Reticulations: Jean-Luc Nancy and the Networks of the Political (Electronic Mediations)

337 Pages·2009·2.59 MB·English

by  Philip Armstrong

Reticulations

Reticulations
Jean-Luc Nancy and the Networks of the Political
Philip Armstrong
Electronic Mediations, Volume 27
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Th e University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the fi nancial assistance provided
for the publication of this book from the College of Humanities at Th e Ohio State University.
Frontispiece: Simon Hantaï, Collage, 1953, mixed media on paper, remounted on canvas, 94.5
x 59.5 cm. (37 1/4 x 23 1/3 inches). Courtesy of Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris. Photograph by
Jacqueline Hyde.
Portions of chapter 2 were fi rst published as “From Paradox to Partage: On Citizenship and
Teletechnologies,” TEXT Technology 5, no. 2 (2008), in the issue “Th e Digital Humanities
and Technologies of Citizenship,” edited by Patrick Finn and Alan Galey. An earlier version
of chapter 4 fi rst appeared as “Res/Réseau/Reticulation” in the online journal the anomalist
1 (2005), edited by Brad Evans and Keir Milburn.
Photographs from the series Waiting for Tear Gas courtesy of Allan Sekula.Copyright Allan Sekula.
Copyright 2009 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
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, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
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Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Armstrong, Philip, 1962-
Reticulations : Jean-Luc Nancy and the networks of the political / Philip Armstrong.
p. cm.—(Electronic mediations ; v. 27)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8166-5489-5 (hc : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8166-5490-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Nancy, Jean-Luc—Political and social views. 2. Political science—France—Philosophy.
I. Title.
JA84.F8A835 2009
320.092—dc22 2008050301
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Th e University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Undoubtedly, we are still stuttering: philosophy always comes
too late, and, as a result, always too soon. But the stuttering
itself betrays the form of the problem: we, “we,” how are we to
say “we”? Or rather, who is it that says “we,” and what are we
told about ourselves in the technological proliferation of the
social spectacle and the social as spectacular, as well as in the
proliferation of self-mediatized globalization [mondialité] and
globalized mediatization? We are incapable of appropriating
this proliferation because we do not know how to think this
“spectacular” nature, which at best gets reduced to a discourse
about the uncertain signs of the “screen” and of “culture.” Th e
same applies to “technological” nature, which we regard as an
autonomous instrument. We do so without ever asking ourselves
if it might not be “our” comprehension of “our-selves” that
comes up with these techniques and invents itself in them, and
without wondering if technology is in fact essentially in complete
agreement with the “with.” We are not up to the level of the “we”:
we constantly refer ourselves back to a “sociology” that is itself
only the learned form of the “spectacular-market.” We have not
even begun to think “ourselves” as “we.”
—JEAN-LUC NANCY
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
1. Th e Deposition of the Political 1
2. From Paradox to Partage: On Citizenship and Teletechnologies 67
3. Th e Disposition of Being 117
4. Being Communist 161
5. Seattle and the Space of Exposure 185
Notes 245
Index 299
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Acknowledgments
Th is book has benefi ted from a more or less sustained dialogue with two
extraordinary groups of people. Th e fi rst is my friends and colleagues in
the Department of Comparative Studies at Th e Ohio State University, who,
with unusual insistence, continue to open up and reinvent that intellectual
space we call the university. Th e second are my fellow anomalists, who off er
a permanent reminder—this time at the limits of the university—of what is
at stake in the work we do. I trust both groups will understand why in this
context I refer to them collectively, why they form part of a larger, critical
dialogue to which this book, I hope, contributes.
For invitations to speak and for the intellectual and personal support that
has sustained the writing of Reticulations, my warm thanks to Mick Finch,
Lisa Florman, Paul Ivey, Jan and Ben Maiden (Jan died before the book came
to publication, but I hope her rare example lives on in its affi rmation of co-
existence), Brad Macdonald, Lucien Massaert, Guy Massaux, Steve and Ruthie
Melville, Donald Preziosi, Jason Smith, and Chris Th ompson. Christian
Bonnefoi and Simon Hantaï fi rst taught me to think about things reticulated,
and for that I am very grateful, as I am to Allan Sekula for permission to
feature several of his photographs in the last chapter, and to Elodie Rahard of
Galerie Jean Fournier for permission to reproduce the frontispiece. Finally,
I thank Sam Weber, who supported and sustained the writing of this book
in innumerable ways, and David Horn, who contributed in equally decisive
ways to its completion. I remain deeply indebted to them both.
At the University of Minnesota Press, I would like to thank an anonymous
reader for their generous comments and suggestions, as well as Douglas Armato,
Daniel Constantino, Susan Doerr, Alicia Sellheim, Davu Seru, and Mike Stoff el
for their wonderful help and advice in bringing the manuscript to publication.
Much of the argument that follows turns on thinking an untying and un-
binding as constitutive of our ties and bonds, a distancing and detachment as the
enabling condition of our attachments to—and with—one another. In order to
write this book, Laura, Nikolas, and Keir have come to experience this contorted
logic all too oft en, as have my parents. My heartfelt thanks for their patience.
ix