Table Of ContentLyotard, Literature and the Trauma of the differend
Lyotard, Literature and the
differend
Trauma of the
Dylan Sawyer
© Dylan Sawyer 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-38334-1
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First published 2014 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-48050-0 ISBN 978-1-137-38335-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137383358
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of Abbreviations v iii
Introduction 1
The politics of representation 3
The unavoidable act 6
The siren’s song 8
Sustaining a paradox 9
Lyotard 1 0
The postmodern condition 12
Critical concerns 14
Literature 2 1
1 The differend and Beyond 26
The phrase 26
The victim 32
The human 38
The sublime 40
Tribunal 44
Literature of the d ifferend 46
The affect 53
Soundproof Room 57
2 Housed Exile 63
The indeterminacy of justice 65
Phrasing the ethics of the differend 69
Ethical writing 72
The haunted house 75
The Republic 78
The artist of exile 82
Remembering the forgotten 84
The wanderings of the differend 91
The ethics of the impossible 95
The call of exile 98
v
vi Contents
3 Homer and Ondaatje 101
The muse 106
The narrator 109
The hero 112
The tales 117
The telling 124
The echoes of silence 128
The author 134
Fame 140
The sublime parade 144
The trauma of the return 148
The differend 155
4 The Traumatic Sublime 159
The presentation of the sublime 161
Trauma 165
The traumatic sublime 170
The time of the victim 175
Impossible testimony 179
The letters of silence 182
The excesses of trauma 189
Traumatic writing 192
Instances of the traumatic 196
Traumatic failings 199
Trauma and the differend 202
Conclusion 2 04
A beginning 2 05
Hersey 2 07
Summation 2 08
The end 2 11
Notes 213
Bibliography 2 43
Index 2 53
Acknowledgements
There’s a line in a Jewish prayer: ‘A person’s thoughts are his or her own
but their expression belongs to God.’ The same sentiment can be applied
to how I feel about my family; without their unending support, without
their constant love, good humour and solace, I would never have been
able to find my voice – let alone hope to sustain its articulation for so
long. This book is dedicated to them.
My thanks also go to all at Aberystwyth University who have in
some way helped me over the years. Special mention must also go
to Professor Robert Eaglestone and Dr Will Slocombe whose (entirely
valid) comments and criticisms helped me add a clarity and depth to
my subject that I would never have found alone. Thanks also to Chris
Branson, John Wrighton, Andrew Blackmore and anyone else I’ve forced
to read various drafts over the years. I’m also most especially indebted to
Caroline Miles and everyone at the LPL who have always acknowledged
the demands of my ‘double-life’ and graciously looked the other way
when I showed up for work armed with books that had categorically
nothing to do with the running of a library.
Finally, I’d like to thank Carolina Cabral, a woman so kind and
supportive to me over the years that this brief gesture of acknowledge-
ment can’t possibly convey the full measure of my gratitude. If this book
was written with the aim of establishing obligation to those voices that
remain unrepresented, then she is a person who has orchestrated her
entire life around putting such a principle into practice – something I’m
impossibly proud of, and always will be.
vii
List of Abbreviations
AP ‘The Affect Phase (from a Supplement to T he Differend )’ found
in The Lyotard Reader and Guide , ed. Keith Crome and James
Williams (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006)
CS Michael Ondaatje, Coming Through Slaughter (London: Picador,
1984)
D Jean-François Lyotard, The Differend – Phrases in Dispute ,
trans. Georges Van Den Abbeele (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1998)
EII Jonathan Safran Foer, E verything is Illuminated (London: Penguin
Books, 2003)
ELIC Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
(London: Penguin Books, 2005)
HJ Jean-François Lyotard, Heidegger and “the jews,” trans. Andreas
Michael and Mark Roberts (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1990)
I Jean-François Lyotard, The Inhuman: Reflections on Time, trans.
Geoff Bennington and Rachel Bowlby (Cambridge: Polity Press,
1991)
JG Jean-François Lyotard, Just Gaming , trans. Wlad Godzich
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994)
KL W illiam Shakespeare, K ing Lear (London: Heron Books Ltd, 1957)
LAS J ean-François Lyotard, Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime ,
trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg (California: Stanford University
Press, 1991)
LE Jean-François Lyotard, Libidinal Economy , trans. Iain Hamilton
Grant (London: The Athlone Press, 2004)
MS Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls , trans. Ellen L
Babinsky (New York: Paulist Press, 1993)
O T he Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles (Bath: Penguin Books, 2001)
P Jean-François Lyotard, Peregrinations: Law, Form, Event (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1990)
PF Jean-François Lyotard, Postmodern Fables , trans. Georges Van
Den Abbeele (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2003)
PMC Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report
on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington, Brian Massumi
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984)
viii
List of Abbreviations ix
PM:ETC Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Explained to Children;
Correspondence 1982–1985 , ed. Julian Pefanis and Morgan
Thomas, trans. Don Barry, Bernadette Maher, Julian Pefanis,
Virginia Spate, and Morgan Thomas (London: Turnaround,
1992)
R Plato, The Republic, trans. Desmond Lee (London: Penguin
Classics, 1987)
SR Jean-François Lyotard, Soundproof Room: Malraux’s Anti-
Aesthetics (California: Stanford University Press, 2001)
TI The Iliad, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998)
TP Jean-François Lyotard, Toward the Postmodern , ed. Robert
Harvey and Mark S. Roberts (New York: Humanity Books,
1999)
