Hard Eyes, Myopic Eyes and Weeping Eyes; Cixous and Derrida (original) (raw)

Abstract

The texts of Hélène Cixous and Jacques Derrida are inscribed in a body of work that questions many of the presuppositions underlying traditional autobiographical writing. Nevertheless, both authors have repeatedly incorporated a discourse of self-presentation in their theoretical and literary works. In my contribution, I will focus on Cixous' short text 'Savoir' (in which she discusses her myopia) and Derrida's Mémoires d'aveugle (in which he describes his facial paralysis). Considering the central importance of sight in the dominant epistemology of the West, the introduction of a blind or myopic body is not without significance for the autobiographical subject emerging in these texts, nor for the encompassing theoretical projects. Where autobiography is traditionally understood as self-exposure (often framed in sight-related terms, as in Rousseau's “Je me suis montré tel que je fus”), Cixous and Derrida allow us to grasp the constitutive blindness that first makes it possible to see ourselves. While the limits to self-knowledge are addressed at length in their more theoretical writings, these narratives of blindness perform an epistemological critique that defies strict categorization as either literary or philosophical.

Dennis Schep hasn't uploaded this talk.

Let Dennis know you want this talk to be uploaded.

Ask for this talk to be uploaded.