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miami1344048769.pdf (352.05 KB)
ETD Abstract Container
Abstract Header
Saying Saying: Performative Language in Autrement qu'être
Author Info
Hearon, Lindsey
Permalink:
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1344048769
Abstract Details
Year and Degree
2012, Master of Arts, Miami University, French.
Abstract
This paper examines the performative nature of Emmanuel Levinas's Autrement qu'être as a means of understanding the relationship between ethics and language. Through a close reading of the text, it seeks the ethical not in the mere words on the page, but in their very escape from the fixedness of the text, primarily in the way Levinas links the word Dire to an ethics of movement and transcendence. Jacques Derrida's analysis of Levinas's paradoxical language is used to show the ways in which Autrement qu'être allows fissures to develop in its own language, as Totalité et Infini, a prior iteration of Levinas's language theory, did not do. These fissures, ruptures and interruptions in the Saying, the Dire of the text, are the place and the non-lieu of poetic language in Autrement qu'être. Levinas's essay on poet Paul Celan, written after Autrement qu'être, provides a counterpoint to the poetic interruptions present in Levinas's own text, and suggests that Autrement qu'être itself, a text saying saying, and not the said, performs a poetic ethics.
Committee
Jonathan Strauss (Advisor)
Claire Goldstein (Committee Member)
Sven-Erik Rose (Committee Member)
Pages
43 p.
Subject Headings
Literature
Keywords
ethics
;
saying
;
dire
;
interruption
;
non-lieu
;
Levinas
;
poetics
;
Celan
Recommended Citations
Refworks
EndNote
RIS
Mendeley
Citations
Hearon, L. (2012).
Saying Saying: Performative Language in Autrement qu'être
[Master's thesis, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1344048769
APA Style (7th edition)
Hearon, Lindsey.
Saying Saying: Performative Language in Autrement qu'être.
2012. Miami University, Master's thesis.
OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center
, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1344048769.
MLA Style (8th edition)
Hearon, Lindsey. "Saying Saying: Performative Language in Autrement qu'être." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1344048769
Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)
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Document number:
miami1344048769
Download Count:
540
Copyright Info
© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.