abdennebi ben beya | FSHST, University of Tunis (original) (raw)

Papers by abdennebi ben beya

Research paper thumbnail of The Question of Reading Traumatic Testimony: Jones's Corregidora and Morrison's Beloved

Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 2010

Contemporary writing is haunted by the manifestation of the repressed. This is why the beginning ... more Contemporary writing is haunted by the manifestation of the repressed. This is why the beginning of this new millennium may appropriately be coined 'the era of monstrological revenance': disruptive, angry, and vengeful. The act of writing is henceforth dispossessed, powerless, and unauthoritative. This article is mainly concerned with the question of reading today's ghostly literary productions, focusing on the limits of interpretation, understanding, and comprehension as containment. This is illustrated via an ethical re-evaluation of Toni Morrison's Beloved and Gayl Jones's Corregidora in their encounter with trauma theorists, but mainly with Jacques Derrida's overwhelming reflections on mourning, spectrality, and testimony. ********** Language is a place of struggle in language to recover ourselves--to rewrite, to reconcile, to renew. Our words are not without meaning. They are an action--a resistance. --bell hooks, Talking Back All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues ... We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, words to consider, reconsider ... Say it plain: that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here ... Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day. --Elizabeth Alexander, "Praise Song for the Day" Speaking is impossible, but so too would be silence or absence or a refusal to share one's sadness. --Jacques Derrida, Memoires: For Paul de Man By Way of Introduction Like millions of viewers, I watched and heard Elizabeth Alexander reciting her inaugural poem (1) immediately after Obama had taken the presidential oath. (2) Like Obama's, Alexander's words are sober with doses of hopeful determination. Parts of the two texts read like a 'rememory' recit, slipping within the joyful uproar that celebrates the event. Yet, without attention, one can hardly perceive the trace of an imperceptible wound through Alexander's apparently well-mastered performance. Beyond the calm of the utterance, methodically structured to build the architectural edifice of the poem, a lament is voiced. Something whispers through the verbal flow. Hardly perceivable, the muffled babble of the wound yet emerges to trace the contours of the structure. As a belated witness, Alexander's narrative poem, like Obama's address, is uttered in the form of a hymn to the dead, as a threshold to catharsis. It is an address to an audience attending the ceremony, as well as to an absent one lurking in the poetess's mind to reach her tongue: "All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues." The spirit of the dead lives on, coated with their "song for struggle," reaching out to a promising future. Note the concordant resonance between bell hooks's epigraph above and Alexander's rhythm: "We encounter each other in words, ... words to consider, reconsider." With the African-American traumatic saga in mind, the final emphasis in the quoted portion sounds like an insistent call for the endless repetition of an ethical performance. "To consider" is a call for attention, respect, and care; it is an ethically imperative demand for the incorporation of one another's story ("words") that should transpire and be encountered in the form of welcome. Every individual story moves beyond what is said, stated by the speaking subject, to re-emerge, naked and yet not transparent, during its reception. Each story contains its silence. Its very literal exposure is a disguise, a symptom, (3) veiling what remains untold. To "reconsider" urges the audience not to exacerbate the painful past by swiftly moving on through its enunciation in history documents. It insists on the survivors' humility by urging them to visit and to re-visit, slowly, patiently, their ancestors' narrative as a work-in-progress: "Say it plain, that many have died for this day," Alexander says. …

Research paper thumbnail of A Caribbean Contribution To a Global Ethic: Relation and Singular Pluralities

Research paper thumbnail of The Question of Reading Traumatic Testimony: Jones's Corregidora and Morrison's Beloved

Contemporary writing is haunted by the manifestation of the repressed. This is why the beginning ... more Contemporary writing is haunted by the manifestation of the repressed. This is why the beginning of this new millennium may appropriately be coined 'the era of monstrological revenance': disruptive, angry, and vengeful. The act of writing is henceforth dispossessed, powerless, and unauthoritative. This article is mainly concerned with the question of reading today's ghostly literary productions, focusing on the limits of interpretation, understanding, and comprehension as containment. This is illustrated via an ethical re-evaluation of Toni Morrison's Beloved and Gayl Jones's Corregidora in their encounter with trauma theorists, but mainly with Jacques Derrida's overwhelming reflections on mourning, spectrality, and testimony. ********** Language is a place of struggle in language to recover ourselves--to rewrite, to reconcile, to renew. Our words are not without meaning. They are an action--a resistance. --bell hooks, Talking Back All about us is noise. All ...

Research paper thumbnail of Globalizing America: Reading Woodrow Wilson’s Messages after Hobbes and Kant

a critical reading of Woodrow Wilson's 'speeches'

Research paper thumbnail of Working Through Anthony Appiah's 'Legitimacy' Theory of Cosmopolitanism

a critical reading of Anthony Appiah's 'ethics of cosmopolitanism.

Research paper thumbnail of Reading Transcultural Turbulence after Derrida: Wrestling with the Specters of Language

A phantom constitutes a transgenerationally transmitted signifier of repression. It originates in... more A phantom constitutes a transgenerationally transmitted signifier of repression. It originates in a trauma or a repressed secret that has not been introjected, but rather, has been incorporated – swallowed whole rather than psychically assimilated. Ranjana Khanna, Dark Continents During the last decades, postcolonial theory and creative literature have contributed to the exploration of the phenomenon of transculturation, with a focus on its impact on diverse cultures

Research paper thumbnail of 'Dis-unveiling' Jeanette Winterson's Secret 'Idioms' in Written on the Body

Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body provides an illustrative coincidence about the secret o... more Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body provides an illustrative coincidence about the secret of literature/the secret in literature, in relation to the hermeneutic inquiries it has initiated. The principal objective of this essay will consist in reading through her narrative with a focus on the prominent theme of obscurity and its “hermetic ambivalences” (Kermode 47) in the novel.

Research paper thumbnail of The Question of Reading Traumatic Testimony: Jones's Corregidora and Morrison's Beloved

Alif Journal of Comparative Poetics, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of " Marks of weakness, marks of woe " : Reading through William Blake's Urban Poet(h)ics of Anger

The article attempts to examine Blake’s cryptographic space/text by reading through the ‘marks’ t... more The article attempts to examine Blake’s cryptographic space/text by reading through the ‘marks’ that constitute it. The textual/spatial materiality is approached via its affective/emotional/psychological impact on the poet/reader (I). The following section develops the first and brings forth an elaboration on the concept of ‘anger’ (II), inscribed in the title as a signpost for my examination of Blake’s poetics, revolutionary politics and ethics of relation with the encountered objects during his peripatetics. Revolutionary art’s testimonial ‘mark’ is examined in this essay through a reading of what I refer to as William Blake’s ‘poet(h)ics of anger and indignation’.

Research paper thumbnail of The Question of Reading Traumatic Testimony: Jones's Corregidora and Morrison's Beloved

Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 2010

Contemporary writing is haunted by the manifestation of the repressed. This is why the beginning ... more Contemporary writing is haunted by the manifestation of the repressed. This is why the beginning of this new millennium may appropriately be coined 'the era of monstrological revenance': disruptive, angry, and vengeful. The act of writing is henceforth dispossessed, powerless, and unauthoritative. This article is mainly concerned with the question of reading today's ghostly literary productions, focusing on the limits of interpretation, understanding, and comprehension as containment. This is illustrated via an ethical re-evaluation of Toni Morrison's Beloved and Gayl Jones's Corregidora in their encounter with trauma theorists, but mainly with Jacques Derrida's overwhelming reflections on mourning, spectrality, and testimony. ********** Language is a place of struggle in language to recover ourselves--to rewrite, to reconcile, to renew. Our words are not without meaning. They are an action--a resistance. --bell hooks, Talking Back All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues ... We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, words to consider, reconsider ... Say it plain: that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here ... Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day. --Elizabeth Alexander, "Praise Song for the Day" Speaking is impossible, but so too would be silence or absence or a refusal to share one's sadness. --Jacques Derrida, Memoires: For Paul de Man By Way of Introduction Like millions of viewers, I watched and heard Elizabeth Alexander reciting her inaugural poem (1) immediately after Obama had taken the presidential oath. (2) Like Obama's, Alexander's words are sober with doses of hopeful determination. Parts of the two texts read like a 'rememory' recit, slipping within the joyful uproar that celebrates the event. Yet, without attention, one can hardly perceive the trace of an imperceptible wound through Alexander's apparently well-mastered performance. Beyond the calm of the utterance, methodically structured to build the architectural edifice of the poem, a lament is voiced. Something whispers through the verbal flow. Hardly perceivable, the muffled babble of the wound yet emerges to trace the contours of the structure. As a belated witness, Alexander's narrative poem, like Obama's address, is uttered in the form of a hymn to the dead, as a threshold to catharsis. It is an address to an audience attending the ceremony, as well as to an absent one lurking in the poetess's mind to reach her tongue: "All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues." The spirit of the dead lives on, coated with their "song for struggle," reaching out to a promising future. Note the concordant resonance between bell hooks's epigraph above and Alexander's rhythm: "We encounter each other in words, ... words to consider, reconsider." With the African-American traumatic saga in mind, the final emphasis in the quoted portion sounds like an insistent call for the endless repetition of an ethical performance. "To consider" is a call for attention, respect, and care; it is an ethically imperative demand for the incorporation of one another's story ("words") that should transpire and be encountered in the form of welcome. Every individual story moves beyond what is said, stated by the speaking subject, to re-emerge, naked and yet not transparent, during its reception. Each story contains its silence. Its very literal exposure is a disguise, a symptom, (3) veiling what remains untold. To "reconsider" urges the audience not to exacerbate the painful past by swiftly moving on through its enunciation in history documents. It insists on the survivors' humility by urging them to visit and to re-visit, slowly, patiently, their ancestors' narrative as a work-in-progress: "Say it plain, that many have died for this day," Alexander says. …

Research paper thumbnail of A Caribbean Contribution To a Global Ethic: Relation and Singular Pluralities

Research paper thumbnail of The Question of Reading Traumatic Testimony: Jones's Corregidora and Morrison's Beloved

Contemporary writing is haunted by the manifestation of the repressed. This is why the beginning ... more Contemporary writing is haunted by the manifestation of the repressed. This is why the beginning of this new millennium may appropriately be coined 'the era of monstrological revenance': disruptive, angry, and vengeful. The act of writing is henceforth dispossessed, powerless, and unauthoritative. This article is mainly concerned with the question of reading today's ghostly literary productions, focusing on the limits of interpretation, understanding, and comprehension as containment. This is illustrated via an ethical re-evaluation of Toni Morrison's Beloved and Gayl Jones's Corregidora in their encounter with trauma theorists, but mainly with Jacques Derrida's overwhelming reflections on mourning, spectrality, and testimony. ********** Language is a place of struggle in language to recover ourselves--to rewrite, to reconcile, to renew. Our words are not without meaning. They are an action--a resistance. --bell hooks, Talking Back All about us is noise. All ...

Research paper thumbnail of Globalizing America: Reading Woodrow Wilson’s Messages after Hobbes and Kant

a critical reading of Woodrow Wilson's 'speeches'

Research paper thumbnail of Working Through Anthony Appiah's 'Legitimacy' Theory of Cosmopolitanism

a critical reading of Anthony Appiah's 'ethics of cosmopolitanism.

Research paper thumbnail of Reading Transcultural Turbulence after Derrida: Wrestling with the Specters of Language

A phantom constitutes a transgenerationally transmitted signifier of repression. It originates in... more A phantom constitutes a transgenerationally transmitted signifier of repression. It originates in a trauma or a repressed secret that has not been introjected, but rather, has been incorporated – swallowed whole rather than psychically assimilated. Ranjana Khanna, Dark Continents During the last decades, postcolonial theory and creative literature have contributed to the exploration of the phenomenon of transculturation, with a focus on its impact on diverse cultures

Research paper thumbnail of 'Dis-unveiling' Jeanette Winterson's Secret 'Idioms' in Written on the Body

Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body provides an illustrative coincidence about the secret o... more Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body provides an illustrative coincidence about the secret of literature/the secret in literature, in relation to the hermeneutic inquiries it has initiated. The principal objective of this essay will consist in reading through her narrative with a focus on the prominent theme of obscurity and its “hermetic ambivalences” (Kermode 47) in the novel.

Research paper thumbnail of The Question of Reading Traumatic Testimony: Jones's Corregidora and Morrison's Beloved

Alif Journal of Comparative Poetics, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of " Marks of weakness, marks of woe " : Reading through William Blake's Urban Poet(h)ics of Anger

The article attempts to examine Blake’s cryptographic space/text by reading through the ‘marks’ t... more The article attempts to examine Blake’s cryptographic space/text by reading through the ‘marks’ that constitute it. The textual/spatial materiality is approached via its affective/emotional/psychological impact on the poet/reader (I). The following section develops the first and brings forth an elaboration on the concept of ‘anger’ (II), inscribed in the title as a signpost for my examination of Blake’s poetics, revolutionary politics and ethics of relation with the encountered objects during his peripatetics. Revolutionary art’s testimonial ‘mark’ is examined in this essay through a reading of what I refer to as William Blake’s ‘poet(h)ics of anger and indignation’.