Darin Tenev | Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" (original) (raw)

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Papers by Darin Tenev

Fascination E. T. A. Hoffmann, 2024

This is a text presented in 2019 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, during a conference on E. T. A. Hoffmann, ... more This is a text presented in 2019 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, during a conference on E. T. A. Hoffmann, organized by Prof. Svetla Cherpokova. The paper focuses on an episode from the reception of E.T.A. Hoffmann in France, namely the way in which he was taken up and interpreted by Sarah Kofman who wrote a series of essays on him during the 1970s. Unlike Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe’s work on Friedrich Schlegel or Paul de Man’s analyses of Kleist and Wordsworth, Sarah Kofman’s work on romanticism is not much commented and yet I will claim that it sheds a new light on the importance of German romanticism for deconstruction.
I reconstruct Kofman’s theory of doubles (Doppelgänger) as it is built up in her writings on Hofmann, differentiating between the narcissist double, the uncanny double and the ironic double.
The last part of the paper takes up the figure of Hoffmann’s tomcat Murr and its interpretation by Kofman in an attempt to sketch a self-reflexive problematization indicated by deconstruction.

The paper was written in 2019 and does not refer to Derrida's work on 'das Unheimliche' in the seminars made accessible after that (in particular the 1971 seminar on Psychoanalysis in the Text, and the 1991-1992 seminar on the secret, published by Seuil in 2024).

World literature studies, Mar 29, 2024

In this article I trace Derrida's modus of reading literary works focusing on "The Law of Genre".... more In this article I trace Derrida's modus of reading literary works focusing on "The Law of Genre". First, I offer a reconstruction of Derrida' s text and analyze the strategy of reading in which one uses elements of what one reads as tools of interpretation. I then argue that this strategy allows the text to indicate its singularity. However, the singularity of literary works is associated with their potentiality, or what Derrida calls in Glas "POTENCE du texte". In the third and final part of the article, the singular potentiality of literature is outlined.

World Literature Studies, 2024

In this paper I trace Derrida’s modus of reading literary works focusing on The Law of Genre. Fir... more In this paper I trace Derrida’s modus of reading literary works focusing on The Law of Genre. First, I offer a reconstruction of Derrida’s text and analyze the strategy of reading in which one uses elements of what one reads as tools of interpretation. I then argue that this strategy allows the text to indicate its singularity. However, the singularity of literary works is associated with their potentiality, or what Derrida calls in Glas “POTENCE du texte”. In the third and final part of the paper, the singular potentiality of literature is outlined.

Limitrophe, 2024

This paper is based on a lecture I delivered in Tokyo Metropolitan University in December 2023 as... more This paper is based on a lecture I delivered in Tokyo Metropolitan University in December 2023 as part of series of lectures on "Awai" (limit), organized by Prof. Yuji Nishiyama. The paper deals with the question of fiction as a limit or boundary with a place or spatiality of its own. Drawing on Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot and Wolfgang Iser, the paper addresses this question by focusing on fictional figures that change their sex, from Ovid's Tiresias to Virginia Woolf's Orlando and Kawakami Hiromi's Bo (or Nanigashi, 某). Deconstructing the linear representation of the limit, fiction helps redefine sexuality in terms of transcendental dispersion.

Невъзможният разказ и скритата основа на субекта (Върху дневник от времето на социализма), 2011

Теоретизиращ прочит на дневник от времето на българския социализъм, в който се преразглежда въпро... more Теоретизиращ прочит на дневник от времето на българския социализъм, в който се преразглежда въпроса за конструирането и функционирането на наративна идентичност.

По ръба на изречимото: Тъмната светлина на Бланшо

Кратък текст от 2011 г. по повод излизането на български превод на "Смъртната присъда", "В желани... more Кратък текст от 2011 г. по повод излизането на български превод на "Смъртната присъда", "В желания момент", "Онзи, който не ме придружаваше" и "Последният човек" на Морис Бланшо, дело на Антоанета Колева. Текстът разглежда въпроси като връзката между тези произведения, смисълът на récit при Бланшо и проблемите пред превеждането на тези текстове.

Резонансът като памет, 2021

Текст, писан по повод юбилей на Лиляна Деянова и включен в сборника за нея "Време и памет", София... more Текст, писан по повод юбилей на Лиляна Деянова и включен в сборника за нея "Време и памет", София: УИ "Св. Кл. Охридски", 2021.

Limitrophe, 2023

The essay traces the cat cruelty and violence directed at cats in Contemporary Japanese literatur... more The essay traces the cat cruelty and violence directed at cats in Contemporary Japanese literature with a focus on a short work by Shibusawa Tatsuhiko titled "Cats and Metaphysics". The main claim is that the specific position of cat figure in literature is that of putting boundaries into question. It is constructed in such a way as to retain something inexplicable and incomprehensible which challenges human's finite nature to which humans respond violently in an attempt to transgress the limitations that define them.

The development of structuralist ideas in Bulgaria coincided with the liberalization of the human... more The development of structuralist ideas in Bulgaria coincided with the liberalization of the human and social sciences during the 1960s and the 1970s and from the start was involved in various discussions, both internal and external. The present paper focuses on the case of the literary theoretician Christo Todorov, a representative of the Bulgarian Guillaumist School, and his curious siding with Pantelei Zarev, a powerful professor in the highest ranks of the Bulgarian Communist Party and at the time a Rector of the University of Sofia, during his attack on structuralism. At the end I propose a Guillaumist interpretation of the situation in which Todorov found himself, using his own methodological instruments.Развитие структуралистских идей в Болгарии совпало с либерализацией гуманитарных и социальных наук в 1960-х и 1970-х годах и с самого нача- ла принимало участие в различных дискуссиях, как внутренних, так и внешних. В настоящей статье ос- новное внимание уделяется случаю литера...

Centre for Advanced Study Sofia (CAS), 2014

In this text, which was initially included in "Digressions. Essays on Jacques Derrida", I ask the... more In this text, which was initially included in "Digressions. Essays on Jacques Derrida", I ask the question what would have happened with Heidegger's transcendence in Derrida and answer that question comparing Jean-Luc Nancy and Derrida focusing on the role of the image in their work. Neither image, nor transcendence is a notion usually associated with Derrida's deconstruction, and yet once one starts looking for hints most interesting things come out, such as what I call transcendence in reverse, which is a sort of transcendence driven by the other that takes place in the pre-originary work of mourning, and in which one can see the dynamics of the force of the image, of the image as force.

Ausgehend von Robert Matthias Erdbeers Beitrag »Poetik der Modelle« aus Textpraxis # 11 reflektie... more Ausgehend von Robert Matthias Erdbeers Beitrag »Poetik der Modelle« aus Textpraxis # 11 reflektiert Darin Tenev den Terminus ›Eigensinn‹ als das emergente Potenzial eines literarischen Textes und dessen modellbildende Strukturen. Zudem stellt er den Gewinn von Erdbeers Ansatz für die Konstitution historischer und systematischer literarischer Modelle dar.

Fascination E. T. A. Hoffmann, 2024

World literature studies, Mar 29, 2024

World Literature Studies, 2024

Limitrophe, 2024

Невъзможният разказ и скритата основа на субекта (Върху дневник от времето на социализма), 2011

По ръба на изречимото: Тъмната светлина на Бланшо

Резонансът като памет, 2021

Limitrophe, 2023

Centre for Advanced Study Sofia (CAS), 2014

Събитие и безсмъртие (литература, език, философия, наука) | Event and Immortality (Literature, Language, Philosophy, Science), сборник доклади от международна научна конференция, Факултет по славянски филологии, Софийски университет „Св. Климент Охридски” (13-14 май 2011 г.), May 13, 2014

The collection of essays Event and Immortality gathers texts from the eponymous conference, organ... more The collection of essays Event and Immortality gathers texts from the eponymous conference, organized by the Faculty of Slavic Studies at the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski». The conference took place on the 13th and 14th of May 2011 at the University of Sofia. From all the submissions the organizing comitee after a careful selection has approved 60 papers for consideration and has admitted for publication 56 of the considered papers by representatives of various academic institutions from Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Japan, Poland, Romania, and USA.
The conference focused on two key concepts of contemporary thought and aimed at elucidating their productive interaction within literary, linguistic and philosophical discourses.
The problem of the event has often emerged within the humanities lately; it was of interest to Foucault and Deleuze, Lyotard and Derrida, Nancy and Badiou. For some thinkers (Blanchot, Lyotard, Derrida, Badiou) it has been constantly connected with the questions of death and immortality. It is this bond that has determined the decision to revisit and redefine these interrelated concepts in a manner both provocative and productive.

Zhanet 45, 2012

This is a study on the notion of literary image. It focuses on several writers and poets (T. S. E... more This is a study on the notion of literary image. It focuses on several writers and poets (T. S. Eliot, Chavdar Mutafov, Hagiwara Sakutaro, James Joyce, Atanas Dalchev) and discusses various literary theorists such as Wolfgang Iser, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Alexander Potebnja, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Lacan, Maurice Blanchot.

Iztok-Zapad, 2013

This is a collection of related texts on Jacques Derrida that discuss the place of imagination, g... more This is a collection of related texts on Jacques Derrida that discuss the place of imagination, gift, and community in his work. The book includes a comparative study of Derrida and Adorno, Derrida and Badiou, Derrida and Nancy, Derrida and L. Marin, Derrida and Bourdieu.

The paper traces the role negativity played in Kristeva's writings from the 1960s to the 1980s, i... more The paper traces the role negativity played in Kristeva's writings from the 1960s to the 1980s, i.e., from early texts such as "Poetry and Negativity" through Revolution in Poetic Language and Polylogue to Powers of Horror and Black Sun. On the one hand, negativity allows for a reconstruction of Kristeva's conceptual development from the early "structuralist" work to her psychoanalytical turn. It will be demonstrated in what way the theorization of negativity opened the way for a new form of engagement with psychoanalysis. On the other hand, negativity helps the recontextualization of Kristeva's conceptions in the broader horizon of her contemporary theoretical scene. It helps delineating her unique position in this scene vis-à-vis thinkers such as J.-P. Sartre, J. Derrida, J.-F. Lyotard, J.-L. Nancy, etc., and simultaneously vis-à-vis the psychoanalytical work of J. Lacan, A. Green and others. There is however also a philosophical stake of the paper. By rereading and reevaluating Kristeva's take on negativity it will be shown in what sense Kristeva's work poses an ontological question about negativity that is at the same time a question about the possible redefinition of matter.

The text of a lecture given at the east Asian Academy for New Liberal Arts (EAA), Tokyo Universit... more The text of a lecture given at the east Asian Academy for New Liberal Arts (EAA), Tokyo University, December 15, 2022.
The paper outlines a new theory of the phantasm. After a short discussion on the concept of phantasm in Lacan, Laplanche and Pontalis, Deleuze and Derrida, it offers a reading of a work by the Japanese SF writer Hirotaka Tobi, titled "The Fingers of the Sea" and included in his collection "Autogenic Dreaming" (Tokyo, 2019).

Paper given at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, on November 4, 2022. In the paper I turn to the ear... more Paper given at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, on November 4, 2022.
In the paper I turn to the early work of Jacques Derrida on Husserl and to Martin Heidegger’s "Being and Time" in order to outline a different direction for thinking indexicality. My main argument is that there is a type of indexicality that, unlike what is usually understood by that term, points not to context but to modalities.

This paper was presented on July 19, 2022 at the ISOLLing conference, Universitas Muhammadyiah Pu... more This paper was presented on July 19, 2022 at the ISOLLing conference, Universitas Muhammadyiah Purwokerto, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya dan Komunikasi.

It focuses on the way, in which the development of the Metaverse affects the modalities of the literary works. The main claim is that there is a major shift away from narrative modalities towards character modalities. The character modalities are centered around potentiality understood as power. The desire in the Metaverse is driven by and points to nothing other than the power that calls it forth and in this way describes the movement of power folding upon itself only to continue increasing.

This is the draft for the text presented at the 7th Derrida Today Conference. It deals with the c... more This is the draft for the text presented at the 7th Derrida Today Conference. It deals with the concept of phantasm in the works of Jacques Derrida. Reconstructing it against the background of the conceptualizations of phantasm offered before that by Lacan, Laplanche and Pontalis, and Deleuze, the text focuses on Derrida's last seminar and then goes back to "Glas" before moving to an enigmatic sentence in "The Post Card", stating that "As long as you don’t know what a child is, you won’t know what a fantasm is, nor, of course, by the same token, what knowledge is." The last part of the text is an interpretation of the relation between child, phantasm, and deconstruction.

The paper focuses on an episode from the reception of E.T.A. Hoffmann in France, namely the way i... more The paper focuses on an episode from the reception of E.T.A. Hoffmann in France, namely the way in which he was taken up and interpreted by Sarah Kofman who wrote a series of essays on him during the 1970s. Unlike Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe’s work on Friedrich Schlegel or Paul de Man’s analyses of Kleist and Wordsworth, Sarah Kofman’s work on romanticism is not much commented and yet I will claim that it sheds a new light on the importance of German romanticism for deconstruction.
The author reconstructs Kofman’s theory of doubles (Doppelgänger) as it is built up in her writings on Hofmann, differentiating between the narcissist double, the uncanny double and the ironic double.
The last part of the paper takes up the figure of Hoffmann’s tomcat Murr and its interretation by Kofman in an attempt to sketch a self-reflexive problematization indicated by deconstruction.

This is a review article of Maria Margaroni's edited collection "Understanding Kristeva, Understa... more This is a review article of Maria Margaroni's edited collection "Understanding Kristeva, Understanding Modernism" which engages critically with the contributors' main ideas and connects this book with other contemporary scholarship in the field and discusses the 'Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism' Series of Bloomsbury Academic.