Deconstructing Mimesis - Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe

<!- // start // --> <h1>Organised by La chute dans la Vallée</h1> <h1>Deconstructing Mimesis - Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe</h1> <h2>International Conference</h2> <h2>27th-28th January 2006, Paris</h2> <h2>At the Finnish Institute of Paris and La Sorbonne</h2> <p>With Fabien Chambon, Susanna Lindberg, Magali Guiet, Artemy Magun, Denis Guénoun, Paola Marrati, Leonid Kharlamov, Maud Meyzaud, Esa Kirkkopelto, Jonathan Rousseau, Thomas Dommange, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy</p> <!- // languages // --> <h1><a href="../index.htm">> Site français <</a></h1> <h1><a href="../finnish/index.htm">> Suomenkieliset Sivut <</a></h1> <h1><a href="../russian/index.htm">> Русский Сайт <</a></h1> <!- // end languages // --> <!- // menu // --> <h1><a href="accueil3.htm">Home</a></h1> <h1><a href="presentationgolive.html">Overview</a></h1> <h1><a href="programme.htm">Program</a></h1> <h1><a href="../resumes.htm">Abstracts</a></h1> <h1><a href="lacoue.htm">About Lacoue-Labarthe</a></h1> <h1><a href="contact.htm">Sponsors and Contact information</a></h1> <h1><a href="biblio.html">Bibliography</a></h1> <!- // end menu // --> <!- // presentation // --> <table width="500" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0" align="center"> <tr><td colspan="3" align="justify" valign="top"><font size="2" face="Arial"><em>Deconstructing mimesis</em> is the syntagm of great hesitation. This hesitation, enormous if you will, is decided, hardline even: Lacoue-Labarthe does not hesitate to consider (as does Hölderlin) faithlessness as being the height of faithfulness. But to the end of <em>what</em> exactly need we go? To <em>what</em> do we still need to be faithful? “<em>We would need to maintain to the end the philosophical thesis itself, according to which truth is – always – needed.</em>”<br /><br /><br /></font></td></tr> <tr><td align="justify" valign="top" width="46%"><font size="2" face="Arial">“<i>A symposium invariably applies itself to forgetting the risks to which it is exposed: of being nothing but one of those shows during which, in good company, are juxtaposed speeches or dissertations on a general subject. If this meeting were to have any chance of avoiding repetition, it would be to the extent that some imminence, or luck and peril both would exert pressure on us.</i>”</font><p><font size="2" face="Arial"><br />Something is being decided, “<em>something that impedes relinquishment.</em>” The relinquishing of the inescapable Platonic determination of being and mimesis – “<em>There is a philosophical urgency from which it is impossible to shy away from: the obligation is on us to rethink mimesis, to deconstruct all its interpretation</em>”. And Derrida too hesitates: “<em>It’s not sure that Lacoue-Labarthe deconstructs the inescapable Platonic determination of mimesis, – it’s not even sure that ‘deconstruction’ is the best word for the rewriting he makes in the structures of double bind, the abyss, the uncanny and hyperbole, etc.</em>”; and Lacoue-Labarthe hesitates: “<em>It would be necessary to practice something akin to (de)construction, something less critical than positive, so as to say something less negative</em>”. And this is indeed why the title “<em>Deconstructing mimesis</em>” is the syntagm of a great hesitation.</font></p></td> <td width="5%"></td><td align="justify" valign="top" width="49%"><font size="2" face="Arial">And still there is this conditional, or rather this unusual unconditional: “<em>We would need to maintain to the end the philosophical thesis itself, according to which truth is – always – needed.</em>” What is this strange spacing out, the hyperbole of this conditional unconditional? Is it the sign of a decisive hesitation? Let us imitate, let us observe: “<em>We need to maintain that we need truth</em>”. There is a fine line, an impregnable distance, a step, the void of an articulation, the bare spacing of the stage, the whiteness of the page where the meaning of a thought plays itself out, almost faithful to unfaithfulness. What is it about the “<em>altogether different thinking of mimesis</em>” that Lacoue-Labarthe opens up? At best paradoxical, at worst absurd, it is “mimetic” because it should be necessary to maintain, without blindness but to the end, a thesis of being: some <em>deconstructing mimesis</em> that is <em>the</em> necessary task that we still need to pursue. And so we must go… to the end of Nietzschean demolition, Nietzsche having never gone so far – here too is that feeling of hesitation – if there can be such a simple inversion of Platonism; to the end of Heideggerian destruction, Heidegger not having a negligible role in this trembling vigilance that is taking hold of philosophical thinking today. It is always a question of getting to grips with Heidegger “<em>despite him but because of him</em>”, and let there be no doubt, Lacoue-Labarthe reads and rereads him obstinately. </font><font size="2" face="Arial"><br /></font></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3" align="justify"><br /><br /><font size="2" face="Arial">“<em>The deconstruction of aesthetics is a necessary task that we still need to pursue, given that it remains incomplete and seemingly smashed against the rock of politics</em>”. Derrida therefore asks: “<em>Who dares to say ‘we’ without it trembling?</em>” It trembles without hesitating: “<em>What I share with Lacoue-Labarthe we both share, if somewhat differently, with Nancy. If there was in fact something that brought us together, there was never any common line between us. But something must have favoured a respectful feeling not only for the right of philosophy, but for fairness in thinking; that also means probity in writing, ethics, rights and politics</em>”.</font><font size="2" face="Arial"> </font></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3" align="justify"> <p align="right"><font size="2" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Trans. Philip Clarke </font></p></td></tr></table> <!- // end presentation // --> <!- // program // --> <table><tr><td> <p>Friday, january 27th (at the Finnish Institute of Paris)</p> <p>Morning</p> <table> <tr> <td>9h30</td> <td>Introduction</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>10h00</td> <td>Thomas Dommange (Montreal, Canada)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#td">Wagner : la fiction du culte </a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>11h00</td> <td>Paola Marrati (Baltimore, USA)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#pm">Entre mythe et expérience</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>12h00</td> <td>Susanna Lindberg (Helsinki, Finland)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#sl">Ontorythmie</a></td> </tr> </table> <p>Afternoon</p> <table> <tr> <td>14h30</td> <td>Fabien Chambon (Helsinki, Finland)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#fc">Délecture de Nietzsche</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>15h30</td> <td>Leonid Kharlamov (Paris, France)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#lk">Le propre (n')est (pas) le proche</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>16h30</td> <td>Jean-Luc Nancy (Strasbourg, France)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#jln">Portrait de Lacoue en Labarthe</a></td> </tr> </table> <p>Saturday, january 28th</p> <p>Morning (at La Sorbonne)</p> <table> <tr> <td>9h30</td> <td>Denis Guénoun (Paris, France)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#dg">La scène est-elle primitive ?</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>10h30</td> <td>Magali Guiet (Strasbourg, France)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#mg">Scènes de la représentation du mime</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>11h30</td> <td>Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (Paris, France)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#pll">Mime de rien</a></td> </tr> </table> <p>Afternoon (At the Finnish Institute)</p> <table> <tr> <td>14h30</td> <td>Maud Meyzaud (Francfort, Germany)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#mm">Langue révolutionnaire</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>15h30</td> <td>Artemy Magun (St Petersbourg, Russia)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#am">Révolution et mimesis</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>16h30</td> <td>Esa Kirkkopelto (Helsinki, Finland)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#ek">Comparatifs de Hölderlin</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>17h30</td> <td>Jonathan Rousseau (Strasbourg, France)</td> <td><a href="../resumes.htm#jr">La mort du sacrifice</a></td> </tr> </table> <p>> <a href="../DeconstructionMimetiqueProgramme.pdf">Download the whole program</a> <</p> </td> </tr> </table> <!- // endprog // --> <!- // bibliography // --> <h1>Bibliography</h1> <p><i>Le titre de la lettre</i> (with Jean-Luc Nancy), Paris, Galilée, 1973</p> <p><i>L'absolu littéraire</i> (with JLN and Anne-Marie Lang), P., Seuil, 1978</p> <p><i>Portrait de l'artiste, en général</i>, P., Bourgois, 1979</p> <p><i>Le sujet de la philosophie - Typographies I</i>, P., Aubier-Flammarion, 1979</p> <p><i>Retrait de l’artiste en deux personnes</i>, Lyon, Arte Facts, 1985</p> <p><i>L'imitation des modernes - Typographies II</i>, P., Galilée, 1986</p> <p><i>La poésie comme expérience</i>, P., Bourgois, coll. Détroits, 1986</p> <p><i>La fiction du politique</i>, P., Bourgois, coll. Détroits, 1987</p> <p><i>Sit venia verbo</i> (with Michel Deutsch), P., Bourgois, 1988</p> <p><i>Musica ficta, figures de Wagner</i>, P., Bourgois, coll. Détroits, 1991</p> <p><i>Le mythe nazi</i> (with JLN), La Tour d'Aigues, L'Aube, 1991</p> <p><i>Pasolini, une improvisation : d’une sainteté</i>, Bordeaux, William Blake & Co, 1995</p> <p><i>Métaphrasis suivi de Le théâtre de Hölderlin</i>, P., PUF, 1998</p> <p><i>Phrase</i>, P., Bourgois, coll. Détroits, 2000</p> <p><i>Poétique de l'histoire</i>, P., Galilée, 2000</p> <p><i>Heidegger : La politique du poème</i>, P., Galilée, 2004</p> <p><i>Le chant des muses</i>, P., coll. Les petites conférences, Bayard, 2005</p> <!- // fin bibliographie // --> <!- // partenaires et contact // --> <table> <tr> <td colspan="3"> <p>For further information: <a href="mailto:colloque@lacoue-labarthe.cjb.net">colloque@lacoue-labarthe.cjb.net </a></p> <p>Sponsors :</p></td></tr> <tr><td><p>International College of Philosophy</p></td> <td><p>History of Theatre Research Centre</p></td> <td><p>Finnish Institute of Paris</p></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="http://www.ci-philo.asso.fr/">www.ci-philo.asso.fr</a></td> <td><a href="http://www.crht.org/">www.crht.org</a></td> <td><a href="http://www.institut-finlandais.asso.fr/">www.institut-finlandais.asso.fr</a></td></tr> <tr><td> <p>1, rue Descartes<br>75 005 Paris<br>tél. +33 (0)1 44 41 46 80<br>fax +33 (0)1 44 41 46 86</p> </td> <td> <p>Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV)<br>1, rue Victor Cousin<br>75005 Paris<br>tél. +33 (0)1 40 46 22 11</p> </td> <td> <p>60, rue des Écoles<br>75005 Paris<br>tél. +33 (0)1 40 51 89 09<br>fax +33 (0)1 40 46 09 33</p></td></tr> <tr> <td colspan="3"> <div> <div>Special thanks to Christophe Freno, CFCES, 8 rue Chapon, 67 000 Strasbourg<br>  </div> <p>© 2005 Design Pare-brise & La Chute dans la Vallée - all rights reserved</p></div></td> </tr> </table>