Adam Lipszyc | Polish Academy of Sciences (original) (raw)
Papers by Adam Lipszyc
Teksty Drugie, 2023
In the first section of the paper the author offers a quick view on the shape of Polish collectiv... more In the first section of the paper the author offers a quick view on the shape of Polish
collective memory seen through the lens of Judith Butler notion of grievability. He
argues that it is often the job of the artists to reopen closed and falsified forms of
remembering and mourning. Then he introduces the idea of the autistic object
borrowed from the work of the psychoanalyst Frances Tustin. This category becomes
the key to the reading of Marcin Mokry’s book Świergot, which forms the main
part of the paper and which presents this brilliant work as a radical reopening of
Polish memory. Paradoxically, the poetic means that are instrumental in this act
reopening can be identified as having much in common with the world of autism
as described by Tustin.
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, 2023
The paper is a modest attempt at a careful assessment of Werner Hamacher's version of deconstruct... more The paper is a modest attempt at a careful assessment of Werner Hamacher's version of deconstruction as a reading strategy which centers upon the idea of the afformative caesura. In order to probe the potential and the possible limits of Hamacher's strategy, the author presents a Hamacherian reading of one of Paul Celan's poems, titled "Mauerspruch," a poem brimming with references to Walter Benjamin's work. In the first part of the paper the author shows the effectiveness of Hamacherian perspective. In the second part, however, following suggestions of the poem itself, the author shows that the perspective should be extended in order to include two crucial categories: the category of the image and the category of memory. Thus, ultimately, the assessment of Werner Hamacher's strategy results in a praise and a modest proposal of its amendment.
Eidos 2/2022, 2022
The paper is an attempt at a systematic review and a tentative synthesis of the philosophically m... more The paper is an attempt at a systematic review and a tentative synthesis of the philosophically most relevant theories of voice that are to be found within the psychoanalytic tradition. Beginning with some reflections borrowed from Thomas Ogden, the author proceeds to examine two lines of thinking about voice: the 'paternal' line which discusses voice mostly in relation to the superego and the orientation of the self and the 'maternal' line which discusses voice in relation to the processes of subjective constitution. Having analyzed selected insights of such authors as Freud, Reik, Isakower and Lacan within the paternal line and Lacan, Anzieu, Rosolato, Vasse, and Abraham&Török within the maternal one, the author attempts to show the common features of many of these diverse takes, focusing especially on the processes of internalization of external voices and on the strange status of voice as both most intimate and alien to us. The closing discussion of Mladen Dolar's theory opens the way to a synthetic view of voice as the paradoxical kernel of human subjectivity.
Agata Bielik-Robson (ed.), The Marrano Way Between Betrayal and Innovation, 2022
, be thou anointed! [.. .] My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell you ve... more , be thou anointed! [.. .] My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of Bloom, ye shall ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem in the Nova Hibernia of the future.
Eidos, 2021
The author begins by analyzing Walter Benjamin's quarrel with George Kreis and the respective vis... more The author begins by analyzing Walter Benjamin's quarrel with George Kreis and the respective visions of culture advocated by both sides of the debate. Then, he offers a reading of a poem by Paul Celan in which the poet sides with Benjamin, but also makes his position more complex, ultimately offering a paradoxical figure of "the secret openness" or "open/public secrecy" as a remedy against the "mystery" of the Georgians. This idea can be seen as developed in Jacques Derrida's understanding of secrecy, which the author proceeds to analyze. The secrecy as a deconstructive rift in the public discourse, a split which tears it open, can be seen as opposed both to the undemocratic mystery and to the seeming openness of globalatinization. After considering the formal, political and (post)religious aspects of secrecy, the author ends with showing how literature as such is the most powerful medium of Derridean secret.
Ruch Filozoficzny, May 14, 2018
Czas Kultury, 2017
The paper is the analysis of Aleksander Wat’s poem Antaeus' Departure. The context of the analysi... more The paper is the analysis of Aleksander Wat’s poem Antaeus' Departure. The context of the analysis is the combined vision of a “drifting world” derived from the Japanese chronicle of Kojiki and a vision of a writer as a man “drifting in the self”, presented in Herman Melville’s Pierre. In this context the author tracks the intertextual game Wat started in this work and reconstructs the spatial, cultural and linguistic disorientation of the subject in the “watertown” as captured in the poem, as well as the attempts to plot a stable course of existence.
3/2017 (194)
Widok. Teorie i Praktyki Kultury Wizualnej
Artykuł stanowi analizę czterech krótkich tekstów Waltera Benjamina poświęconych zabawkom. Autor ... more Artykuł stanowi analizę czterech krótkich tekstów Waltera Benjamina poświęconych zabawkom. Autor artykułu rekonstruuje najistotniejsze teoretyczne tezy tych niewielkich zapisków, lokujących kategorię zabawki w kontekście takich pojęć jak zabawa, naśladownictwo i powtórzenie. Zderzając następnie tak wyłonioną koncepcję zabawki z innymi pismami Benjamina nie poświęconymi bezpośrednio tej problematyce, autor stara się nadać tej koncepcji dodatkowy wymiar i nakreślić szczególną "dialektykę zabawki", logikę, zgodnie z którą zabawka byłaby niezbędnym rekwiztem repetytywnej zabawy służącej okiełznaniu traumatycznych wydarzeń, zarazem jednak sama stanowiłaby resztkę tego, co traumatyczne, i jako taka burzyłaby spoistość przyzwyczajeń wysnutych z zabawy.
Tekstualia
The paper discusses the role of the theater actor in Thomas Bernhard’s selected works: two plays ... more The paper discusses the role of the theater actor in Thomas Bernhard’s selected works: two plays (Der Theatermacher and Einfach kompliziert) and one novel (Holzfällen). Bernhard presents the fi gure of the actor as a victim of the infi nite play between deception and irony, which determines the lives of all human beings. Therefore, the actor epitomizes humanity at its most tragic and most pathetic, but ultimately he can be also seen as a vehicle for expressing the ultimate truth of our condition and the necessity to reach beyond deception.
Religions
The author combines Walter Benjamin’s speculations on language, naming, and horror with Jean Lapl... more The author combines Walter Benjamin’s speculations on language, naming, and horror with Jean Laplanche’s general theory of seduction and his notion of the enigmatic signifier in order to reconstruct what he identifies as the primal scene of initiation into language. Further, the author develops this construction by linking it to a similar structure which he extracts by means of interpretation from Jacques Derrida’s commentaries to the Biblical stories of the Tower of Babel and of the Binding of Isaac. Finally, the author shows how the primal scene thus reconstructed should be seen as the transcendental condition of being in language as described by Derrida in his seminal essay on Monolingualism of the Other and how this very condition should be understood as a universalized form of the Marrano condition. The most far-reaching conclusion of the argument is, then, that at least for Jacques Derrida, every subject of language is a Marrano.
Widok Teorie I Praktyki Kultury Wizualnej, Jan 27, 2014
European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 2015
Philosophical, Theological, and Literary Perspectives, 2014
Teksty Drugie, 2023
In the first section of the paper the author offers a quick view on the shape of Polish collectiv... more In the first section of the paper the author offers a quick view on the shape of Polish
collective memory seen through the lens of Judith Butler notion of grievability. He
argues that it is often the job of the artists to reopen closed and falsified forms of
remembering and mourning. Then he introduces the idea of the autistic object
borrowed from the work of the psychoanalyst Frances Tustin. This category becomes
the key to the reading of Marcin Mokry’s book Świergot, which forms the main
part of the paper and which presents this brilliant work as a radical reopening of
Polish memory. Paradoxically, the poetic means that are instrumental in this act
reopening can be identified as having much in common with the world of autism
as described by Tustin.
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, 2023
The paper is a modest attempt at a careful assessment of Werner Hamacher's version of deconstruct... more The paper is a modest attempt at a careful assessment of Werner Hamacher's version of deconstruction as a reading strategy which centers upon the idea of the afformative caesura. In order to probe the potential and the possible limits of Hamacher's strategy, the author presents a Hamacherian reading of one of Paul Celan's poems, titled "Mauerspruch," a poem brimming with references to Walter Benjamin's work. In the first part of the paper the author shows the effectiveness of Hamacherian perspective. In the second part, however, following suggestions of the poem itself, the author shows that the perspective should be extended in order to include two crucial categories: the category of the image and the category of memory. Thus, ultimately, the assessment of Werner Hamacher's strategy results in a praise and a modest proposal of its amendment.
Eidos 2/2022, 2022
The paper is an attempt at a systematic review and a tentative synthesis of the philosophically m... more The paper is an attempt at a systematic review and a tentative synthesis of the philosophically most relevant theories of voice that are to be found within the psychoanalytic tradition. Beginning with some reflections borrowed from Thomas Ogden, the author proceeds to examine two lines of thinking about voice: the 'paternal' line which discusses voice mostly in relation to the superego and the orientation of the self and the 'maternal' line which discusses voice in relation to the processes of subjective constitution. Having analyzed selected insights of such authors as Freud, Reik, Isakower and Lacan within the paternal line and Lacan, Anzieu, Rosolato, Vasse, and Abraham&Török within the maternal one, the author attempts to show the common features of many of these diverse takes, focusing especially on the processes of internalization of external voices and on the strange status of voice as both most intimate and alien to us. The closing discussion of Mladen Dolar's theory opens the way to a synthetic view of voice as the paradoxical kernel of human subjectivity.
Agata Bielik-Robson (ed.), The Marrano Way Between Betrayal and Innovation, 2022
, be thou anointed! [.. .] My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell you ve... more , be thou anointed! [.. .] My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of Bloom, ye shall ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem in the Nova Hibernia of the future.
Eidos, 2021
The author begins by analyzing Walter Benjamin's quarrel with George Kreis and the respective vis... more The author begins by analyzing Walter Benjamin's quarrel with George Kreis and the respective visions of culture advocated by both sides of the debate. Then, he offers a reading of a poem by Paul Celan in which the poet sides with Benjamin, but also makes his position more complex, ultimately offering a paradoxical figure of "the secret openness" or "open/public secrecy" as a remedy against the "mystery" of the Georgians. This idea can be seen as developed in Jacques Derrida's understanding of secrecy, which the author proceeds to analyze. The secrecy as a deconstructive rift in the public discourse, a split which tears it open, can be seen as opposed both to the undemocratic mystery and to the seeming openness of globalatinization. After considering the formal, political and (post)religious aspects of secrecy, the author ends with showing how literature as such is the most powerful medium of Derridean secret.
Ruch Filozoficzny, May 14, 2018
Czas Kultury, 2017
The paper is the analysis of Aleksander Wat’s poem Antaeus' Departure. The context of the analysi... more The paper is the analysis of Aleksander Wat’s poem Antaeus' Departure. The context of the analysis is the combined vision of a “drifting world” derived from the Japanese chronicle of Kojiki and a vision of a writer as a man “drifting in the self”, presented in Herman Melville’s Pierre. In this context the author tracks the intertextual game Wat started in this work and reconstructs the spatial, cultural and linguistic disorientation of the subject in the “watertown” as captured in the poem, as well as the attempts to plot a stable course of existence.
3/2017 (194)
Widok. Teorie i Praktyki Kultury Wizualnej
Artykuł stanowi analizę czterech krótkich tekstów Waltera Benjamina poświęconych zabawkom. Autor ... more Artykuł stanowi analizę czterech krótkich tekstów Waltera Benjamina poświęconych zabawkom. Autor artykułu rekonstruuje najistotniejsze teoretyczne tezy tych niewielkich zapisków, lokujących kategorię zabawki w kontekście takich pojęć jak zabawa, naśladownictwo i powtórzenie. Zderzając następnie tak wyłonioną koncepcję zabawki z innymi pismami Benjamina nie poświęconymi bezpośrednio tej problematyce, autor stara się nadać tej koncepcji dodatkowy wymiar i nakreślić szczególną "dialektykę zabawki", logikę, zgodnie z którą zabawka byłaby niezbędnym rekwiztem repetytywnej zabawy służącej okiełznaniu traumatycznych wydarzeń, zarazem jednak sama stanowiłaby resztkę tego, co traumatyczne, i jako taka burzyłaby spoistość przyzwyczajeń wysnutych z zabawy.
Tekstualia
The paper discusses the role of the theater actor in Thomas Bernhard’s selected works: two plays ... more The paper discusses the role of the theater actor in Thomas Bernhard’s selected works: two plays (Der Theatermacher and Einfach kompliziert) and one novel (Holzfällen). Bernhard presents the fi gure of the actor as a victim of the infi nite play between deception and irony, which determines the lives of all human beings. Therefore, the actor epitomizes humanity at its most tragic and most pathetic, but ultimately he can be also seen as a vehicle for expressing the ultimate truth of our condition and the necessity to reach beyond deception.
Religions
The author combines Walter Benjamin’s speculations on language, naming, and horror with Jean Lapl... more The author combines Walter Benjamin’s speculations on language, naming, and horror with Jean Laplanche’s general theory of seduction and his notion of the enigmatic signifier in order to reconstruct what he identifies as the primal scene of initiation into language. Further, the author develops this construction by linking it to a similar structure which he extracts by means of interpretation from Jacques Derrida’s commentaries to the Biblical stories of the Tower of Babel and of the Binding of Isaac. Finally, the author shows how the primal scene thus reconstructed should be seen as the transcendental condition of being in language as described by Derrida in his seminal essay on Monolingualism of the Other and how this very condition should be understood as a universalized form of the Marrano condition. The most far-reaching conclusion of the argument is, then, that at least for Jacques Derrida, every subject of language is a Marrano.
Widok Teorie I Praktyki Kultury Wizualnej, Jan 27, 2014
European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 2015
Philosophical, Theological, and Literary Perspectives, 2014
Violence in Philosophy and Literature VII International Online Workshop, 2021
For more than a year now we have been all globally isolated. Assuming that the seriousness of the... more For more than a year now we have been all globally isolated. Assuming that the seriousness of the crisis demands some further, more focused reflections, this workshop proposes to address the question of isolation in philosophy and literature and in connection to the notion of violence. Following our annual tradition, we will devote ample time for discussion after each talk and for one reading sessions.
This workshop is the seventh event in a series of gatherings that fall under the epigraph of “Violence in Philosophy and Literature”. It has taken place previously on “Language and Violence” (Tel Aviv University), “Space and Violence” (Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw), “Thinking and Writing – Disruption” (ZfL Berlin), “Violence Incorporated” (University of Chicago), “Sound and Violence” (Collège International Paris), and on “Time and Violence” (Goethe University, Frankfurt).
20th century philosophy abounds with a variety of exciting conceptions of temporality. Bergson’s ... more 20th century philosophy abounds with a variety of exciting conceptions of temporality. Bergson’s flow of duration, Heidegger’s dramatic vision of temporal ekstases, Benjamin’s weak-messianic idea of Jetztzeit, Arendt’s idea of natality, Derrida’s deferred difference, Agamben’s time that remains – all these and other mutually conflicted visions offer possible ways of complicating our understanding of time. At least some of these ideas were directed against alienating and/or dehumanizing conceptions of time such as the mythical vision of circular temporality, biological determinism or the vision of time as measurable, empty and homogeneous [...]. What forms of violence are correlated with various conceptions of time? But also conversely: what forms of temporality are embedded in various modes of violence as described theoretically, but also as represented in literature and visual art? And: can we perceive various forms of human violence as desperate attempts to oppose the very violence of time?
During our workshop we will address these and other questions concerning the relations between time and violence in an interdisciplinary mode, with philosophy, psychoanalysis, theology, literature, literary theory, and visual art as our fields of reference. Special emphasis will be put on long, in-depth, free discussion of individual papers. A close reading and discussion of time and violence in Shakespeare’s Hamlet will be an integral part of the workshop. [...]
Freud: Logika doświadczenia. Spekulacje marańskie, 2019
Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa, 2019
Monografia poświęcona relacjom literatury i doświadczenia stanu wyjątkowego. Wychodząc od przekon... more Monografia poświęcona relacjom literatury i doświadczenia stanu wyjątkowego. Wychodząc od przekonania, że teza Waltera Benjamina o stanie wyjątkowym, który stał się regułą, w pierwszych dekadach XXI wieku nie traci nic ze swojej aktualności, książka próbuje jednocześnie przekonywać, że uprzywilejowanym miejscem refleksji nad anomią jest literatura. Literatura odgrywa tu rolę czujnego sejsmografu, który nie tylko rejestruje sytuację radykalnego kryzysu społecznego, ale też wykazuje zdolność kwestionowania obowiązujących form stanu wyjątkowego, a w konsekwencji zdolność wynajdywania odmiennych, sprzyjających jednostkowemu życiu postaci anomii.