The Broken Middle: Out of our Ancient Society

358 Pages·1992·14.496 MB·English

by  Gillian Rose

The
GILLIAN ROSE
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2019 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
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The Broken Middle
f
The Broken Middle
Out of our Ancient Society
GILLIAN ROSE
B
BLACKWELL
Oxford UK & Cambridge USA
Thomas J. Bata Library
TRENT UNIVERSITY
PETfRSOROUGH ONTARK
Copyright © Gillian Rose 1992
The right of Gillian Rose to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 1992
Blackwell Publishers
108 Cowley Road
Oxford 0X4 1JF
UK
Three Cambridge Center
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short
passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no
part 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 permission of the publisher.
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold
subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or other¬
wise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it
is published and without a similar condition including
this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A C1P catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Rose, Gillian.
The broken middle: out of our ancient society/Gillian Rose,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-631-16359-X (alk. paper) - 0-631-18221-7 (pbk)
1. Philosophy. 2. Law—Philosophy. 3. Ethics.
4. Philosophy, Modern. 5. Postmodernism. I. Title.
B1649.R73B76 1992
190—dc20 91-23667
C1P
The author and publishers have made every effort to trace those who control
copyright in the chart reproduced here on pages 304-5 from Community
Architecture by Nick Wates and Chas Knevitt.
Typeset in 10 on 12pt Bembo
by Graphicraft Typesetters Ltd., Hong Kong
Printed in Great Britain by Billing & Sons Ltd Worcester
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
This book
is dedicated to
Jim Fessenden
and to
Lynn Rose
'
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction Diremption of Spirit xi
Part One From the Middle in the Beginning
1 Personae of the System
Kierkegaard, Hegel and Blanchot
Unscientific Beginning 3
Dialectical Lyric 11
Crisis in the Life of an Actress 19
Code and Commentary 24
Duplexity and Duplicity 29
Illusory Fragments 36
2 Regina and Felice - In Repetition of Her
Kierkegaard and Kafka
Confession and Authority 51
From the True Antagonist 60
Commandment or Curse? 22
Failing towards Form 81
3 Anxiety of Beginning
Kierkegaard, Freud and Lacan
Beginning of Anxiety 85
It is Sown a Natural Body 89
It is Raised a Spiritual Body 101
Ruin of Ethical Life HO
viii Contents
Part Two From the Beginning in the Middle
4 Repetition in the Feast
Mann and Girard
Myth out of the Hands of the Fascists 115
Tradition and Prophecy in the Severe and in the Facetious
Style 133
Violence-in-Love 147
5 Love and the State
Varnhagen, Luxemburg and Arendt
Suspending the Political 153
Droits de la femme/Droits de la citoyenne 183
Nation-State and Violence 238
6 New Political Theology — Out of Holocaust and Liberation
Levinas, Rosenzweig and Fackenheim
Violence and Halacha 247
New Jerusalem Old Athens: The Holy Middle Til
Social Utopianism — Architectural Illusion 296
Preface Pathos of the Concept 308
Select Bibliography 311
Index 324