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Agamben - Profanations PDF
Agamben - Profanations PDF
Agamben - Profanations PDF
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2007
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Contents
Urzone, Inc.
BOOKS
stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted
electronic,
photocopying,
mechanical,
or otherwise
microfilming,
recording,
by Sections [07
and 108 of the U.S. COI)yright Law and except by reviewers for
the public press), without written permission
Translator's
Genius
2005
Note
Nottetempo.
II
19
Cambridge,
Massachusetts,
III
Judgment
Day
IV
The Assistants
23
29
V
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Parody
37
Data
VI
Desiring
53
p.
VII
English]
/ Giorgio Agamben ; translated
em,
Includes bibliographical
Special Being
55
by Jeff Fort.
references.
VIII
IX
In Praise of Profanation
61
73
ISI3N978-1-890951-82-5
I.
Aesthetics. 2. Art-
Philosophy.
I.
Title.
I3H39A,2132007
111'.8S-dc22
2007023901
Notes
95
which he prepared
"-
CHAPTER
ONE
Genius
Now
111)'
In Latin, Genius was the name used for the god who becomes
each man's guardian at the moment
transparent
is
lectus 8enialis,
accomplished.
(birthday)
Anglo-Saxon
is
in Italian.
refrain, the
birthdays
are a
piglet, of an "immolated"
sprinkled
originally
It seems, though,
that
cake, because Genius, the god who presides over birth, did not
like blood sacrifices.
PROFANATIONS
GENIUS
me (Genius
with black paper you just don't see any reason to go on, then
than little manias, that now is the time to be over and done
man had his Genius and every woman her Juno, both of which
manifested
and perpetuates
life. But
as the term inBenillm - that is, the sum of physical and moral
to defraud one's
to cheat one-
self, in Latin. But the life that turns away from death and responds
without
genial.
son, it was not the pubis but the forehead that was associated
and personal
is most impersonal
in us, goes beyond and exceeds us. "Genius is our life not inso-
that governed
of the person,
the principle
hesitation
to the impetus
realizing it in moments
confusion
and disorientation,
forgotten
of
Genius (LInde venercnres deum tan8JIllLls fi'ontem ).1 And since this
god is, in a sense, what is most intimate and most our own, he
hending
must maintain
of what,
the conception
afterward
of man implicit
Compre-
in Genius
means
understanding
consciousness,
panied by an impersonal,
oneself
to
preindividual
element.
Man is thus a
single being with two phases; he is a being that results from the
him; one must grant him everything he asks for, for his exigen-
complex
cies are our exigencies, his happiness our happiness. Even if his
ated and lived and another part that is marked by fate and indi-
- our! - requirements
vidual experience.
seem unreasonable
and capricious,
it is
dialectic between
nonindividual
part is
not a past we have left behind once and for all and that we may
eventually
cial pen, a certain dim light shining from the left, it is useless to
recall in memory;
it is still present
tell yourself that just any pen will do, that any paper and any
that light
blue linen shirt (for goodness' sake, not the white one with the
if without
10
11
present. That is
GEN IUS
PROFANATIONS
why a birthday
and presence
of a past day
an everyday mystical
practice,
pres-
it's a matter
dissolution
to be sufficient unto
incredulously
and disappearance.
food or illumi-
itself.
It has been said that spirituality
the individuated
individuated
that
but still
customarily
that is impersonal
in us
its
by two conjoined
but opposed
completely
forces: one
and another
to the individual.
The two
emancipate
sense in the
to write this
as a force field of
whose antithetical
the subject
other perfectly. What, then, is the best way for Ego to testify
consider
spirituality
tensions
field is traversed
We must therefore
an impersonal
power
that presses
toward
writing.
But this
a computer)
- has no inclination
est somehow remains distant and escapes mastery. Ifwe did not
become impersonal,
ourselves
to Genius,
individuate
being, remaining
sonal element,
constantly
in relation
to a zone of noncon-
as a troubling
where
the pertinence
from consciousness
would
be sedi-
12
the avant-garde,
in the decreation
is not repression;
this experience
to appropriate
is
like those of
to
if the only
PROFANATIONS
and if the truly genial artist is the artist without a work, then
does without
the Duchamp-Ego
The life
sonal, between Ego and Genius, is called poetic. But the feeling
an incomparable
willing to renounce
will be found in the end, but by the very act of hiding, of being
that maintains the tension between the personal and the imper-
greater
GENIUS
us
011
Walser's
voluptuous
Walter Benjamin's
that is impersonal,
to reduce it
stubborn
desire to go unrecognized.
revealed
to children
pleasure in
There is
and
This
in their secret lairs. For the poet celejust like the child discov-
sive. But more laughable and fatuous than this is someone who
experiences
the encounter
who strikes a pose and puts on airs or, worse, feigns humility
and gives thanks for the grace received. In the face of Genius,
the impersonal
no one is great; we are all equally small. But some let them-
The rank of every being can be defined by an ethics of relationships with Genius. The lowest rank comprises
sometimes
those - and
turns out so
do not abandon
me .. ."). How much more amiable and sober is the poet who
14
On the threshold
tightrope,
stretched
to be moved, is to feel
Genius as anguisb or
Iunambulant
belong to them.
To have emotion,
between
Ego
on which our
world outside us, what awes and stuns us is the presence within
us of a part that is forever immature,
hesitant
infinitely adolescent,
of any individuation.
and
It is this
pushes us toward
the emotion
that remains
15
PROFANATIONS
GENIUS
perverse,
ogy that gives the guardian angel its most limpid and astonish-
emotion and the first politics because we seek in the other the
ing formulation.
relationship
daena, who has the form of a very beautiful young girl, presides
our own; our secret delight and our proud and loft)' agony.
an angel called a
over the birth of each man. The daena is the celestial archetype
in whose likeness each individual has been created, as well as
and observes
us at every
And yet the angel's face changes over time. Like the
transformed
with
of
one. The first pushes and coaxes us toward good; the second
death, the soul is met by its angel, which has been transfigured
corrupts
us and inclines
us toward
evil. Horace
is no doubt
right to suggest that there is, in reality, one Genius who changes
horrendous
demon.
It then whispers:
relationship
the
who
our every move like a shadow and secretly conspires against us.
is engendered
to flee from him. Genius, to the extent that he has been avoid-
ries a burning
overturns it.
In this belated
the paradox
of death,
who
ed andlcft
unexpressed,
An author's
style -like
inscribes
a grimace
on Ego's face.
of Genius fully
depends
deprived
someone
sponsible.
moralization,
a harbinger
angel-
tradition
is the
16
character.
of evading both
between
genius and
17
PROFANATIONS
suddenly
Two
CHAPTER
Magic
and
Happiness
But for each person there comes a time when he must be separated from his Genius. It can be at night, unexpectedly,
when
him. Or perhaps we
but no longer
says to
when he relinquishes
the
spirit's charms and knows that the strength he has now is his
own; it is the late and final stage when the old artist lays down
Ges-
of the
tures: for the first time truly his own, devoid of every charm.
No doubt life without Ariel loses its mystery, and yet somehow
does not make it any less salient. It is, in fact, quite likely that
overwhelms
children is
begin to live a purely human and earthly life, the life that did
not keep its promises and, for that reason, can now give us infi-
night fulfilled.?
not make us truly happy. Only magic can do that. This did not
escape the childlike genius of Mozart,
boy
two very different things, and the latter will not be possible for
one, imperiously,
long unlearning
Like creatures
happy it is necessary
at one's
side, and have the donkey that craps gold coins or the hen that
lays golden eggs in one's house. And no matter what the situation, it is much more important
the right words to say than to take the trouble to reach a goal
18
19
MAGIC
PROFANATIONS
worthy of happiness and that, as the ancients knew, any happiness commensurate
result
of arrogance
influencing
chantment
AND
HAPPINESS
ness of happiness,
that
and excess.
likeness of Amphitryon
But if someone
succeeds
in
on what one is but on a magic walnut or an "Open sesame!"then and only then can one consider
His enjoyment
through
the crooked
as
and
paths of
blessedly happy.
This childlike
who is enchanted
something
wisdom,
is not
deserving.
tions of official morality. Take the words of Kant, the philosopher who was least capable of understanding
between
the difference
to the condition
."3 But
That is the ultimate reason for the precept that there is only one
way to achieve happiness on this earth: to believe in the divine
and not to aspire to reach it (there is an ironic variation of this
in a conversation
between
when Kafka affirms that there is plenty of hope - but not for
US).4
This apparently
we understand
the meaning
that happiness
is reserved
is not simply
is, pre-
cisely, for us) but that it awaits us only at the point where it was
not destined for us. That is: happiness can be o L1I"S only through
relationship
Someone
has a paradoxical
or of a con-
know
enjoys
20
to be happy and to
something
through
en-
forth, because
definition
of magic becomes
21
PROFANATIONS
This definition
CHAPTER
THREE
a science
Judgment
of secret
Day
to its manifest
discussions
of names (diabolical
or
over spiritual powers. For him, the secret name is only the seal
of his power oflife and death over the creature that bears it.
But according
to another,
more luminous
tradition,
the
sanctions
its liberation
the monogram
that
captures
me in the photographs
it represents
in some way
pronounced,
- is shattered.
magic is
something
tragic. The photo can show any face, any object, or any event
not a knowledge
than when
who practice
what
and photographing
rance of magic names than from his own inability to free him-
that happens"
self from the name that has been imposed on him. No sooner
to appear on Judgment
everything
that happens.
But "everything
riding
bicycles in
Day.
There is one example that shows with absolute clarity how this
nameless.
the gates of the land of the magi, who speak in gestures alone.
daguerreotype
considered
Boulevard
22
by Daguerre
began. The
du Temple,
23
PROFANATIONS
busy moment
be crowded
cameras
JUDGMENT
of the period
time, absolutely
required
should
an extremely
the
long exposure
on the sidewalk in
A man stopped
DAY
Ixion turns
is the cipher
of an existence.
to have his shoes shined, and must have stood still for quite
a while, with his leg slightly raised to place his foot on the
shoeshiner's stool.
A good photographer
concerns
or singularity
of the photographed
and immortalized
- who is
nOllveall
an unmistakable
thanks
refers to another
chronological
gesture
and
index, an indelible
of the gesture,
lens
time.
his char-
to mention.
of exigency
be confused
tographed
I love that I am
is particularly
forgotten
something
important
deed, precisely
in the irrevocability
24
pho-
name has been erased forever from human memory - or, in-
contain
photography.
took of
Samuel Beck-
collects and
historical
that Dondero
Sarraute,
the supreme instant, man, each man, is given over forever to his
authors - Nathalie
roman
event. I
Dondero
roof of the Reichstag the day before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
And when has that life, that person, been picked out, captured,
by the angel of the Last Judgment
between
because
2['
JUDGMENT
PROFANATIONS
to the photographs
DAY
concerns
is, in this
mand for the name of that woman who was once alive.? It is
perhaps because they could not bear this mute apostrophe
the viewers of the first daguerreotypes
that
(In the
next to my desk,
- a rather well-known
one, in fact-
It is well known
In response
way of dedication
once expressed
phers he admired;
reservations
Henri Cartier-Bresson
and Sebastiao
Sal-
construction;
perfection.
day.)
The photograph
name is
Might Have Been; J am also called No More, Too Late, Farewell. A
Christian
every photograph
demands
that we remember
be resuscitated
concerned
in the condition
moment
of death (perhaps
integrity
of its youth,
the new angel of the apocalypse - the angel of photographybolds in his hands at the end of all days, that is, every day.
of the
26
graphs testify to all those lost names, like a Book of Life that
asked themselves
theologians
Illy
pretentious dedication,
flesh repeatedly
Aubel' wrote, by
He opposed
re-
of the
to his insistent
27
CHAPTER
FOUR
The Assistants
creatures
no
and
ance, they are so similar that they can only be told apart by
their names (Arthur, Jeremiah);
And yet they are attentive
observers,
"quick"
and "supple";
almost"
isn't easy to get them off our backs. Tn sum, "we don't know
who they are" - perhaps they are "emissaries"
(which would explain why they do nothing but lie in wait and
watch). But they look like angels, messengers
the content
and incomplete,
similar to the
THE
PROFANATIONS
ASSISTANTS
tagonists
able outlines. There is not one that is not either rising or fall-
owe everything.
its qualities
go on to live happily
yet is unripe, none that is not deeply exhausted and yet is only
at the beginning of a long existence,"! More intelligent and
that Geppetto
always intent
on notions
and
J.
or
gesture, an unforeseen
boldness in judgment
about
grace, a certain
or an inviolable elsewhere.
with him and thus earn a "crust of bread and a glass of wine."2
Neither dead nor alive, half golem and half robot, always ready
to yield to temptation
it necessary
assistant
to be
is Larnpwick,
and
a boy. (This is in the first version of the story, before the author
to his companions
that "there
of seriousness
that Pinocchio
insistence
us help, even though we can't quite tell what sort of help it is.
or in their stubborn
one moment
who describes
has sprouted
Another
when he realizes
a pair of donkey's
ears." Robert
Walser's assistants are made of the very same stuff - these fig-
done for us." For that very reason, we know, in the end, that
and stubbornly
superfluous,
busy collaborating
on
If
to become big fat zeros. And why should they bother to help
erature
parallel
with anything the world takes seriously? After all, it's nothing
and approxi-
mate beings who are too small or too large, gnomes, wraiths,
have nothing to give you, dear animal; I would gladly give you
something,
tle princess or Jean Sans Peur from danger. These figures are
forgotten
horn's existence:'
by the narrator
30
31
PROFANATIONS
THE
ASSISTANTS
One also finds assistants and helpers among the world of in-
sultation
wouldn't
renounce
the ravages of
who
Thanks
to
mals and can extend his justice over both men and jinn. One of
the qualities of the helper is, in fact, that he is a "translator"
(mlltaljim)
meant
For Charles
for men's
called Rosebud
shirts.
Foster
think of the Maltese falcon, which for its pursuers turns out to
of an incessant
be "the stuff that dreams are made of." Or, there is also the
theophany,
quality
RetheJ's magnificent
description
these helper-objects,
these testimonies
to an unavowed
Eden
for eternity,
in
a continuous
revelation.
Another
of the
the "men
the visionaries?
Revelations,
the masterwork
of
of wazir;
the
One Nights) are men who, in profane time, already possess the
characteristics
of messianic
creature
in his childhood
memories.s
This "tenant
of the distorted
he presents himself in
in some ways his guides, even if they are, in truth, only the per-
sonifications
tortion,
32
is, in
siah who comes at the end of time, needs his helpers, who are
of the qualities or "stations"
life"
who steals the glass from someone who wants to drink and the
attention"
Arabs, even if they speak their language. The MahdJ, the mes-
last day. Curiously - but perhaps for this very reason - they are
they are foreigners among the
Dis-
THE
PROFANATIONS
ASSISTANTS
and individual
dom, we who live "as if we were not the Kingdom." When the
forgotten
It concerns
of what becomes
will be remembered
of its
own accord. For it is said, "for them and their kind, the incom-
at every moment.
measure
irrevocably
of oblivion
carry in ourselves,
waste that we
far exceeds the small mercy of our memoBut this formless chaos of the for-
nor inefficacious.
to do with glory,
is a profound
mulated as a patrimony,
messianic theme.
Everything
to us is the currency
we will have to
knowledge
be remembered
and therefore,
or
who carelessly drops the Book of Life from his hands. The bead
forgettable
and translates
is nothing
pictures to us
nor accu-
The assis-
tan t is at home in all this. He spells out the text of the unHence his obstinate
schoolmates
that, al though
mime's
insistently
way. It is a
of light that emerges from our defects and our Iittle abjections
other than redemption.
of the forgotten
mass
the unending
lost. Throughout
life, comes to be
face. Hence,
unforgettable
gesticulations
is articulated
ambiguity.
For the
empty. On every side and all around us, the assistants are busy
preparing
assistants.
the Kingdom.
34
concerns
of our
every-
35
CHAPTER
FIVE
Parody
presents a concealed
ment about her poetics. The term. Parody (with a capital P) appears rather unexpectedly
central characters
it from
of someone
comic, or grotesque."2
home,
The
tionary definition,
PARODY
PROFANATIONS
the object
involving
homosexuality
voice (which
elements,
for which it is
Scaligero was one of the sharpest minds of his age. His definition contains certain important
is
Arturo
'5
has made a
in the begin-
transformed
on a preexis-
from something
of formal
contents
The definition
a relatively modern
whose exemplary
teenth
century
crystallization
crude contents
provoking.
and the
urgy of the mass or in to the text of the Bible, are in this sense
perfect examples of parody.
is
tradition
are intro-
manuals' defini-
the
who
This definition
and speech,
centuries:
made a distinction
between
song
was originally
supposed
to correspond
speech.
introduce
melodies,
their recitation,
performers
discordant
of the Homeric
of
to the rhythm
verted and overturned everything that had come before .... For
was Hegemon
38
poems,
informs
39
PARO
PROFANATIONS
provoked irrepressible
who composed
It
parody into
in Callias,
of the "natural"
orously
The precocious
unnarratable.
explanation
myth - is definitive
that she
borrowed
man was driven from Eden; he lost his own place and, together
as evident
DY
bond between
was thrown
into a history
that is, out of place, and the writer can only repeat
and mimic the intimate parody of this object. Since she wants
that made possible the birth of the art of prose with Gorgias.
Breaking
the end of the book in one of the rare moments when she takes
in which
prose takes its place. This means that literary prose carries in
over Arturo's
informed
that, according
etiam
of the natural
voice. Morante
must therefore
bearably stereotypical
acters
from illustrated
count on well-
children's
and Arturo
himself,
seem to come
are half Cuore
The notion
in literature
only in
the inititated
is extremely
fied with the parodied work; it also cannot deny being necessarily beside the song (para-oiden),
a direct rep-
40
a mystery,"
says Arturo
tops, pinecones,
mirrors
theatrical
(an ill-intentioned
source
toys:
defines
to parody. In approaching
solidarity
a mystery,
that
one can
to evoke it falls
4.1
PARODY
PROFANATIONS
par excellence
of the
by the countless
of the monks.
become
caricature,
lucid threshold
can only
on the
"I am
in
struggles
struggles unfailingly
old Grinberge.
These
sacra-
repeated
to represent
Grinberge
a decouvert
et cul et con
SOl'
ii. foiz li fist baiser son cul ainz qu'il fust ters.
the
rCrinberge uncovered her ass and cunt
of parody
intention
scatology.
is converted
I am referring
perhaps
of the
at the center
of
to Jludigier,
existence
in a single manuscript.
of its antihero
a constellation
The genealogy
and protagonist
that is resolutely
and entire
are inscribed
wi thin
of whom
a parodic intention
already present
that separates
crap, and sucked on them." But the true parodic nucleus of the
of the ceremony
of knightly
in chivalric literature
42
in-
"when he shit all over his clothes, / he stuck his fingers in the
investiture,
than an audacious
in folklore,
trial, both
through
Grinberge
Twice she had him kiss her ass until it was wiped cleaned.]"
between
and
the threshold
43
PARODY
PROFANATIONS
how parody
stituent
form)
is an essential
con-
in a parodic
that it reproduces.l''
ian literature
Fathers
conceived
of the
language.
of their
pletely: the divine, love, the good, the city, nature .... With the
as well as damnation.
tains creatures who, like the blessed, are innocent and yet carry
in themselves
the original
stain - children
reveals nothing
to them but
something
however, concerns
the punishment
hell.
an inhabitant
of
- of
hate their language as much as they love it. That is why, in their
limbo undergoes
case, parody does not simply insert more or less comic content
perpetual
constitutes
in a
punishments,
does not
good
does not cause them the sligh test regret. Thus the creatures
limbo convert the greatest punishment
this joy is certainly
Hence, however,
an extreme
thus introduces
of
living language,
mother
literary
certainly
in a poetically
between
grammar
the J-fypnerotomachia
limbo, con-
orgies of the
has a
consti-
and the
forms, as in
into
44
what is essential
culture
to the same
of Italian literary
island "like some grey thing," as Morante sees it. The "house of
of Italian literature
GOIni has shown
literature.
45
PROFANATIONS
PARODY
itself. Writers
can be contrasted
celebrate
(Giovanni
Tommaso
Landolfi).
lar language are separate to the point of no longer communicating, and the differences
in meter
with writers
who, in
elimination
the nonplace
of song
and
it is taken for
are abolished)
plus the
(obviously not
the unattainable
into a
becomes the proper object of poetry, and one that it is impossible to parody. Exit parodic. Incipit literatura.
Repressed parody reappears, however, in a pathological form.
song.
parodic intention.
taneously
complicated
is essential
by an
ancestor of the Marquis de Sade, who includes her in his genealogy, is not merely an ironic coincidence.
It announces
the
Pornography,
which maintains
the intangi-
with which it
to look at - is
the eschatological
establish
transform
differences
signification
in language
that
tensions.
form of parody.
recommends
The suggestion
oped further.
Pasolini
in a symbiotic
relationship
who systemati-
Catizonieie,
tradition,
which resolutely
is an attempt
to save poetry
46
sign of
turns away
with
could be devel-
on a
Indeed, Pasolini, too, began with a linguistic parody (his Friulian poems, his incongruous
parody. Petrarch's
At one point,
footsteps
of Morante.
signification.
Like language,
47
the
PROFANATIONS
PARODY
world).
of religion"
the
poles
to
cult of Umberto
Saba corresponds
of vitality in Morante"
to the tril-
ogy of life. The angelic little boys who must save the world cor-
detaching
something
unrepresentable
of Ninetto.
of parody.
of mourning
to
History,"
stitution
visti.
flatus
One of the
poems in Morante's
and condenses
adorn myself"]."
you, fiction,
to Pasolini, Morante's
it
fatuous
dress, I
The object
henceforth
becomes
only an "aura,"
only
I'ocis.
distinguish
themselves
themselves
according
to
great classes: parody and fiction, Beatrice and Laura. But intermediate
solutions
vocation),
vocation
of parody further,
tends that Italian exists"). In truth, parody not only does not
the
real for
to keep it at a distance.
To
- ontology
correspond
would correspond
to a duplication
to a paraontology.
of being
Alfred Jarry
as the science of
fiction's "as if," parody opposes its drastic "this is too much"
stubbornly
between
suspended
between
of lit-
48
of a space alongside
49
Just as metaphysics
is
experience
(but a
PROFANATIONS
terrain,
PARODY
knocks against limits and aporias that he cannot avoid but that
he also cannot escape.
If ontology
tween
and world,
then
relationship
parody,
be-
as paraontology,
Likewise, in literature,
function
sibility of the thing finding its own name. The space of parody
Morante.
- is therefore
necessarily
and theologi-
expresses language's inability to reach the thing and the impos- which is literature
language
to reflect,
of parody. It will be
voice turns to
to
Called forth and carried away from his place and his
position, the reader accedes not to the place of the author but
to a sort of space between worlds. If parody, the split between
language.
in parabasis
this heart-wrenching
atopia becomes,
for a mo-
tions parabasis.
In the technical
of Greek comedy,
exits the scene and the chorus turns directly to the spectators.
In order to do this, in order to speak to the audience, the chorus moves over (pal'Obaino) to the part of the stage called the
lopeion, the place of discourse.
In the gesture of parabasis, the representation
is dissolved and
between
encounters
Alifhebung
Friedrich
and parody
Parabasis is an
and a completion.
point where theater goes beyond itself and approaches the novel,
the Romantic
divided-
50
[si can-
5l
CHAPTER
SIX
Desiring
embalmed,
suspended
and waiting.
We are unable to put our desires into language because we have
imagined them. In reality, the crypt contains only images, like a
picture book for children who do not yet know how to read,
like the lmagerie d'Epinal of an illiterate
in desire is the
brutal. To communicate
tedious
(like recounting
without
images is
one's desires is
or one's travels).
But
the imagined
PROFANATIONS
CHAPTER
SEVEN
in the crypt.
Special
The messiah comes for our desires. He separates
Being
them from
we have imagined,
images of
of paradise.
Medieval philosophers
qui red in particular
were fascinated
by mirrors.
They in-
the nonbeing,
of these
substances or accidents?
Should they be identified with colors, with light, or with shadow? Are they endowed
being
between
Cavalcanti were led to define love in the same way: as an "accident without
54
substance:')
55
PROFANATIONS
Two characteristics
SPECIAL
na-
it does
Rather, it is gener-
as
or the pres-
of the illuminator,
so
each time
(transparent,
(mirror), spectrum
(image, ghost),
In philosophical
(beautiful,
giv-
translate the Greek eidos (as genus was used to translate genos);
hence the sense the term takes on in natural science (animal or
plan t species)
term
"commodities"
signifies
of commerce,
(particularly
where the
in the sense of
generation
BEING
(semper
according to the Talmud, sing the praises of God and immediately sink into nothingness.
insubstantial.
etJormae).
In itself, it can-
not measurable
quantities
The species
intelligibility.
from us, that our species or imago does not belong to us. Between
(habitus
signification
What is in a subject
a usage, a gesture.
of the image
vel c!ispositiones).
"being in a subject."
species,
of an
habitus
the perception
of the expression
sense, Narcissus's
shocking realization
of oneself in
it, there is a gap, which the medieval poets called love. In this
mirror is the source of love, the fierce and
that the image is and is not our image.
if one recognizes
oneself
in the
and loved in it - if
"aspect," or
S6
means believing that we are the masters of our own species and
that we coincide
S7
between
perception
PROFANATIONS
and recognition
internalized
is indefinitely
prolonged,
SPECIAL
established
BEING
that individuals
in a homogeneous
constitute
class tends to
be reassuring.
In the Middle Ages, species was also called intentio,
The term names
the internal
tension
(intus tensio)
intention.
of each
being, that which pushes it to become an image, to communicate itself. The species is nothing
the
Nothing
is more instructive
and communicates
what renders visible and, at the same time, what can - and must,
at all costs - be fixed in a substance and in a specific difference
in order to constitute
an identity.
in its own being. In the image, being and desire, existence and
conatus
coincide
being means to
desires to persevere
like
psychological,
The species does not subdivide the genus; it exposes it. The being
eminently
linking
the
The
it in a sub-
within the genus. And special being does not mean the individ-
ual, identified
and
"Whatever
the species).
"untrue,
Species
[disposi-
- is referred to as an identity-
at the cost of sacrificing its specialriess. A being - a face, a gesture, an event - is special when, without resembling
Specious
is the orig-
apparatus
as that which
it resembles
any other,
to common
58
But neither
jealousy.
r9
is
and
PROFANATIONS
CHAPTER
the brutal
EIGHT
confuse the personal with the special. The jeune fille is jealous
The Author
in an autonomous
into spectacle.
as Gesture
sphere.
The special is
of
of jealousy.
On February
the lecture
if Things
the lecture,
curiosity
with excitement
matter
who's speaking,
as a vvay to for-
mulate an indifference
in writing,
expression
Foucault
writing.
suggested,
What is in
the Beckett
matter
of his absence,"!
quote contains
who's speaking,
someone
said
anonymous
someone without
60
this statement,
of
THE
PROFANATIONS
The same
ecuting
AUTHOR
and punishing
AS
GESTURE
of
distinguishing
nevertheless
necessity.
the possibility
At this point, Foucault goes on to clarify the meaning
operation.
the author
between
of his
two notions
as a real individual
who
of authenticating
character;
simultaneously
texts by constituting
the possibility
them as
of determining
their
into several
subjects
who occupy
different
is not simply a proper name like any other, neither at the level
of description
If I learn, for
a transdiscur-
the proper
name Pierre
Dupont
lecture
a modified
version of the
cault proposed
author-individual
an indefinite
Shakespeare has not changed. The author's name does not refer
simply to civil status; "it does not pass from the interior
principle
of a
source of significations
between
the
excludes,
de-
certain number
ments
in society, Fou-
of discourses
endowed
func-
characteristic
and functioning
is
circulation,
of the author-function
regime of appropriation
sanctioned
function
gesture.
On the one
in
by
processes of subjectivation
the author's rights and, at the same time, the possibility of pros-
62
this subject's
that actualize
apparatuses
that constitute
63
of
PROFANATIONS
THE
why hostile
to the flesh-and-blood
cidedly aestheticizing
Foucault
perspective
and a de-
losopbes, he characterized
in the following
sub-
refusal has the aim of eliciting the processes that are peculiar to
an experience
difficulty
emerges
explicitly
and thematically
ject does not amount to acting as if the subject did not exist,
making an abstraction
des phi-
recourse to a constituent
GESTURE
AS
individual
AUTHOR
dor. I am referring to "Lives of Infamous Men," originally conceived as the preface to an anthology
prison
moment
records,
and lettres
de cachet,
of archival documents,
in which,
at the very
with
and transformed'
And in response
to Lucien Goldmann,
sexton Jean-Antoine
to Foucault the
So let us hold
vagabondage
the author-function
appears
as a
of Mathurin
Milan (interned
Touzard (interned
opprobrium
Something
obscure
at Charenton
on
in this instantaneous
that condemns
them to
of the
ual must give way to the archival record that defines the condi-
responsible
order of discourse.
Foucault
continually
can appear
in the
is
[esige
1 its
proper
name, testifying
in this
to itself
the role of the dead man in the game of writing." The author is
not dead, but to position oneself as an author means occupying
In what way are these lives present in the brief, sinister anncta-
64
65
THE
PROFANATIONS
or representing
functionaries
had no intention
of either
in
AUTHOR
AS
GESTURE
10
these pages, these lives shine blindingly with a dark light. Can
it be said for that reason that these lives found expression here
and that they are somehow
communicated
to us and given to
On the con-
It was therefore
essential: they are "played out" or "put into play" in these sen-
had appeared
absolutely
unexpressed
as if they
of remaining
or refiguration,
but something
of rep-
trary, the gesture by which they have been fixed seems to re-
tences; their freedom and their disgrace are risked and decided.
in it.
Where
is Mathurin
Milan? Where
is Jean-Antoine
Touzard?
thing like the cipher of the lecture on the author: the infamous
in each expressive
what remains
biographical
their presence
marked on the outer edge of the archive, like the gesture that
a cen-
their absence,
their eternal
turning
away, is
and nullified
its
intention.
How should we understand
fJoueesJ''':
an ambiguous expression,
quotation
cal meaning (the phrase could mean that these lives are staged,
or their roles recited), but because the agent, the one who put
One won't see a collection of verbal portraits here, but traps,
Who put these lives into play? Was it the infamous men them-
selves, abandoning
themselves
these few sentences; by this I do not mean that they were repre-
sodomite
66
often their
passion?
without
and Jean-Antoine
Touzard
to his
THE
PROFANATIONS
stranger
everything
internment?
and policemen
pletely to either
it belongs
neither
to the
containing
tionaries
men in the
agrees to
choosing
never represented,
GESTURE
juridical identity that will have to answer for it nor to the funcof power who will judge the infamous
AS
AUTHOR
to the calculations
But what does it mean for a life to put itself - or to be put-
the exception
into play?
In Dostoyevsky's
in these gestures
principle.
superior
like a rational
to discern
decision or a moral
Nor can one say that she acts in order to seek ven-
From beginning
room, including
General
is there,
a hundred
and, at bottom,
is inexplicable;
inaccessible
by
and misunderstood
in all her
irrevocably and without reserve - even at the risk that its happiness or its disgrace will be decided once and for all.
68
by Lebedev,
laws but when it accepts putting itself into play in its gestures,
thousand rubles
mains perfectly
who at a
Rogozhin,
Yep-
Ferdischen-
as is Rogozhin,
to end,
or
a
Offered
up and
pressed or fulfilled. For this reason, the author can only remain
unsatisfied
69
PROFANATIONS
possible,
and discourse
THE
the legendary
emptiness
from
gesture
is
of the commedia
1azzo incessantly
and continually
interrupts
unravels
dell'arte
- the Harlequin's
on the stage
the author's
each time
AUTHOR
AS
GESTURE
thought
sentiment,
became inextricably
the poem (just as they become such for us only in the moment
when we read the poem).
gesture
the irreducible
the poem itself, in the signs that make up the text? How could
require
a subject to experience
one must
decipher
or photograph
- to
the
is less certain. Indeed, it is rather likely that this thought and this
returns to enclose himself again within the opening he has crethe portrait
this in-
through
exergue
that ironi-
some-
will
occupy the empty place in the poem left by the author; he will
repeat the same inexpressive
to his absence in the work.
The place of the poem - or, rather, its taking place - is therefore neither
it is in the gesture
through
put
And yet this illegible gesture, this place that remains empty, is
themselves into play in the text and, at the same time, are infi-
nitely withdrawn
12
We know - or at least we
guarantor
or
into play, and the reader can only provide this testimony
once
man named Cesar Vallejo, who was born in Peru in 1892 and is
in Paris, next to
other posthumous
relationship
Cemetery
writings.
that constitutes
Let us attempt
to pinpoint
the
70
ing to Averroes,
individuals
thought
is unique
and separate
and fantasies
71
PROFANATIONS
other light than the opaque one that radiates from the testi-
CHAPTER
NINE
which no interpretation
can proceed.
of Profanation
of what has
In Praise
Reading must
to attempt
to construct
the
fane." Sacred or religious were the things that in some way be-
longed to the gods. As such, they were removed from the free
confrontation
itself - into play. For writing (any writing, not only the writing
of the chancellors
which reserved
the hand-to-hand
produced
confrontation
subjectivity
they have
presence,
"religious"),
in
so must
lan-
chology do we encounter
form of life.
anything
and nowhere
in psy-
called "sacred")
or for the
was sacrilegious.
(sacrare)
thus
wrote, "In the strict sense, profane is the term for something
that was once sacred or religious and is returned
property
to
by servitude.
allotted
sacred,
nor holy nor religiOUS, freed from all names of this sort,"'
The thing that is returned
to the common
use of men is
pure, profane, free of sacred names. But use does not appear
here as something
72
natural:
rather,
73
one arrives
at it only by
PROFANATIONS
means of profanation.
ship between
IN
tention
PRAISE
OF
PROFANATION
uneasy hesitation
in relations
(the "rereading
[rileaaere]")
before forms-
separation
what unites men and gods but what ensures they remain dis-
between
Reliaio
is not
separa-
tinct.
within
It is not disbelief
and indifference
toward
the divine,
released from the religio of norms) before things and their use,
before
always sanctions
sacrifice
forms
of separation
and their
(that is to say,
meaning.
To profane
use.
The passage from the sacred to the profane can, in fact, also
can be returned
from
the rite to the profane sphere. Thus one of the simplest forms
of profanation
same sacrifice
during the
once belonged,
girotondo
by
profane
contagion,
Most
victim from the human to the divine sphere. One part of the
LIse (or,
inappropriate
from divinatory
practices
was originally
a marriage
rite; playing
with a ball
reprod uces the struggle of the gods for possession of the sun;
games of chance derive from oracular practices;
top and the chessboard were instruments
lyzing the relationship
between
the spinning
of divination.
In ana-
ven iste shows that play not only derives from the sphere of the
sacred but also in some ways represents
its overturning.
etymology
the myth that tells the story and the rite that reproduces
unites
the human
It comes instead
74
from
and at-
The
of
and
the rite; as
lOCUS,
or wordplay, it
PROFANATIONS
IN
PRAISE
OF
PROFANATION
effaces the rite and allows the myth to survive. "If the sacred
stubbornly
can be defined
to
rite, we can say that one has play when only half of the sacred
the sacred and its rites, even in the form of the inane cere-
operation
is completed,
translating
provincial
gious intention.
a political task.
from the
the religious
sphere.
of
Children,
toys out of things that also belong to the spheres of' economics,
war, law, and other activities
of
they secularize
reli-
an unconsciously
Secularization
between
secularization
is a form of repression.
It leaves
intact the forces it deals with by simply moving them from one
place to another. Thus the political secularization
cal concepts (the transcendence
of theologi-
becomes
can
of use,
Profanation,
however,
neutralizes
what it profanes.
Once
profaned, that which was unavailable and separate loses its aura
and is returned
guarantees
operations:
the first
the apparatuses
of power and
Kafka's The New Attorney that the law that is no longer applied
but only studied is the gate to justice." Just as the religjo that is
Philologists
the powers
[potenzeJ
of economics,
deacti-
is in decline everywhere.
inherent
through
the vertiginous
Indeed, at parties,
proliferation
76
Mod-
and
that seems
Freud noted)
"cursed,
consecrated
excluded
The
77
of the profanatory
PROFANATIONS
operation
IN
these operations
one. Insofar as
ally return
PRAISE
OF
PROFANATION
in Roman sacrifice,
the profane to the sacred and from the sacred to the profane,
victim is profaned
by contagion
like a residue of
of sacred-
and consumed
is assigned
to the gods.
the solemn
consecrates
in
order to ensure victory), has been given over to the gods and
notions
homo
of transubstantiation
why, in
seriousness
had
in en-
incarnation
been excluded
system that had involved God himself as the victim of the sac-
occurred here? A sacred man, one who belongs to the gods, has
survived the rite that separated him from other men and con-
in paganism concerned
Although
profane existence
body an irreducible
residue of sacredness.
among them.
in his
which
of Christianity.
to paralyze
The doctrine
the sacrificial
of incarnation
guaran-
teed that divine and human nature were both present without
ambiguity
an incongruous
rem-
without
Christianity,
in the machine
the distinction
the
enin
that put
lapsing into the human sphere and man always already passes
tion of use among humans and divine beings and can eventu-
78
79
PROFANATIONS
IN
"Capitalism
penetrating
posthumous
fragments.
According
most
to Benjamin,
of the Protestant
faith,
from Christianity.
As
capitalist
has meaning
not possible
it is
to distinguish
between
workdays
toward
and compound
interest
of
J ."9
of the
Schuld [guilt/debt
to the fulfillment
PROFANATION
first, it is a cultic religion, perhaps the most extreme and absoIn it, everything
OF
Nietzsche
PRAISE
and holidays;
from or atonement
is probably
a tendency
already present
in
in Chris-
of separation
the
....
A monstrous
be-
comes the cult, not to atone for this guilt but to make it uniGod in this guilt ....
Benjamin's reflections
from the profane to the sacred and from the sacred to the pro-
first instance
ofman."6
process
of
Precisely because it strives with all its might not toward re-
ceaseless
An absolute profanation
without
re-
demption but toward guilt, not toward hope but toward despair,
secration.
of the
is
of modernity
(Nietzsche,
with it; they are, in some way, on the side of the religion
of
In the commodity,
separation
inheres
into an ungraspable
in the very
even the human body, even sexuality, even language. They are
now divided from themselves
that no longer defines any substantial division and where all use
80
81
PROFANATIONS
IN
phase of capitalism
which everything
for the
or to spectacular
exhibition.
religion
in its extreme
PRAISE
OF
PROFANATION
nor after
the paradigm
prophecy,
of an impossibility
many centuries
John
XXII
later in consumer
soci-
of use more radically than could any definition put forth by the
absolutely unprofanable.
canon of consumption
in the thirteenth
as the impossibility
century
of
by the Roman
Curia during its conflict with the Franciscan order. In their call
for "highest poverty," the Franciscans
of a use entirely
removed
- but rather
as something
(dominium).
with something
inexistent
possess as
it refers to things
xxrr,
an implacable adver-
In
entirely
from
or the negation
which is
nothing
but the device that moves the free use of men into a
separate
sphere,
consumers
where it is converted
they consume
objects
within
them-
(abusus).
Con-
the impossibility
of property,
that the substance of the thing remains intact (salvo rei substantia). That is not all: a simple de facto use, distinct from prop-
The impossibility
Museum.
it is in no way something
that
one can "have:' "The act of use itself exists in nature neither
82
plished
The museification
place in the
83
potentialities
that
PROFANATIONS
IN
Museum. "Museum"
OF
PROFANATION
philosophy,
the idea
television
withdrawn
into the
PRAISE
primary
in the world,
religion,
tourism
the
is the
longer - felt as true and decisive has moved. In this sense, the
ing as the fact that millions of ordinary people are able to carry
Museum
can coincide
sites), a region
World Heritage
disappeared).
perience
absolute impossibility
ex-
of profaning.
italist religion is founded, is not truly such, and that today there
of an impossibility
capitalism
and
like a
natural
and function once reserved for the Temple as the place of sacri-
gious, economic,
travel across the earth from tern ple to tern ple, from sanctuary
to sanctuary
- correspond
who restlessly
between
the
plays with
ancient
religious
symbols
or objects
teristic
of all
possible use. If the Christians were "pilgri ms," that is, strangers
on the earth, because their homeland
Wherever
of dwelling that
behaviors
yarn for the mouse (or the toy for the sacred object),
of the
deacti-
84
activity
they knew in their houses and their cities, the same inability to
in malls, and on
of predatory
that once
in supermarkets,
in a
of the destruction
in
of play
divine and the human by moving the vietim into the sacred
consists in the anguishing
still reproduces
activity,
IN
PROFANATIONS
I:
been separated
society without
poorly formulated.
PROFANATION
OF
but,
in emptying them of their sense and of any obligatory relationnew use. The game with the yarn liberates
PRAISE
use. But is a
is perhaps
to common
The activity that results from this thus becomes a pure means,
play with them. The classless society is not a society that has
means, is emancipated
joyousl y forgotten
means without
its nature as a
to an end; it has
only by deactivating
to deactivate
the apparatuses
of those differ-
it inoperative.
of certain physiological
course
its hunt).
No one knows
and disquieting
a toy can be
eration
than nothing).
wax puppet
of lib-
the doll on
a cold,
can capture
and
invented collectively.
and separa-
86
the apparatuses
production
piece of wood;
Rather, it is a matter
sions between
human
into an awkward
and common.
tion intervened.
I:i
Certainly
turns
on its
gigantic apparatus
Illi
tory behaviors.
phase, capitalism
for capturing
but a
87
is nothing
the deactivation
IN
PROFANATIONS
and rupture
of all separation,
cial sphere.
using
PRAISE
an unprofanable:
ing voluntary
the intimacy
function
PROFANATION
pornography.
Those
OF
of their boudoirs.
Sometimes,
lazily stretched
on
different
which, in separating
procedure
of control,
language
possible profanatory
potential.
tion of propaganda,
as an instrument
of the
The apparatuses
this profanatory
as essentially
word
and waiting,
one of neutralizing
announcement,
conceived
of its function
it at the center
of the
of the messianic
Other times,
in the mirror
absolutization
of the commodity
and exchange-
d'Olivier.
photographer
and animated,
exaggerating
their indecency,
of being exposed
time that this process arrives at its extreme stage. Film historians record as a disconcerting
with Monika
in Summer
Harriet Andersson,
suddenly fixes her gaze for a few seconds on the camera ("Here
for the first time in the history of cinema," the director Ingmar
Bergman
commented,
direct contact
has rendered
"there
is established
a shameless
suspended
own emptiness,
as if no new
spectator
caresses,
possible.
and
that, more than any other, appears to have realized the capital-
88
89
itself'!3
"it is
before the
IN
PROFANATIONS
(Aus-
stellun8swert) to characterize
of art undergoes
the transformation
of objects and
value, exhibition-value
be reduced
introduces
and exchange-
is exhibited
not exchange-value,
any labor
be-
the mechanism
who
she is aware of
expression,
of exhibition-value
power.
But it is perhaps only in the sphere of the human face that
common experience
are surprised
use-value
PROFANATION
the Marxian
between
OF
PRAISE
as a pure means.
It is this profanatory
potential
and powerfully
disrupts
the expressive
to a different
animate the face. It is this brazen -faced ind i fference that fashion
themselves
it is to show
but the
In this
through
this nullification
of expressivity,
Yet,
eroticism
desperate
consumption
intention.
All apparatuses
subjectivizing
in a separate
hensible
to the extreme.
or sub-
mitting to the most obscene acts, but always so that her face is
and
The solitary
of the pornographic
at this point to
strained by circumstances
in the apparatus.
behavior and,
sphere. There is
behavior
in
intent; it is repre-
or by force -lets
itself be captured
gesture of the porn
star nor the impassive face of the fashion model is, as such, to
be blamed.
both politically
and
90
PROFANATIONS
CHAPTER
TEN
of the fashion show, which have diverted them from their pos-
sible use.
The unprofanable
of pornography
- everything
of an au-
thentically
intention.
we must
Minutes
In
that is un-
profanable - is founded
profanatory
Beautiful
the
History
of Cinema
the unprofanable
The profanation
of
attempts
After
Sancho
girl (Dulcinea?),
structure
supporting
it re-
mains visible. The outraged audience leaves the theater, but the
children on the balcony continue
Quixote.
disapproval,
What are we to do with our imaginations?
92
and falsify
PROFANATIONS
of Orson Welles's
films).
Notes
unfulfilled, when they show the nullity of which they are made,
only then can we pay the price for their truth and understand
that Dulcinea - whom we have saved - cannot love us.
CHi\PTER
ONE:
GENlllS
3. See Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal, trans. Kevin Attcll
(Stanford,
CA: Stanford
University
CHAPTER
Two:
MAGIC
I. See Walter
Experiment
AND
Benjamin,
HAPPINESS
"Fritz
Frankel:
Protocol
or the Mescaline
3. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge
(Cambridge,
1999), p. 798.
94
University
Press,
PROFANATIONS
NOTES
1948-49),
2. Morante,
emended).
P: 393.
3. Morante,
CHAPTER
THREE:
1. Walter
1927-1934,
Rodney
JUDGMENT
Benjamin,
ed. Michael
Livingstone
translation
DAY
"[ulicn
Selected
Green,"
W. jennings.
(Cambridge,
Howard
Writin8s,
Volume 2,
MA: Harvard
University
Press,
P:
1999),
2. Walter
Benjamin,
"Little
History
Selected Writings,
of Photography."
Volume 2, p. 510.
Poetics ch. 2.
4. Aristotle,
5. Cicero,
6. Edmondo
Crowell,
333.
7. Friedrich
FOUR:
1. Walter
THE
to jacob
2. Carlo Collodi,
Kafka," Selected
"Franz
Howard
University
P:
Press, 1999),
r:I a Puppet,
of California
Press,
799.
ed. and
1986), P:
emended
in accordance
9. Morante,
Burkhardt,
ASSISTANTS
Benjamin,
ney Livingstone
Nietzsche
CHAPTER
1901).
and Row,
with Agamben's
L'isola di Arturo,
1972),
Italian version.
P: 7; Arturo's
Island, P: v (translation
emended).
10. See, for example,
in Giovanni
Barbian
Guglielmo
(ed.),
Gorni,
"Parodia
e scrittura
Olschki,
in Dante,"
1988), pp.
323-40.
89.
3. lbid., p. 347.
4. lbn al-Arabi,
Sindbard,
(Paris:
6. Walter Benjamin,
"Berlin
Childhood
(Cambridge,
around
MA: Harvard
University
W. Jennings,
trans.
Press, 2002),
13. Morante,
2004).
EIGHT:
THE AUTHOR
I. Michel Foucault,
(this translation
"What
AS GESTURE
Is an Author?"
in Aesthetics,
temol08.Y' ed. James D. Faubion, trans. Robert HurJey (New York: New Press,
FIVE: PARODY
lated as Arturo's
(New
emended).
CHAPTER
1. Elsa Morante,
Weaver
pp.
384-85.
CHAPTER
(1975).
5. Ibid., p. 120.
Edmond
York: Knopf,
96
in this passage).
1959), P: 308
PROFANATIONS
NOTES
iu. pp.
6.
5.
emended).
tu, p. 217.
9. tbid., p. 289.
10. John XXII, Ad Conditorem Canonum (1322), in Corpus luris Canonici,
cd. Emil Ludwig Richter and Emil Friedberg
and by Foucault's
English translator)
Oxford
(Cambridge,
12. "Father dust who rises from Spain." Cesar Vallejo, The Complete Postand Jose Rubia Barcia (Berkeley:
CHAPTEI<-
NINE:
IN
PRAISE
0['
PROI'ANATION
cornmc
Volume 2, 1927-
1934, ed. Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith (Cambridge,
MA: Belknap Press, 1999), p. 815.
5. Walter Benjamin, "Capitalism
Volume
MA:
98
Selected
Eshleman
Cini,
emended).
Fondazione
18, 1982.
both by Agamben
Foucault,
9. The ambiguity
emended).
emended).
8. Ibid.
8. Michel
288-89 (translated
')c
by Archetype