/.68— dc23
LC record available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2019025487
LC ebook record available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2019025488
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid- free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover image: Mariángeles Soto-Díaz, We Tried Making Diagrams to Understand,
2019. Analog-digital collage, 8 x 10 inches
Cover design: Lisa Hamm
Excerpts from “Sky” in the epigraph and “Vocabulary,” “Conversation with a
Stone,” “Water,” and “No Title Required” in chapter 1 are from View with a Grain
of Sand: Selected Poems by Wisława Szymborska, translated from the Polish by
Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh. Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt Publishing Company. Copyright © 1976 by Czytelnik, Warszawa.
Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All rights reserved.
For Jan en Loes
g

I’m a trap within a trap,
an inhabited inhabitant,
an embrace embraced,
a question answering a question.

Division into sky and earth—
it’s not the proper way
to contemplate this wholeness.
It simply lets me go on living
at a more exact address
where I can be reached promptly
if I’m sought.
My identifying features
are rapture and despair.
WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA, “SKY”

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
. Addressing Address 35
. Kant, Hume, and Foucault as Theorists of Address 60
. Saying Hello and Goodbye 102
. Norms, Forms, Structures, Scenes, and Scripts 146
. Address’s Key Constituents: Philosophical Views 169
. Transforming Aesthetic Relationships 201
Afterword 249
Notes 263
Index 313