Of Stigmatology: Punctuation as Experience

149 Pages·2018·5.705 MB·English

by  Peter Szendy

Of Stigmatology
verbal arts :: studies in poetics
Lazar Fleishman and Haun Saussy, series editors
Of Stigmatology
Punctuation as Experience
Peter Szendy
Translated by Jan Plug
Fordham University Press
New York 2018
Funding for this book was provided in part by the Helen Tartar Memorial Fund.
Copyright © 2018 Fordham University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic,
mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in
printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Th is book was fi rst published in French as À Coups de points: La Ponctuation
comme expérience, by Peter Szendy © Les Éditions de Minuit, 2013.
Cet ouvrage, publié dans le cadre d’un programme d’aide à la publication,
bénéfi cie de la participation de la Mission Culturelle et Universitaire Française
aux Etats-Unis, service de l’Ambassade de France aux EU.
Th is work, published as part of a program of aid for publication, received
support from the Mission Culturelle et Universitaire Française aux Etats-Unis, a
department of the French Embassy in the United States.
Olga Ryahovskaya’s illustrations of Chekhov’s “Th e Exclamation Mark,” appearing
in Chapters 1, 5, 6, and 7, are reproduced by courtesy of the artist.
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Printed in the United States of America
20 19 18 5 4 3 2 1
First edition
. . . in the Atom’s tomb . . .
—Emily Dickinson
in memoriam Kató Bäck

Contents
Translator’s Note ix
 Stigmatology 1
 From the Rubrica to the Smiley: A Portable History 10
 Th e Point of (No) Monument, or Tristram’s Cut 17
 (Un)pointings 23
 P.S.: On Restitching (Lacan vs. Derrida) 30
 Phrasing, or Th e Holes in Meaning 36
 Th e Dotted Lines of Auscultation 44
 Monauralisms, or Th e Bubble of Quotation Marks 51
 Punctum Saliens, or Th e Pulsating Point 59
 Th e Point of the Overcast Stitch 65
 Ekphrasis 73
 General Chatter 82
 Punctuation and Politics, or Th e Dot above the i 94
 Final Survey 99
Notes 105
Index 131

Translator’s Note
Th e title of Peter Szendy’s book on punctuation, À Coups de points: La
Ponctuation comme expérience, plays on the idiomatic phrase coup de po-
ing, a strike of the fi st, a punch. Szendy seemingly pulls that punch, substi-
tuting poing for the near homophone points. No less striking, À Coups de
points delivers other blows—the points, dots, periods, and other punctua-
tion marks (point d’exclamation [exclamation point], point d’interrogation
[question mark], deux points [colon], point virgule [semicolon]) that
punchuate experience with a punctuation that is at once a strike, a blow,
a punch. Th e point of Szendy’s title reverberates through the many other
points in the book, from the pointillés of auscultation, to Hegel’s punctum
saliens, to Lacan’s point de capiton, and beyond. Szendy’s text thus formu-
lates a general theory of punctuation in which each of these punctuating
points resonates with all the others. If we have chosen to give the book
the title Of Stigmatology, it is not only because punctuation is also regis-
tered in the subtitle, but in order to give the book the proper name of that
general theory.
I thank Th omas Szwedska for his meticulous work hunting down ref-
erences and quotations for this translation. And I owe the author a debt I
cannot adequately register—for his careful reading of the translation, for
his many suggestions, and for his good-natured responses to my countless
questions. Perhaps the best way to begin to repay that debt is by quoting
perhaps my favorite of his many messages to me in the attempt to return
his wit and unfailing generosity: :-)))) !!!!
Jan Plug