NUDITI ES

~,-

MERIDIAN

Crossing Aesthetics

Werner Hamacher
Editor
NUDITIES

Translated by David Kishik

and Stefan Pedatella

Giorgio Agamben

Stanford
University
Press

Stanford
California
2011
Contents

Sranford University Press Translators' Note IX

Sranford, California
English translarion © 2011 by the Boatd ofTrustees § 1 Creation and Salvation
of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Al! rights reserved.
§ 2 What Is the Contemporary? 10
Nudities was originally pub!ished in Italian undcr the ti de
Nudita © 2009 Nottetempo SRL. § 3 K. 20
No pan of this book may be reproduced or transmined in any form or by
§ 4 On the Uses and Disadvantages of Living
any means, dectronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording,
or in any informarion storage or retrieval system withour rhe prior written
among Specters 37
permission of Sranford University Prcss. § 5 On What We Can Nor Do 43
Printed in rhe United Stares of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
§ 6 Identity withour the Person 46
Library of Congrcss Cataloging-in-Publication Data
§ 7 Nudity 55
Agamben, Giorgio, 1942-
[Nudita. English] § 8 The Glorious Body 91
Nudities / Giorgio Agamben ; rranslatcd by
§ 9 Hunger of an Ox I04
David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella.
p. cm. ~ (Meridian, crossing aesthetics) § IO The Last Chapter in the History of the World II3
"OriginaUy published in Iralian under rhe (ide Nudita."
Indudes bibJiographícal references.
ISBN 978-0-8047-6949-5 (cloth : ,Ik. papee) Notes II5
ISBN 978-0-8047-6950-r (pbk: alk. paper)
1. Kishik, David. 11. PedateUa, Stefan, 1976- Credits 121
lE. Tirle. IV. Series: Meridian (Stanford, Calif.)
B36n.A43N8313 2010
195-dc22
2010022808
Translators' Note

English transIations of secondary sourees have been silendy

modifled in arder ro take into aecount both the original texts and
Agamben)s own Iralian translations of [hese sources.
Mandelstam's poem on pages 12-13 was translated from the Rus-
sian by Jane Mikkelson.
We would like to thank Matteo Battistini and R. Anthony Peda-
tella for their insights into sorne diffleuIt passages. We are very
grateful to Kevin Attell and Giorgio Agamben, whose generous
and detailed suggestions gready improved our translation.

IX
NUDITI ES
§1 Creation and Salvation

1. Prophets disappear early on in Western hisrory. If it is true

that Judaism eannot be undersrood withollt the figure of the nabi,
if the prophetie books oeeupy, in every sense, a central place in the
Bible, it is just as true that early on there are already forees at work
within Judaism that tend to limit the praetiee and the time frame
of prophetism. The rabbinieal traditian therefore tends ro confine
prophetism ro an idealized past that eoncludes with the destme-
tion of the First Temple in 587 BC As the rabbis teaeh, "After the
death of the last prophets-Haggai, Zeehariah, and Malaehi-the
holy spirit departed from Israel, though heavenly messages con-
tinue ro reaeh them through the bat ko!" (literally, "the voiee's
daughter," thar is, the oral tradition, as well as rhe cornmentary
on, and interpretation of, the Torah).' In the same way, Christian-
ity reeognizes the essential funetion of propheey and, indeed, con-
struets the relationship between the Old and New Testaments in
prophetie terms. But inasmueh as the Messiah appeared on earth
and fulfilled the promise, the prophet no longer has any reason ro
exist, and so Paul, Peter, and their companions present themselves
as apostles (thar is, "those who are sent forth"), nevef as prophets.
Far this rcasan, within rhe Christian tradition, rhose who claim
to be prophets eannot but be looked upon by the orthodoxy with
suspicion. In this veio, those who wish ro somehow link them-
selves ro propheey can do so only through the interpretation of the
I
Prophecy is only possible in terms
of interpretation. But, it has always
2 been that way,Creation
hasn'tand
it? Salvation Creation and Salvation 3
Bueno, pero esto
Scriptures, by reading rhem in a new way, or restoring the!rsolamente
10st quiere f , one has to do with his c[earian,
k or praxIS: 'h the orher
f
has que es kinds o' wor
decir
original meaning. In JudaÍsm as in Christianity, hermeneutics C mman
d
,','
P' hers funcrion as medlarors w o a -
IOp ' d '
h
replaeed prophetism; one can praetiee propheey only in the "anterior"
form with IS o 1 of th e C omm and , while angels funCtlon as me dla-
en un '
of interpretarían. firm t he WOH k f ' ' And sinee the Comman , hIS
sentido. Tergiversa fJi m the wor o eleatlOn,
Naturally, the propher has nor alrogerher disappeared from rors who a r , 1 d' f the Command [that IS, t e
el sentido de bl r than crcanon, t le me lator o '''2
Western culture. He continues his labor discretely, under various no e . h n the mediator of creanon.
'anterior' y
guises, perhaps even ourside rhe hermeneurieal sphere properly prophet] I,S nobIe~:o~ the two works, united in God, are as-
'posterior' solo In Chnstlan t
undersrood, And so Aby Warburg classified Nietzsche and Jacob differentgYJi gures 11l
'h t e'[rinity', the Father and rhe
Burekhardr as rwo opposing rypes of nabi: rhe former direeredporque "el status
signed ro twO , d rhe redeemer inro whom God
h niparent creatOl an '. . h
de
roward rhe furure, rhe larrer roward rhe past. Similarly, Miehel uno precede al
Son, : e o,m e What is decisive in the Islamic tradltlOn, ow-
del
Foueaulr, in his leerure from February 1, 1984, ar rhe College de otro". empned hls fore , f ' d mprion precedes rhe status of ere-
, h t the status o le e l ' ,
Franee, disringuished berween four figures of rrurh-rellers in rhe ever, 15 t a r 11 is actually anterior. Sa vatlon IS
, h hat seems to ro ow h' h
aneienr world: rhe propher, rhe sage, rhe expen, and rhe panhe- atlOn, t ar w for rhe FalI of created beings but rather rhat W le,
siasr, In rhe subsequenr leerure he soughr ro retraee rheir deseen- not a !emedy , hensible, whar gives ir its sense, For thls
danrs in rhe hisrory of modern philosophy, BU[ ir srill remains makes ereanon cohmPI1,e h f the prophet is eonsidered the Jirst
'Isiamrelgto fh
rhe case rhar, generally speaking, no one would feel immediarely reasan, In ' . rh e J eWI'sh tradition the name o [ , e
(J'ust as 11l
11 b
eomforrable roday claiming rhe posirion of prophet. among, ha ell1gs d before t h ' ofthe world , and in Chns-
e ereatlOn ,
Mess!a was ereate hb e the Father-is eonsubstannaI
, ' h S -thoug orn rrom k
2, Ir is well known rhar in Islam rhe propher performs possi- nadOlry t el o~h him), Nothing cxpresses the prioriry of the wlor
an coeva Wl . berter than [he fact that sa va-
bly an even more essenrial funerion, Nor only rhe usual biblieal 1 , thar of ereanon
Two prophers, bur also Abraham, Moses, and Jesus are defined in Islam af sa vatlOn ovedr , nt demand for reparation, one rhat
" te as an eXIge, id
kinds of
as prophers, Neverrheless, even in rhis tradirion, Muhammad, rhe non lS presen f n doing in the created wor .
precedes rhe appearanee o anly"wro g hadith "they raised rheir
praxis:propher par exeellenee, is eonsidered rhe "seal of propheey," he "When God created the ange s, recItes a Es decir:
, .el
h;»sentido
He re-
who
creation has definirively closed wirh his book rhe hisrory of prophe- nd asked' 'Lord, whode
arelayou Wlt , se
heads toward heaven a l ' " s of inJ' historia
usriee untiI their
ri,m (whieh conrinues seererly even here rhrough eommenrary on,
and and spond e d·. '1 am wirh
," rhase w 10 are VICtlm ,
cumple en la
inrerprerarion of, rhe Koran), rights are restored,
salvation redención.
Ir is signifieanr, however, rhar rhe Islamie tradirion inexrrieably
. Why is this an , d h nin of the
links rhe figure and funerion of rhe propher ro one of rhe rwo
opposition? 3 Seholars have examll1e t e mea g f htwo
K works of
("T<
works or aerions of God, Aecording ro rhis doerrine rhere are rwo . h . only one verse o t e oran o
differenr kinds of work or praxis (sunnah): rhe work of erearion God, which appear roget er;n h C mmand" [7:54]), Aeeording
and rhe work of salvarion (or rhe Command), Prophers eorre- Him bel~ng rhe creatlO :
h
:~rs~ t:'ea~the intimare contradiction
ro sorne Inrerprerers, t . h . God in monorheisric re-
spond ro rhe larrer; rhey funerion as mediarors for eseharologi- h ses a ereator God Wit a saVlOr .
cal salvarion, Angels eorrespond ro rhe former; rhey represenr rhe r at oppo . G . d Marcionire versions, WhICh aceenruate
ligions (or, In nostle .a~ . eator of the world, in
work of crearion (of whieh Iblis-rhe angel who had been origi- . . ahelous Demmrge, er
thc Opposltlon, a m " 1 Id and from whom
nalIy enrrusred wirh rhe eanhly kingdom before refusing ro wor- 'h God who IS aIren to r le wor ,
ship Adam-is rhe eiphcr), "God," Shahrasranl wrires, "has rwo contrast Wlt a , d I ' ) Whatever the origin of rhe
proeeeds redemptlOn an sa vanon .
4 Creation and Salvation
Creatioll and Salvation 5

two works may be, it is certain thar not on1y in Islam do crearian
a created being. This means rhar crearian and salvation remain
and salvaríon establish the two poles of divine action. And if it is
somehow foreign to ane another, thar ir is nor rhe principIe of
true that God is the place where humans think throuah their deci-
crearíon within lIS that will be able to save what we have produced.
sive problems, rhen (hese are aIso rhe tWQ poles of hubman acrion.
Nevertheless, rhar which can and must save rhe work of crcatian
All the more interesting, then, is the relationship that ríes the
results and arises from it. That which precedes in rank and dignity
two works together: rhey are distinct and evcn oppose oue an-
derives from rhar which is its inferior.
other, but they are nevertheless inextricable. Those who act and
This means that what will save the world is not the spiritual, an-
produce must also save and redeem thcir crearian. Ir is nor enough
gelic power (a power thar is, in the final analysis, demonic!: with
ro do; ane must know how to save thar which one has done. In
which humans produce their works (whether they be techmcal or
fact, the task of salvation precedes rhe task of crearíon; it is almost
artistic works, works of war 01' peace), but a more humble and
as if the only legitimization for doing and producing were the ca-
corporeal power, which humans have insofar as rhey are crea~ed
pawy to redeem that which has been done and produced.
beings. But rhis also rneans rhar rhe tvvo powers somehow C~tn­
What is truIy singular in evcry human existence is rhe silent and
cide in the prophet, that the custodian of the work of salvatlOn
impervious íntertwining of rhe two works, rhe extremeIy dose and
belongs, as far as his being is concerned, to creation.
yet disjointed proceeding of the propheríc word and the creative
Esto es hiperdiscutible
word, of the power of the angel (with which we never cease pro-
5. In moder·n culture philosophy and criticism have inher-
ducing and looking ahead) and the power of the prophet (that just
ited the prophetic work of salvaríon (that formerly, in the sacred
as tlreIessly rctncves, undoes, and arrests rhe progress of crcarian
sphere, had been entrusted to exegesis); poetry, technology, and
and in this way completes and redeems it). And just as singular is
art are rhe inheritors of the angelic work of creation. Through the
the trme rhat ~les the two works together, the rhythm according
process of secularizarían of the religious tradition, howev~r, the~e
ro WhlCh creatlOn precedes redemption but in reality follo ws it, as
disciplines have progressively lost all memory of the relatlOnshlp
redemption follows creation but in truth precedes it.
that had previously linked them so intimately to one another.
Hence the complicated and almost schizophrenic characrer that
. 4· In borh Islam and ]udaism, the work of salvation-though
seems to mark this relationship. Once, the poet knew how ro ac-
1t precedes rhe work of crearían in Íts degree of importance-is
count for his poetry ("To open ir through prose," as Dante puts
entrusted to a created being: the prophet or the Messiah (in Chris-
ir), and rhe critic was also a poet.1\ Now, the critic has lost access to
tianity, this ideais attested to by the fact that the Son, although
the work of creation and thus gets revenge by presuming to judge
consubstantlal wlth the Father, was generated, though not created,
it, while the poet no longet knows how to save his own work and
by him). The above-cited passage from Shahrastani continues, as
thus discounrs this incapacity by blindly consigning himself ro the
a matter of fact, with these words: "And this is wonhy of marvel:
frivolity of the angel. The fact is that these two works-which ap-
that the spiritual beings [the angels], though proceeding directly
pear autonomous and independent of one another-are in reality
from the Cornmand, have become mediators of crearian, while
two faces of the same divine power, and they coincide, at least as
the corporeal, created beings [the prophets] have become media-
far as the prophet is concemed, within a single being. The work
tors of the Command."3 What is indeed marvelous here is that
of crearíon is, in truth, only a spark thar has detached itself from
the redemption of crearian is entrusted nor tú the creator (nof to
rhe prophetic work of salvation, and the work of salvation is only
the angels, who proceed directly from the creative power) but to
a fragment of the angclic creation that has become conscious of
6 CreatiOJl and Salvation
Creation and Salvation 7

itself. The prophet is an angel who, in the very impulse that spurs But "divine and
latter have abandoned, while artisans,only
who have become
him into action, suddenly feels in his living /lesh the thorn of a t hat the human"
. k f.
.¡nopela . tl·ve , dedicare themselves wnh great zeal to a wor ob le-h
different exigency. This is why the ancient biographies tell us that according muslim
d emptlOll. l·n which there is no longer any work to save. In ot
Plato was originally a tragic poet who, while heading to the theater and jewish
·eation and salvation no longer scratch onta ane another
cases cl . nor. d d
to have his trilogy performed, heard Socrates' voice and decided to tradition,
ignature of their tenacious, amorous but
confltct. Unslgne an
burn his tragedies. h
t es . . h· h h
divided, they place each other in front Christian.
of a mmor 10 w lC t ey
cannor recognize themselves .
. 6. Just as genius and talent-originally distinct and even oppo-
SIte-are nevertheless united in the work of the poet, so the work
What is the sense of this division of divine-and human-
of crcarian and rhe work of salvarían, inasmuch as they represent
pr:is into twO works? If in the final analysis it is tme that, despite
the two powers of a single God, remain in sorne way secredy C011-
rhe difference in their status, rhe mutual roots oE rhe tvvo worl~s
joined. What determines rhe status of the work is, however, once
seern to stem froro a caroman terrain ar substance, what dces thclr
ag~in, nor a result of crearian and talent but of the signature im- unity consist of? Pel"haps the only way to lead them back once
prlllted on it by genius and by salvation. This signature is style: again to theil" eommon root is by thinking of the work of salva-
rhe couIlterforce, as ir were, thar resists and undoes crearian from
tion as rhar aspect of rhe power to create rhar was lefr unprac~1C.ed
within, the countermelody that silences the inspired angel. Vice b the angel and thus can turn back on itself. Just as potent¡alrty
versa, in the work of the prophet, style is the signature that cre-
arian-in rhe very aet of being saved-leaves on salvatiollj ir is the
a~ticipates the act and exceeds it, so the work of redemption pre-
cedes thar of creation. Ncvertheless, redempnon 15 nothmg orher
opacity and almost rhe insolcnce with which crearian resists ¡ts
rhan a potentiality ro create that remains pend,ing, th:t t~rn~, ~n
redemption, with which it seeks to remain utterly night, utterly
itself and "saves" itself. But what is the mealllng of sav111g 10
creaturely, and in this way to bestow its tenor on thought.
this context? After aH, there is nothing in creation that is not ulti-
A critical or philosophical work that does not possess sorne SOrt
mately destined ro be lost: not only the part of each and every mo-
of an essential relationship with crearían is condemned to pointless
ment that must be lost and forgotten-the daily squandering of
idling, just as a work of art or poetry that does not contain within
tiny gestures, of minute sensations, of that which passes through
it a critical exigency is destined for oblivion. Today, however, sepa-
the mind in a /lash, of trite and wasted words, all of WhICh exceed
rated into two different subjects as they are, the two divine sunnah
b great measure the merey of memory and the archive of redemp-
search desperately for a meeting point, for a threshold of indif-
ti:n-but also the works of art and ingenuity, the fruits of a long
ference, where their lost unity can be rediscovered. They do this
and patient labor thar, sooner or later, are condemned to disap-
by exchanging their roles, which nevertheless remain implacably
dlvlded. At the moment when, fOl" the ¡¡rst time, the problem of p= .
Ir is over this immemorial mass, over rhe unformed and lm-
the separation between poetry and philosophy forcefully emerges
mense chaos of what must be lost that, according to the Islamic
in our consciousness, Hólderlin describes philosophy (in a letter
tradition, Iblis, the angel that has eyes only for the work of cre-
to Neuffer) as a "hospital in which the unfortunate poet can take
atíon, cries incessantly, He críes because he does not know thar
refuge with honor."5 In our day the hospital of philosophy has
what one loses acrually belongs ro God, that when all the work
closed its shutters. Critics, transformed into «curators," heedlessly
of crearÍon has been forgotten, when aH signs and words have be-
take rhe place of anists in arder tú simulare che work of crearian
come illegible, only the work of salvation will remain indelible.
8
CreatioJZ and Sa!vafÍon
Creation and Salvation 9
8, Whar is a "saved" potenriality, this power to do (and to not
es hi work 15. translorme
L d. Ir remains, of course,l
do) that do not simply pass into acruality, so as to exhaust itself nemorial-even t s . the work of redemption is eterna.
in it, but rarher conserves itself and dwelIs (ir is "saved") as such J sed to crcanon, . . .
because, as oppo
(har 5a
l '
vatlon
has survived crearian, lt5, eXlgency
h 1$
within the work? The work of salvation coincides here point fo 1
"'o the extent h listed'111 t h e saved bur rarher losr m l' e unsaY-
poinr wirh rhe work of creation: the fo rmer undoes and decrearesr .L
not, howeveff, ex acreation rhar is lefr pending, ir ends up as an
rhe latter al' rhe very same moment ir carries and accompanies ir I Born rom a b' ,
into being, There is neirher gesture nor word, neither color nor ¡ab e, ' h l' no longer has an o jeCtlve,
'nscrurable salvarlOn l' ah " 'd rhar the supreme knowledge
rimbre, neirher desire nor gaze thar salvation does not suspend and ' h' n w y Ir 15 sal
This lS l' e ¡easo 1 hen we no longer have any use
render inoperative in its amorous struggle with rhe work. That h ' h ames roo ate, w , 1 I
is (har W le e . h has survived OUt works, 15 t le ast
which the angel forms, produces, and caresses, the prophet brings for i1'. This knowledge, wfhlC l' though somehow ir no longer
back ro an unformed State and contemplares, His eyes observe that ' frUlt o OUt lves, b
and most preclOus h fa country (har we are a out
which is saved but only inasmuch as it wilI be lost on the last day, concerns liS, like (he, geograp Y o to dedicate to it their mast
And just as a loved one is alI of a sudden present in our mem- b h ' d Unnl humans Iearn I d
to leave e In ,
'C I C
, I
day the¡r ererna a a ,S bb rh this supreme know
'dI e ge d
ory, but only on the condition that he 01' she is disembodied and beautlru reast, h' h ane attends to hurne y an
turned into an image, so the work of crearion is now indmately ' personal marrer, w lC , f ti II
meshed in every last deraíl with nonbeing, will remam a 1 f 'h rhe srrange sensarlOn o na y
q , I A d rhus we are e t Wlt " l' bl
Ulet y, nd' he meanmgf
, ' a th e twa w o rks , of rherr mexp!Ca e
But what, then, is saved here, exacdy? No r the created being, understanand Ingofl' OUt su bsequen l' lack of anyrhing else to say.
beca use ir is lost, beca Use it cannot bur be 10s1'. Not rhe potenrial- divisial1,
ity, because it has no consistency other rhan rhe decreation of the
work. Instead, rhe creared being and the porentiality now enter
into a rhreshold in which rhey can no longer be in any way dis-
ringuished from one another, This means that rhe ulrimare figure
of human and divine acdon appears where creation and salvation
coincide in the unsavable, This coinciden ce can be achieved only
if the propher has nothing to save and rhe angel has norhing else
ro do, Unsavable, therefo re , is rhar work in which creadon and
salvarion, acdon and Contemplarion, operadon and inoperadv_
ity [inoperosita] pcrsisr in every momenr and, without leaving any
residue, in the same being (and in the same nonbeing), Hence its
opaque splendo r, which vertiginously disrances irself from us like
a star (hat wilI never rerurn.

9, The crying ange! turns irself into a propher, whíle rhe la-
ment of rhe poer for creadon becomes critical prophecy, rhar is ro
say, phílosophy, Bur precisely now-when rhe work of salvadon
seems ro garher within irself as unforgerrable everyrhing rhat is im-
What ls the Contemporarf II

What Is the Contemporary? seeks to understand as an iIIness, a disability, and a defect some-
thing which this epoch is quite rightly proud of, that is to say, its
historical culture, because 1 believe that we are al! consumed by
the fever of history and we should at least realize it. "2 In other
words Nietzsche situates his own c1aim for "relevance" [attualita],
his "contemporariness" with respect ro rhe presenr, in a disconnec-
cion and out-of-jointness. Those who are tmly contemporary, who
truly belong to their time, are those who neither perfectly coincide
with it nor adjust themselves to its demands. They are thus in this
sense irrelevant [inattuale]. But precisely because of this condition,
precisely through this disconnection and this anachronism, they
are more capable than orhers of perceiving and grasping their own

=:i:;:r~S::~I<~~~a:~:;U;dd
time.
ike
thi:' to inscribe on the thteshold of Naturally, this noncoincidence, this "dys-chrony," does not
And, first and fc " n of what are we contemporarles?>' mean rhar rhe contemporary is a person who lives in another time,
fa >" oremost, What does ir mean to be contem o
ry. In the COurse of this seminar we will h . p - a nostalgic who feels more at home in the Athens of Pericles or in
texts wh h ave occaSlOll to read the Paris of Robespierre and the marquis de Sade than in the city
oShc aut ors are many centuries removed from liS as well
as oth crs t at are mo ' and the time in which he Iives. An intelligent man can despise his
is essential thar we n::nfaegCeentt, b ~ven very recento At aI! events ir
or
time, while knowing that he nevertheless irrevocably belongs to it,
o e In sorne way .
these texts. The "time" f '. contemporanes of thar he eannor escape his own time,
such ir makes an exigen~ d~':-a~~~~lar.ls bcontcmporariness, and as Conremporariness is, rhen, a singular relarionship wirh one's
te~ts and the authors ir examines. 1~tal~r:a:~ntempo~ary with rhe own rime, which adheres to ir and, ar rhe same time, keeps a dis-
thls seminar may be evaluated by its-b egree, t e success of tance from it. More precisely, it is that relationship with time that
Sute up to this exigency. y our-capaclty to mea- adheres to it through a disjunction and an anachronism. Those who

~~s:~~a;~ ~~~v!~onal
coincide too wel! with the epoch, those who are perfectly tied to
an indication that may orient our search for ir in every respecr, are nor contemporaries, precisely because they
B h . Ove questlOns comes from Nietzsche Roland
art es summanzes this ans' ¡:. . do not manage to see it: they are not able to firmly hold their gaze
Colle e de Fr " wer 1!1 a note Hom hls lectures at the on it.
Fried~ch N' anc~ The contemporary is the untimely." In 1874
that point oletGz:c e, a young phdolo glst who had worked up to
n ree k texts and had two r . z. In 1923 Osip Mandelstam writes a poem entitled "The Cen-
unexpected celebrity with The Birth ofT~;;~, e;~~~:~~~~I;~:d~n tury" (though the Russian word vek also means "epoch" or "age").
zeztgemasse Betrachtun h Vi . JZ- The poem does not eOllrain a refleerion on rhe century but rather
which h . ' gen, t e ntlmely Meditations, a work in a reflection on the relation between the poet and his time, that is
with re :r~I~~ t~h~o~~ to te~,ms ~ith hi,s ri~e and take a position ro say, on conremporariness. Nor "the ccntury," bur, aceording ro
g h b p esent. Thls medltatlOn is itself untimely"
W e rea d at t e egin' f h ' rhe words rhar open rhe firsr verse, "my century" 01' "my age" (vek
nmg o r e second meditation , "b ecause Ir .
mOl):
10
12
What Is the Contemporary?
What Is the Contemporaly!
My ccntury, my be 1 '
to 100k ins 'd _ ast, w 10 wdj manage
1 e your eyes
and weld togCt1ler w1th
' his Own bl d is proven by the foHowing strophe with whieh the poem con-
t h e vertebrae f ,00 eludes. Not anly does the epoch-beast have broken vertebrae, but
o two cenrunes?
vek, rhe newborn century, wants ro turn around (an impossible
The poet, who must pay fo r his e ' gestute for a person with a broken backbone) in order to contem-
lS he who mUSt firmly loek his az ontemporanness with his Jife, plate its own tracks and, in this way, ro display its demellted face:
e
bea~t, w~o must weld with his o:n b~nto the eyes of his eemury_ But your backbone has been shattered
of tIme, [he two eemuries the t o~d the shattered backbo ne O my wondrous, wrerched cenrury.
be~n suggested, the nineteen~h and wa tlf~es, are nor on1y, as has W'íth a senscless smile
pOlm, :he length of a single indi 'd tw:n~leth but a1so, more to the like a beasr that was once limber
/um ongrnally means the eri d VI ual s hfe (remember that saecu_ you look back, weak and cruel,
trve historieal period th pO ' of a person's life) and the e 11 ro contemplate your own tracks.
A at we ca lI 1n th' o ce-
s we learn in the last strophe of the lS ease the twemieth eemury.
eentury lS shattered TI . poem, the backbone of h' 3. The poet-the contemporary-must firmly hold his gaze on
h' ti . le poet In f h t lS
,t 15 faCture, is at once thar w: ~o al' as e is contemporar , is his own time. But what daes he who sees his time actuaHy see?
rtself and the blood th hlch lmpedes time from COm y What is this demented grin on the face of his century? I would
at must Sllt l' b posrng
paralle1ism between th' ure t lIS reak or this wound Th like at this point ro propose a second definitian of contemporari-
e (¡me and th . b . e
t h e alle hand, and th . e vel te rae oE the creatu ' ness. The cantemporary is he who firmly holds his gaze on his
h e (¡me and the b le, on
t e Dther, constitutes ane of th ~erte rae of the century, on own time so as ro perceive not its light but rather its datkness. AH
e essemlal themes of the
eras, far those wha experience conremporariness, are obscure. The
.So long as the creat tire l'lves poem:
1t lUhllSt carry fonh its vertebrae
contemporary is precisely the person who knows how ro see rhis
a~ t e w~ve~ play along , obscuriry, who is able to wrire by dipping his pen in the obscuriry
~1th an InVIsible spine. of rhe present. But whar daes ir mean ('ro see an obscurity," ('ro
~Il~e a child's tender cartilage perceive the darkness"?
15 t e century of the ncwbo rn eanh. The neurophysiology of visioll suggests an initial answer. Whar
happens when we find ourselves in a plaee deprived of light al'
The other great theme-and this 1'1 when we clase our eyes? What is rhe darkness thar we see then?
l:age o~ contemporariness_is tha~ {e/~ precedi~g cne, is als a an Neurophysiologists teH us that rhe absence of light activa tes a se-
t e we1drng, of the century's vertebrao t e shatterrng, as well as of ries of peripheral ceHs in the retina caHed "off-eeHs." When acti-
of a srngle individual (in th' he, both of which are the work vated, rhese ceHs produce the particular kind of vis ion that we caH
lS case, t e paet):
To wrest the century awa fJ darkness. Darkness is not, therefore, a privative natian (the simple
so as to stan th Id y rom bolldage absenee of light, or something lilee nonvision) bur rarher the result
e Wor anew
Olle mUst tie togerher with a .Rute of the activiry of the "off-ceHs," a product of our own retina. This
the kllees of a11 ,he kll Otte d days. means, if wc now return ro our rhesis an rhe darkness of contem-
parariness, rhat ro perceive rhis darkness is llat a form af inenia or
That this is an impossibl k of passiviry. Rather, it implies an activiry and a singular abiliry. In
e tas -or at
any rate a paradoxical Ol1e-
our case this ability amounts to a neurralization cf rhe lights rhar
14
What ls the Contemporary?
What Is the Contemp0l'ary' 15
come [¡-om the epoeh in order to discover its obseurity, its 'P"Cl'U
darkness, whieh is not, however, separable [¡-om thos 1ights, . itcl distances itself fram uso
e I 'le direeted toward tlS, 111lin Yfor an appointment that
The ones who can caH th emse1ves contemporary are on1y that, w 11 'd it is like being on 11me
ther WOl s , , ,
who do not aHow themselves to be b1inded by the 1ights of the
In eocanno t but mISS. I rhe present t h a t contemporanness
. e pel- ot
eentury and so manage to get a glimpse of the shado in tho
ws we have 011 . . he reason W ly . h esent is 111 raet n
1ights, of their intimate obscurity, Having said this mueh, se ThlS IS tb b Our tiPle t e pr , 1b
ess ' s has roken verte rae. , any, )way reaeh liS , lts bac ( one
neverthel still not addressed om question, Why sho 1d We be at celve
u
a11 interested in perceiving the obseurity that emanates from the I the most distant: it cannot
I '111 le exact p0111t
'f o this fracture,
epoch? Is darkness not preeisely an anonymous experienee that is
on y d we lind ourse ves 111 t 1
is broken an
. why we are,
despite everythmg, con~el~p
oraries, !t is im-
. in con-
that IS l1l questlon
by delinition impenetrable, something that is not direeted at Us This lS realize that the appointment .n chronological time:
~rges,
ortant to . ly rake pace 1
and thus eannot concern us? On the Contrary, the eontemporaty l
p Ol'ariness does not SI",'p 'h' ehronological time,
is the person who pereeives the darkness of his time as something
urgel~~;r
temp thing that, workmg Wlt m 's the untimelmess,
that eoneerns him, as something that never eeases to engage him, it is SOI:: d transforms it. And this l in the fonn of
Darkness is something that-more than any 1ight-
u turns
and sing 1ar1y toward him, The contemporary is the one whose
direet1y
~~~s:~~chronism pen~its ~:t~~~':~~n
that
time
"aIready" that is also ~
eyes are struek by the beam of darkness that comes from his own at "toO soon" that is aIso
. aII too us to recog111ze
, . 1'n the obscunty o.
time.
«nor yet. " Moreover, without ever be1l1g
lt a ows
h l' ht thar, . able to reach us, lS
the present t e Ig d
. g towar uso
perpetually voyagm
4, In the linnament that We observe at night, the stars shine
A ood example of this ,specl~1 ~xp erience
bright1y, surrounded by a thiek darIcness, Sinee the number of . of time rhar we

cOl~emporariness :asll1~~Ú:;sdi~~:ntinuity that divides It

can be delined as ,he
ga1axies and 1uminous bodies in the universe is a1most inlinite,
caf¡' is
the darkness that We see in the sky is something that, aecording
.
mtro u
d crion into time o a pe .
r irrelevance, 1tS
being-in-fashlOn
'be
01' ltS
to sciemists, demands an exp1anation, It is precisely the exp1ana_
tion that eontemporary astrophysies gives fo r this dadmess that
according to its relevance o This caesura, as subtle as lt may f
no-Ionger-being-in-fashl0n, 'h se who need to make note o
1 wou1d now like to diseuss, In an expanding universe the mOst
is remarkabIe in the sense that, t othe attest to their own bemg
it do so infallibly, and m so dbom~fy :nd lix this caesura wlthm
remo te galaxies move away from us at a speed so great that their
light is never able to reaeh us, What We pereeive as the darkness of B
the heavens is this light that, though travc1ing toward us, eannot in fashion, ut 1'f we try to oJee ' I f as1 ungraspab Ie, 1n th e
first
, place
,
chronologieal time, lt reveals ltse , which it comes into be::,g, IS
the "now" of fashiol1, the ~nsta!~t l~ronometer. 1s this "now per-
reaeh us, sinee the galaxies from which the light originates move
away [¡-om us at a velocity greater than the speed of light, tI
'dentifiable via any kmd o fe h' designer coneeives of the
To pereeive, in the darkness of the presem, this 1ight that strives no , h' h the as IOn I f h
ge~eral t~~e:l
ha s the moment m w lC '11 define the new sty e o t e
to reach us but eannot-this is what it means to be eontempo_
eoneept, the nuance the fashion designer convet
clothes? Or is it the ~noment d then to the tailor who wl11 sew t e
rary. As such, eomemporaries are rare, And fo r this reason, to be
eontemporary is, lirst and foremost, a question of courage, be-
cause it means being able not only to linn ly lix one's gaze on the the coneept to his asslsta~ts ~n moment of the fashion show, wh~n
prototype? 01', rather, IS Itht e I copIe who are always and 0 n y
darIcness of the epoeh blIt also to pereeive in this darkness a light h l
t e c othes are worn by t . e on P de1s-those who nonethe ess,
or ymo
in fashion, the mannequ111s 1
I6
What Is the Contemporary?
What 15 the Contemporary,? I7
r
precisely fo this reason, are never truly in fashio ?3 In this
n On the
instance, the being in fashion of the "Style" will depend
"~'"''''
' d-le
divIde , th at which it
'eaH , re-evo 1(e, and revitalrze
thatsethe peop/e of Resh and blood, rather than the :.. o': .. inexorably dead
(tho sacrificial victims of a faceless god), will recognize it as h
and choos e that style fo r their own wardrobe, d declared ' 1 ' ship with the
a h' eeial re atlOn ,
Yhe time of fashio n , therefo re, constitutively anticipates i
. other aspect to t ,15 SP. e resentby markmg
6 There lS an 'ess inscribes Itsdf In th p tl,e indiees and
and consequently is also always too late, It a/ways takes the
Conte~
'porann .h percelve b

~~ th~
e past, arehaie. Only those VI o dem and reeent can e
of an ungraspabl threshold between a "not yet" and a "no more,
it above alio; the arehaie in the most arkhe, that is to say,
It isn quite probable that, as the theologians suggest, this """",,«
signatures Archaie means close ro d in a ehronologleal past.
tio depends On the faet that fashio n , at least in Our culture, is eontemporar:, rigin is not only sltuate, and does not cease
theologieal signature of clothing, whieh derives fi-o the first pie origin, But t e o with historieal beeommg es to be active 1ll
m mporary b o eontmu h'
of clothingrm that was seWn by Adam and Eve after the Original Sin, ee it is eonte 'h'n it]'ust as the em ry d h hild in the psyc le
in the fo of a loincloth woven fi-o m fig leaves, (Yo be precise, te Wlt 1 , . an t e e d ti
to opera h ture orgamsm, which e nc
m that We wear do not derive from this vegetalloincloth
the clOthes f tema . d nearness,
the tissues o ir. Both this distanemgan, this proximiry ro the
but fi-o the tunicae pe/fieeae, the clothes made fram anima/s' skin Jife of the adu have their foundatlon m h in the present.
that God, aceotding to Genesis 3:2I, gave to OUt progenitors as orarmess, .h re force t an .
eontemp h re pulses wlt mo v 1 for the first time
' hat now e fNew lOr( h '
a tangible m symbol of sin and death in the moment he expelled
them fi-o Patadise.) In any case, Whatevet the reason may be, the
"now," the kairos of fashion, is ungraspabl e: the phrase, "I am in
origm t the skyscrapers o ,
Whoever has seel: dawn has immedlately
froro rhe oeean a this contiguousness Wlt 11
pe~~heived this are alC
ruin that the

this instant in fashio n" is contradietory beeause the moment in ' f the present, d ' dent ro a , f
[artes o .
ora/lmages of9/ n have d maf e know
eVl t hat t here is a secret a _
whieh the subjeet pronounees it, he is already OUt of fashio , So,
n n
aremp . .' o fl'Iterature an o art d nor so much because
being in f.1shio , like contemporariness, entails a eenain "ease," Hlstollans h' nd rhe mo ern, he pres-
a eenain quality of being Out-of-phase or Out-of-date, in which h are ale a , 1 harm on t
h ' ~ rms
finity between t e m to exercise a partlCll ar e . h'ldden in rhe
see h dem 1$
one's relevanee includes within itself a small pan of what lies OUt- the are
b ale o b the key to temo ' t world in its
side of itself, a shade of démodé, of being OUt of fashion, It is in ther eeause 'Th the anClen
ent ut ra d the prehistone. uS', itself. The avant-
this sense that it Was said of an elegant lady in nineteenth-eentury irnmemonal an 1 l'l'mordíal so as ro redlscover s the primitive
Paris, "Elle est eontemporaine de tOUt le monde" (She is every_ . 15 ro t le p . 1 o pursue
on~
body's eOlltempotary),4 declme tun h has lost itself over time, a s can say that the entry

a~ ale~sent or~past
garde, whleh , Ir is in this sense that of an arehaeology
But the tempotality of fashio n has another eharaetet that relates and the neeessarily takes :he blIt retums ro
it to eonremporariness, FollOwing the same gesture by whieh the point to t e pr r regress to a hlstoflea ' a able of liv-
present divides time aeeording to a "no more" and a "not yet," it that does not, howeve, t that we are absolutely me k d baek to-
also establishes a peculiar relationship with thes "other times"_ ' h' the presen ' t l y sue Pe
e that pal't Wlt m, nlived is therefore meessan 't The present is
eenainly with ' What remams u ' b l e to reae 1, "d
re the past and perhaps also with the future, Fashion mg, " 'n witholIt ever bemg a , er hthing that lS !rve '
m "cite," and in this way make relevant again, any mo-
can therefo ward the Ollgr h h's un/ived ciement m ev y , ly the mass of
ment fro the past (the I9 2 os, the I970s, but also the neoclassical h' other t an t 1 ent 1$ precIse
or empire style), It Can therefore tie together that which it has not mg, , des aeeess to the pres , its exeessive near-
That WhlCh lmpe (its traumatie eharaeter, his "unlived"
what for sorne reasan d ro live. The attentlOll ro t
ness) we have not manage
18
What ls the Contemporary?
What 1s the Contemporarf 19

is the life of the contemporary. And to be contemporary means in

the ast so that the past, touched

acqui~ed abi~~s~o l:'~:

this sense to return to a present where we have l1evcr been. resent east its shadow on p ond to the darkness of
y
:etL shadow, the that Miehe1 Foucault
7· Those who have tried to think abollt contemporariness have h now. It is somethmg along h t his historical investiga-
te. . d hen he wrote t a l .
been able to do so only by splitting it up into several times, by
pro bably had m mm wly the shadow cast by h's 1 theoretica1 mter-h
introducing into time an essemial dishomogeneity. Thos who say tions of the past are on S.1m1'1 1 Walter Benjamin writes t lat t e
e y
"my time" actuaHy divide time-they inscribe into it a caesura and togation of the presento d ar ,. mages of the past indicates that
a discontinuity. But precisely by means of this caesura, this inter- 1. d antame In t he l . d ent
historica In ex e . 1 'b '1' y only in a determme mom
polation of the presem into the inert homogeneity of linear time, these images may ach1eve eg~i;i 1t respond to this exigency and
the comemporary puts to work a special re1ationship between the of their history. Ir lS on out a ty.to ot ooly of our ccntury and
different times. If, as we have seen, it is the Contemporary who b temporanes n f h
to this shadow, to e coofi . the texts and documcnts o t e
has broken the vertebrae ofhis time (or, at any rate, who has per- rhe "now)) but also of lts f '1U;~Sol;our seminar depends.
ceived in it a fault line or a breaking poirlt), then he also makes of pas t , that (he success or al ti

this fracture a meeting place or an encoun ter between times and

generations. There is l10thing more exemplary, in this sense, than
Pau1's gesture at the point in which he experiences and announces
to his brothers the contemporariness par exceHence that is mes-
sianic time, the being-contemporary with the Messiah, which he
caHs preeisely the "time of the now" (ho nyn kairos). Not only is
this time chronologieal1y indeterminate (the parousia, the return
of Christ that signals the end is cenain and near, though not at a
calculable point), but it also has the singular capacity of plltting
every instam of the past in direct re1ationship with itselE, of mak-
ing every moment or episode of biblical history a propheey or a
preliguration (Paul prefers the term typos, ligure) of the present
(thus Adam, through whom humanity received death and sin, is a
"type" or ligure of the Messiah, who brings abOllt redemption and
life to human beings).
This means that the contemporary is not only the one who,
perceiving the darkness of the present, grasps a light that can never
reach its destiny; the Contemporary is also the one who, dividing
and interpolating time, is eapable of transfonning it and plltting it
in relation with other times. He is able to read history in unfore-
seen ways, to "cite ir)) according to a necessity thar does no[ arise
in any way from his wil1 but from an exigeney to which he cannot
not respondo It is as if Ihis invisible light that is the darkness of
K 21

beg a slandero~s tri~l against himse,lf,. a,s ir were. T~e ':someone"

un
(jemalld) who, w"h hlS slander, has mltlated the tnal [S Josef K.
himself.
This is precisely what an attentive reading of rhe novel dem-
oostrares beyond alI dOllbt. Even though K. aerualIy knows right
from the starr rhat there is no way to be eompletely eertain that
he has been accused by the court ("I don't know if you have been
accused," the inspector telIs him during his !irst interview),3 and
that at any rate his eondition of being "under arrest" does not im-
ply any ehange in his life, he still tries in every conceivable way to
penetrate the court buildings (which are not actually court build-
íngs but rather atties, storage rooms, or laundry rooms-whieh,
Kalumniator perhaps, are only transformed into courts by his gaze) and to in-
stigate a trial that the judges do not seem to have any intention
1. In Roman trials, where ublic . of initiating. That this is not even a real trial for thar marter, but
role, slander represented a tI p prosecutron played a limited that the trial exists only ro the extent that K. recognizes it as sueh,
f' . 1reat so gr b h
~ ]UStlCe thar the fa1se accuscr w ~v~ 01' t e administration is somethil1g that K. himself anxiously concedes to the examin-
ead with the letter J( (initial of ~a~unls ed by marking his fore- ing magistrate during the initial inquiry. Nevertheless, he does not
mem of Davide StimilJi t h d umnzator, slanderer). Ir is th hesitate to presenr himself to the eourt even when ir has not been
thlS fa f(. h . o ave emonstrated h . e
~t 01
e mterpretation of Kaf1 'Th t e lmportance of
t convened, and it is preeisely at this moment that he unneeessar-
unam iguousIy presents ir as 1 (as e Tria!, whos e incipj .. ily admits to having been aecused. Similarly, he does not hesitate
have slander dJ f a s anderous trial ("S e
. e ose K., for ane m ' . ameone must to suggest during his eonversation with Miss Bürstner that she
anythrng wrong, he was arrested" 1 ornln~, WIthout having done should falsely aeeuse him of assault (in a eertain sense, he therefore
fact that Kafka had studied the hi~; By caJ1U1g Our attention to the self-slanders). In the !inal analysis this is precisely what the prison
prepanng for the legal p e . ory of Roman law while he w ehaplain informs K. of at the conclusion of their long conversation
roresSlOn Stlml'jj" as
not stand (according to an 01' . ' h 1 suggests that K do es
in the cathedral: "The court wants nothing from you. It reeeives
for "Kafk a" b ut for slander.2 2InlOn t at dat es bac k to Max .Brod)
you when you come and dismisses you when you go.'" In other
words, «the court does not aeeuse you; it only gathers the aeeusa-
2. 1 1
That slander l'epresents Oe h tions that you malee against yourself."
to th~ en tire Kaf].::aesque univer~:Y to t e novel-and, perhaps,
mythlc fo rces of Iaw-b ' so potentIy marked b h
'f b ceomes, howev . y t e }. Every man initiates a slanderous trial against himself. This is
1 we o serve the folJowing p . 1 el, even more ilJuminating Kafl<a's point of deparrure. Henee his universe eannot be tragic but
]( 01l1t: at t le m
eeases to stand simply for kal . oment when the letter only comic: guilt does not exist-or rather, guilt is nothing other
refers rather to kalumlliator (the ;,;~~ua (the false aceusation) but than self-slander, which eonsists in aeeusing oneself of a nonex-
thar the false aeeuser is th aecuser), this can only m
e very protagonist of the novel h lean istent guilt (that is, of one's very innoeenee, whieh is the eomie
, W o las
gesture par excelIenee).
20
22
J( 23
J(

Kan
T111S is in tune wirh d '.
le prIncJple .
<:a, according to wh· h" '. } enunclated elsewh . Jiotn this perspeetive. Both belong ro the vocabulary of law, where
J. d b JC ong111al· h eje
nl~te y man, consists in tI ~111, t e aneienr fauIr t;,ey designate that which is in question in a trial (or in a juridical
whJch he does not desist: t~:;ccusatlOn that he makes and reh,tionship). In Romance languages, however, causa progressively
that an onginal sin has b a WlOng has been done to takes the place of res; and after it carne ro designate tbe unknown
case with slandel~ auilr is cen clommIttcd against him,"5 As' in algebraic terminology (just as in French, res survives only in the
rath er 1$
··d b
1 entified WJ·th .
not t le cause of t h e accusation h . JS form of rien, nothing), causa gives way ro the term cosa ("thing"
A lt. elC,
in ltalian, chose in Freneh). Cosa-this thoroughly neutral and ge-
f 1s a .matter of faet, s1an d er exists l·f neric word-names, in reality, "what is the case (in causa]," what is
bo .t le rnnocence of tIle aceused on y 1 the aCCUser is o
l·f h
,Cl1lg any guilt ro ascertain 1 ¡ WUVJJlr. ,
011 Y 1 e accuses without at stake in law (and in language).
tIOn becomes at once both' n t le case of se1f-sl an der this co . This is ro suggest that the gravity of slander is a function of
. e necessary d' nVIC_
111S01ar as he is a self-s1an d erer know
,an Jmpossible
e . Th e accused
its abili(y to put into quesríon the very principIe of the trial: the
noee01, but, insofar as h· '. s perrectly well that h . . ' mom ent of aceusaríon. After all, what defines the trial is neither
th 1 . e JS aceUS111 h· lE. e JS tn-
th at¡(,enlS guilty of slander, that he ~ lmse ,he knows just as well guilt (which is unnecessary in arehaic law) nor punishment but
e a {aesque situarían eserves ro be marked Th' . rather the aeeusaríon. Indeed, the aceusaríon is perhaps the ju-
does every man-slander ~;~ ;~ee~lence. But. why does K._:hJys ridical "category" par excellence (kategoria means "accusation" in
se y aceuse hJmsell? Greek), without whieh tbe whole edifiee of law would fall apart:
4· Roman j . . the indictment ofBeing within the sphere oflaw. The law, then, is
has b unsts eonsJdered slander t
"b1" ~en led astray (they used the o be an aceusation that essentially an accusation or a "category." When Being is indicted,
In y, rando mly," which . tcrm tementas, fram teme or "accused," within the sphere of law, it loses its innocencej it
tenebra, darkness) Mo JS etymologieally linked to the 1 l. re, becomes a cosa (a thing), (hat is a causa (a case): an object oflitiga-
. mmscn obs' h ta Jan
not seem. ro be originally a technC,l ves ,t ~t :he verb accusare does tion (for the Romans causa, res, and lis were, in this sense, synony-
:n~st anClent testimonials (for e lcal JU~·Id1Cal term, and in the mous).
It IS used in a moral xample, 111 Plautus and Tc .
. 1 sense rather t I · elence)
preCIse y in its liminaI functio . ¡1an a Juridical one. But it is 5. Self-slander is part of Kafka's strategy in his ineessant struggle
ac~usation reveaIs ltS decisive
[he Roman trial
¡;
W~t1 respect ro the law that the
. 1'01 tan ce.
with the law. In the first place it calIs guilt imo quesríon or, more
precisely, the principIe aecording to whieh there is no punishment
. opens wrth th . .
wi(hout guilt. Along with this it also questions the aceusation,
tron, at . the behest' of th e accuser ef nomtnzs
1 de/atio,nscnp-
the J. .
person rn the list of t he accused ,o A t le name of the d enounced which grounds itself in guilt (we can add the following to the cata-
f rom causa wh· h " . CCtlsare etymolo· 11 . logue of Brodian nonsensiealiríes: Kafka do es not eare about the
i . ' . IC means to indiet" [ h. . glca y derIVes
. s, In a certam s h
ense, t e most fund e ¡amare ¡ )
. . n causa. Causa question of grace but rather about the accusation, which is its op-
It name~ something that has be amen:al Jundical term beeause posite). "How can a man in general be guilty?" Josef K. asks the
of law (Just as res signilies som:; lmplreated within the sphere prison ehaplain, who seems ro concur, by saying that the sentenee
wJthrn the sphete of la hrng that has been im l· does not exist but that "the trial itself is transformed, litrle by litrle,
th f< nguage) Cal . d· P Jcated
e oundation of a jUridical: -"sa J? Jeates that which lies a into the sentence."6 In the same fashion a modern jurist has writ-
causa and res (which means ,,:~tuatJ0f¡'~ .~~'~relationship betwee:
rng, a lan rn LaUn . ).1$ 1flstructive
.
ten that, in the mystery of the trial, the principIe nulla poena sine
iudicio is reversed and becomes a darker principle, according to
K K 25

which there is no judgment witho .

ment lies in J' udgment "7' b . ut pUl11shment, since alI slander into its foundation. Not only does the law ptonounce the
. 10 e In such t ' 1 ') óndemnatio n at the very moment m WhlCh It recogmzes the base-
at a certain paint «m h a na J says rhe LInde to
Th' . . ' . eans to ave already lost it "7 ~essness of the accusation, but it also transforms the self-slanderer's
IS pOUlt IS eVldent in self-sland d' . subtetfuge into its perpetual self-justification. Since humans do
derous tria!' The slander . l' er an , m general, in the
ous tna lS a case wl h no cease to slandet themselves, as well as others, the law (that
w h ere b eing indicted is h . d' < lefe t ere is no t
t e m lctment it lE h 's the trial) is necessary in arder ro assess which accusations are
suc.h W here gui1t consists in brin . se J t ,c accusation 1 ,
cannot be anythin h. h gmg about the tnal, the '0111el1ee groundless and which ate noC In this way the law ~an find its
g ot el t an the mal itselE self_justificatlOn by pteSent111g ltself as a bulwark agal11st the de-
lirium of human beings' self-accusations (to so me degree it has
6. In addition to slander, Roma 11 . .' aeted as such with tegard to religion, for example). Even if man
temeritates or i'darkenl' " f h JUlIsrs were aware of tWQ
ngs o t e accu . were always innocent, if no man in general can be called guilty,
co II lisian between aCCll d satlOn: praeval'icatio, rhé
ser an aecused ( h' h . self-slandet would stiI! rcmain as otiginal sin, as the baseless ac-
opposed to slander) and th t . . w lC lS symmetricalIy
clIsation (fol' rhe R~ chergtversatio, rhe retraction of rhe ac- "': cusation that humanity directs at itself.
.I rnans, w o saw an anal b
ttIa rhe retraction of th
J . ogy etween war and
. e accusauon was a f( fd 8. Ir is impottant ro distinguish bctween self-slandet and confes-
gtversare originaI1y mea " onn o esertion-ter_
e ns to turn on b 1 J sion. When Leni tries to induce K. to make a confessian, telling
losef K. is guilty of alI ti . b es ac ( on something").
. nee. ecause he sla d h' him that "the only chance [he has] ro escape"9 is by confessing
cause, masmuch as he self-sland . n ers unself; be-
because he is not i n ' el s, he colIudes with himself: and his guilt, K. hastily declines the offer. And yet, in a cerrain sense,
". aglcement Wlth his ow '. ' the aim of the entire trial is to produce such a confession, which
sensc, he tergIversares" h 1 1 f( n accUSatlOn (m this
, e 00 (S 01' a cOP-Out and stalIs for time). alteady in Roman law counts as a sort of self-condemnation. Ac-
cording ro a jutidical adage, the one who has confessed is alteady
7· One understands, then, the subtlet judged (confissus pro iudicato). The equivalence between confes-
egy that seeks to deact" d . y of self-slander as a strat-
. . IVate an render 111 . h sion and self-condemnation is affirmed without reservation by
t he lUdlCtment that th I dd operatlve t e accusation
. e aw a resses towa d B' f ' one of rhe most authoritative Roman jurists: whoeve1' confesses
tlon is false and iE m h l' emg. 1 the accusa-
, ,oreover t e acc "d condemns himself, so ro speak (quodammodo sua sen ten tia damna-
cused, then it is the fund ' l' user COluO es with the ae-
amenta lmplicat" f tur). But whoevet falsely accuses himself-insofar as he has been
sp h ere of law that is eaI!ed h.' . . IOn O' man within the
fi ' . ele lUto questlon Th I accused-must faee precisely fot this reason the impossibility of
. rm ones mnocence befare the law (and h ' e on y way to af-
confessing, and the coun can condemn him as the accuser only if
lt: for example the fath . t e powers that represent
, er, or marnage)' . h' it recognizes his innocence as the accused.
accuse onese1f. lS, In t IS sense, to faIsely
In this sense K.'s sttategy can be defined mote precisely as the
That slander can be a defense mech . . failed attempt ro tender the eonfession, but not the trial, impos-
authority is clearly stat d b h anlsm lu the struggle with
Cartle: "It would be a r ~ . ylt e other K, the protagonist of The sible. Moreove1', as a fragment from 1920 affirms, "ro confess one's
. fI¡¡ e ative y ll1nocent and' h own guilt and to lie are the same thing. In otdet ro be able ro
111SU eient, means of defen "8 K fk .'. 111 t e end also quite
of the insufliciency of tI' se. a a IS 111deed completely aware confess, one lies."lO Kafka, the1'efo1'e, seems ro inscribe himself into
. 1IS strategy' h a tradition that-contrary to the favor that it enjoys in Judeo-
IS to transform the i d' . ' SInce t e response of the law
n Ictment ltse1f into a crime , an d ro turn se1f- Christian culture~decisively rejects confession: from Cicero, who
26 K. J( 27

defines ir as "repugnant and dangerous" (turpis et periculosa), . e . If· from uu th J'corcefully wrested byIIthe d
Proust, who candidly advises, "Don'r evcr confess" (navouez te ínternahz ltse. h' thar rhe subject is compe e ,
mais). ,coró. estioner, .1t becomes somet mg
d 1 spomaneous y. ~
I Sources record
::e~,ec~ own conscienee, to ee are le who eonfess without being
by hiS e of surprise cases of peop d . .' I But even in these
9· ln the history of confession the link with torture is ¡>dlllCU, . h a sens b b olve 111 tila . "
WJt <e d or afrer having een a s o o he «voiee of eonscience
~cc.'as es. t he confesslOn-masm
lady significant, a link that Kafka could hardly be insensitive cus o' uch as Ir 15 t d
h 1 ss has probative value an
While the law during the age of the republic accepted COJ1reSSI(lr .
. onsctenc
J;_ sto
tl'ae vox)-nevert ee e '
with Sorne reservations as a way to defend rhe accused, during (C01ljes e d- tion of the eOI'uessor.
, Hes the con emua
age of the empire-above aH for crimes against sovereign
Imp d rruth
(plots, betrayal, conspiracy, or impiety against the emperor) . 1 link between torture an
also for adultery, magic, and illicir divination-the penal proce,
o Ir is precisely the essenua . in an almost mOl'bid man-
l · ms to attract Kafka's attentlon for me" he writes in
dure entailed the tOrture of ¡he accused and his slaves in arder to that sec . f treme importance J . . b
extort from them a confession. "Wrest the truth" (verítatem eruere) ner.'
"Yes torture 15 o ex
M'I a Jesens
k'"
a, my
sale oceupatlon lS e-
e h
November 19 to J ~~ Why? .. To learn how to rorce t e
20
is the insignia of the new judicial rationale that, by closely link,
. ortured and tortuIl g. I "11 Two months prior, he
ing canfession and truth, makes torture (which in cases of high mg t f h ed moun.
ed word out o t e curs . I drawing of a torture ma-
trcason extends evcn to witnesses) rhe probative instrument par curs r f paper Wln
hes to his letter a s Ip o
a
f . I,e clarifles wlth tese
. h
exceIlence. Henee ¡ts designarÍan as quaestio in juridical sources: attae . hose unctlon I d
. of his own inventlOn, w . b twO poles get pus le
torture 1S an inquiry into truth (quaestio verítatis), and this is ho eIune o ied in thls way, t e
w 'ds' "Once the roan 1S t .. "12 That torture may serve
ir will be then taken up by the medieval inquisition. WOI . '1 I . lIt 111 two. l'
1 1 outward unO le IS sp
Introduced into rhe COUrtroom, rhe accused underwent an ini- s aW y . . nflrme d by !Zafka a few days ear d ler,
ex
tiaI interrogarian. After rhe Brst hesitations 01' contradictions, or ro tract a confesSlOn 1S co
. h
d' .on ro t at o
f a roan whose hea gets
.
h h e compares hls con 1t1 h pies' "1'he dJfference
even only because he declared himself innocent, the judge ordered wen o sattetem.
I ed in a vice wlth twa screw I don't wait till they
the application of torture. The accused was spread Out on his back c amp o h . in order to scream . f
on the rack (cavalletto in Italian or eculeus in Latin, meaning lirtle lies only in thls: ... t at in order to extract the confesslOn r,~7'
flnish tightening the screws. I d when they draw clase. .
horse, which relates to the German term for torture, folte¡; deriv-
e but rather 1 start seream111g a reaoy ' terest is prove d b y t l. le
ing from PoNen, "colt"), with arms extended backward and up' m , el a passmg m d
ward, and hands tied with a cord that passed through a pulley, 1'hat this was not mer
tory "In the Penal Colony, w.
:r hich Kafka writes in just a few ays
h mposition of The TrlaL
in such a way that the executioner (quaestionarius, tortor) couId s 1 '1' . ptlng t e ca . f
pull the cord and cause the dislocation of the collarbone. This first in October '9 4, Whl e mte¡ru h. " ld Commandant" is, m act,
1'he C<apparatus".lllven tdbyteo e '.
.
t for the executlon o
f
stage, from which the Dame "torture" derives (from torqueo, "to . d an lllStlUmen ..
torque or twist until shattering"), was usually followed by flogging, at once a torture devIee an er himself suggests this when, an~ICI-
as well as laceration with iron hooks and harrows. 1'he dogged capital punishment (the offlc s "We haven't used torture smee
search for truth was such that the torture cauld be prolonged for Pating a possible obJectlOn, he ~aYl '. luuch as it unítes 111 ltself
") 14 l ' reerse y mas h'
several days, until the confession was finally obtained. the Middle Ages. t IS P . h nellt inflicted by the mac me
. h the pums 1, h d'
Along with the diffusion of the practice of tOrture, confession these two functlons t at o °tatis in which t e ISCOV-
comC1. 'des with a particular quaestto ven ,
28 J( 29
J(

ery of trllth is entrusted not ro rhe judge but tú rhe accused, . econd-rate actors or even like "te~ors,"
does so by deciphering the writing that the harrow inscribes h·at s, who look"to K. 'hicethe
s h· I sense but quaestionariz who
tee mca d 1d
his flesh: ot executlOners In
are n ¡; . t at up unn·1 tllen no one ha as <:e f
h
e trying ro get a con esslOn K who falsely accused himsel ,
Even rhe most duU-witted ones bcgin to understand. Ir begins around ~~m for (if it is tme that;r ;:: c;nfession of such slander that
rhe eyes and from there ir spreads. Ir is a spectade rhar couId then it is perhaps prfec,se ~im) This is confirmed by the cuno~s
anyone to get undel' rhe harrow himself Norhing cIsc happens,
rhar rhe man begins tú deciphcr rhe writing. He purses his líps as
they want tú extra~~ rom h si~al contact with K., which reea s
description of then first p y tbe tension of the arms and the po-
were lísteníng. You have seco rhar ir is not casy ro decipher rhe W'I'H'o
( I ng h in a vertlcal posmon) .. "TIley held their shoul-
with your eyes, bur our ruao deciphers it with his wounds. Ir is no d d· the quaestlO. d
ficult labor; ir takes him six hours to complete. Bur by rhar time, rhe sition of theha.ccdu~. d~~;;crook their arms, but instead wrappe h
harrow has pierced him thoroughly and throws him into rhe d¡teh,
where he falls clown 00 rhe bloody water and corton woof.1 5
d rs right be 111 IS,
t~em about the whole length :! 7;;~:i~~~bl~
. . in K's hands below Wlt
gr·ip. K. walked along
a methodical, wel!-tra1l1ed, a h e med such a close Ulllt, that
h d the t ree lOr h 11
II. "In the Penal Colony" was written during the composition of stiffiy between t em, an 1 d d wn [zerschlagen hiitte], t en a
. f them had been knoe <:e o . "18
The Tria!, and the situation of the condemned presems more than tf one o Id have been knocked down. " .
juSt an analogy with that of K. As K. does not know what he is ac- three of them wou . h K I ing on (he stone in a posture qUIte
cused oE, so in the short story the condemned does not know that Even the final scene, Wlt .y f torture gone awry (han
·bl ". more an act o b
he has been condemned. He does not even know his semence ("To forced and implausl e, IS ffi . b penal colony fails ro find y
. J9A dastheo cer1l1t e h d h
cornmunicate ir ro him," explains the offieer, "would be use1ess. an executlon. n h that he was looking for, so also t e eat
He will experience it on his Own flesh").'6 Both stories seem to means of torture the tru~ .. d than like a concluslOn of a quaes-
condude with the executiOl1 of a death sentence (one that, in the of K. seems more like a . 0~1C1 : I cks the streng(h ro do what he
short story, the officer seems to inflict on himself instead of on the tio verilatis. In the end, 111 acht, 1 eca ·t passed from hand to hand
· d . "to selze t e mlle as l I d d
condemned). But it is precisely the obviousness of this condusion knew was h IS uty. .. h. If"20 Whoever has s an ele
. d 1 nge It mto Imse. . If A
that must be questioned. That what is at stake in the shon srory above hlm an p u . . h I by rorturing hlmse. t any
¡; hls own t!Ut on y I
is not an exeeution, but only torture, is clearIy stated precisdy at himsel f can con ess .. . h has missed i(s goa .
rate, torture, I1'ke an inquny mto tl ut ,
the moment in which the machine breaks down and is no longer
able to perform irs function: "This was not the torture that the slanders himself in order to be subtracted
officer wamed to inllict, this was murder, plain and simple." 17 The K. (every man)
12. . h. ems to incontestably
f h accusatlon t at It se h
true aim of the maehine is, therefore, torture as quaestio veritatis. from the law, rom t e h. h h ·IS unable to escape (as t e
Death, which often occurs during torture, is only a coIlateral e!fect direct toward h·HU, an d from w IC" e 1 declaring oneseIf.1n-
l · l· s at one pOlnt, Slmp y b
of the discovery of truth. When the torture machine is no longer Prison chap am c alm Ik") 21 Nevertheless, y act-
"1 ·1 people always ta . f
able to force the condemned to decipher the truth on his own nocent is lOW gm ty bl. the prisoner from Qne e
d up resem mg .
flesh, torture gives way to simple homicide. ing in this way,
h
e en ~( allows being ereeted in the pnsen
It is from this perspective that one must reread the final chapter Kafka's fragments, who sees ag.. nded for him, breaks out
of The Tria! Here, as weIl, we are not dealing with the execution Yard mistakenly believes that It 'S m(e to hang himself."22 Here
of his' cel! in t h · h t, and goes down
e mg d . . . n the self-slan d er of
of a sentenee but with a scene of torture. The two men with top f h 1 . roo te as It IS I
lies the ambiguity o t e aw.
31
K
3° K
h h the door that leads
s and have theIll pass t roug ha s contain a
individuals, ir nevertheless presents itself as a power that is thernsbel:; the triaL The parhab\e doetaSl'{~~: n!r ;he study of
'.;,...•"~""- Wh t is ere ats , d
and superior to them. " dvice," thoug h . a . but rather the ' long stu y
It is in this sense that one should read the parable on the of a in itselfbears no gUllt- d' des Türhüters) ro
of the law that the priest recaunts ro K. Ín the scene in . h langen Stu tUm
,no."" (in demJa re d' h'ros df uninterrupt-
thedral. Tbe door of the law is tbe accusation through which h ntry de 1cates 1 h' d'
. h roan froro t e cOU 1 1 25 lt is thanks tO t lS stu ¡,
individual comes to be implicated within the law. But the ''1h1eh t e his sojourn before t ,e aw. h country-in OppOS1-
and supreme accusation is pronounced by the accused lllfn":1t "dly durr11g T lm ud that the roan from t e d outside the triaL
beit in the form of self-slander). For this reason the str:He¡Wé ro this neW a 'able ro live tO the very en
; n ro Josef K.-was
the law consists in making the accused believe that the ac<:us:atio) tia
(the door) is destined (perhaps) precisely for him, that the
demands (perhaps) something from him, that there is A·b'".,.imen5or . . of borders or
h the eonstl tutlOn
. T
a trial in progress that has something to do with him. In . ch as he deaIr w1t l' 01·tant in Rome. o
lnasmu ·ticular v 1mp f h'
there is no accusation and no trial, at least nor until the "'L""'ODr. . L. the land surveyor waS pa1 ( . following the name o lS
in which whoever believes himself to be aceused stops dCLU"llg' 1tS r
ltm , a surveyor, an agrnnenso 01, ss a difRcult cxam; oth-
me
himself. .beco e11t, a gromatieus), on~ had tOlrbe punished with death.
iOS truro . . g this profess lO11 cOU e
This is the sense of tbe "deception" (Tauschung) that is, aC(:onl-.
. practlcm d haracter to such a degre e
ing to tbe words of the priest, pUt into question by the oarahle' ~;~:s borders had, indfahct, a~:;~~rs ~terminum exarare) becaro
("In tbe introductory texts to the law it says of tbis deception: Be, eliminate tese .' nity There wele
fore tbe law stands a doorkeeper")."The problem is not so much, that whoever killed by anyone wrth 1mpU . f the land
aeer and could be . for the 1roportance o
as K. believes, who deceives (the doorkeeper) and who is being s Iso simpler reaso ns aceountmgublic law, the possibílity of ascer-
deceived (the man from the country). The problem is also not a r In civil !aw, just as m p . and assigning portlO nS
whether the two statements of the doorkeeper (that "he can't grant
him admittance now" and tbat "this entrance was meant soldy for :~:~~~:d (a;erri~orialdbfi~:~dy,a:~:'r~i~;~t~~;~~:derfdisputhe:
der an
¡, . mSO ar as
~~u:ft~~_
yo u") are more or less contradictory." At aIl events, they mean, of 1an b . f 1 For th1s reas on , · d d termines
P racuce o aw. . blishes, an e
"You are nor accused," and "The accusation concerns you alane; I ver Y
oe h who ascertams, esta .' . ('creator
tOl'par exceUence---- e was also called lUflS auct01,
only you can aceuse yourself and be aecused." They are, therefore, . h land surveyor . .
boundarres-t e . 1 . rfeettsstmus. d
an invitation to se1f-accusation, an invitarían to aUow oneself to "and he held the ut e vtr pe e llection of texts on lan.
be captured in the trial. For this reason K. 's hopo---that the priest Of 1aW, h that the llrst ca Ir IS
Ir is not surprising, t . e~l, Cor us Iuris by almost a century.
1

couid give him «decisive advice" that would help him, nor to jnBu- surveying precedes Ju~t1n~ans edi?rely afrer its publicatio n , the ":
ence the trial but rather to avoid it, to always live outside of it- even less surprising t at 1mro dition of the Corpus grom~ttCU f
~:i::Seof jurists between the Wfltlng
cannor but be in vain. Even the priest is, in reality, a doorkeeper; s
cessity waS felt te prepare o
even he "belongs tú the court." The ttue deeeprion is precisely the which interpolared ,he op
existence of doorkeepers, ofhumans (or angels: guarding the door the land surveyors.
is, in the Jewish tradition, one of the funetions of angels)-from or was the groma
the lowliest bureauerat al! the way up to the attomeys and the f he Roman land survey
2. T he instrUment o t
highest ranking judge-whose aim is to induce other humans to
32
K
K. 33
(or gruma), a Son of eross who se eemer was posi¡ioned in
ane C~Uhl'ts small wÍndows, which
spondenee with a poi m on ¡he ground (eaI1ed ¡he umbi!icus Id have taken i¡ for a smal!
k own th ar this was, a castle,
e
and from whos ends hung fo ur ¡aur threads wi¡h smalI ~""[m n "27 K
(Own, The feasdes
d rower Wlt
roun tower III
the ehureh
, h
'h'IS hometown, appears III t o
Thanks ¡o ¡his ins¡rumem, ¡he land surveyor eould ¡raee
s¡raigh¡ lines (rigores) ¡ha¡ permitted him ¡o measure ¡he inds ,o , , , ' , ,
and trace its limits. rcm na , tions muluple umes, I f the first constttutlo ltmt-
'1Ias '1 the resu t o k d d
The two fundamemallines ¡ha¡ erossed one ano¡her a¡ a
1
Other 1'1Iustranons s lOW
, , , f pace aecord'ng
1
ro the a" o an f

t1~:lec"ma71us, In eaeh one o: t~~~n;e:ter K, the inirial of ,kardo,

he fundamental dlVISlOl1 o s t rhe northern extreme o
angle were ¡he kardo, ¡raeed from nonh ro sou¡h, and ¡he ue'UIr,'a,
nus, whieh ran fi-om eas¡ ¡o wesr. These ¡wo lines corresponded, h re~
(~b­
t meridian, one clearly s M (for maximus) , [n thls way
¡he founda¡ion of ¡he castrum ("for¡ilied place" or "easde"-,asret-.. t ¡e the opposite pole ,IS the ett:damenral limit, while DM
lum is ¡he diminu¡ive of castrum_bur also "milita¡y eamp"),
¡he ¡wo principal roads around which ¡he dweI1ings (or ¡he
iM defines the first Ime, the,!::,,) delines the second line, whleh
iation of decumanus maxl K carrÍes rhe same meanmg,
diers' ¡ems, in ¡he case of a mili¡ary camp) were ga¡hered, brev dieular ro the first, The letter h 'multiple oeeasions
is perpen . b' tion with ot ers, ll1
eirher alone ar In com !na
For ¡he Romans the original celestial eharacter of this funda_
memal constitutio !imitum was beyond aI1 doub¡, Fot ¡his reason ¡hroughout the text. , , Th
Hyginus's treatise on the Constitution 01Limits begins with ¡hes
words: ':Among aI1 the ri¡es and ae¡s ¡hat have to do with mea-e .
Let us try to take senous 1 rhe rotagonist's prOfeSSlOl1 In . e
y p , Kmeans kardo, whleh
suremems, the mast eminem is the eonstitution of limits, It has á 4, f I d surveyOls, ,
Castle, In the language o .aH "tself towards the cardinal pOlnr
celestial origin and a perpetual enduranee , , , sinee limits are eon- 'h lled "beeause lt dlleets 1 . /' t) What K. does-
stituted in their referenee to the worid: indeed, the decumani are 1st husca
f S
, dk dmemcaetes . . h
ky" (quod dtrectum e a" l' to have and whICh t e
traeed by foI1owing the eourse of the sun, and the kardines aecord_ o t e kingly e ,lms , 'h
ing to the axis of the poles, "2(, the prafession that he pravo 'd a kind of deliance-ls, t ere-
funetionaries of the, eastI; ~onsl ';~he eonfliet-if it is indeedda
18 fore, the "eonstltutlOn o ~:~~:' not have as mueh ro do (acco,r _
3, In 48, three eminent philologists and historians of law, F. eonflict, as lt seems ro be ' ) vith the possiblltty of setdmg
Blume, K. Laehmann, and A. Rudorff, published in Berlin the ing to Brod's reekless suggest~~~ b' the castIe as it does with the
lirst modern edition of the corpus of Roman land surveyors: Die l
'n the village and bemg acefe P d y [f the casde (again accordmg
Schriften del' romischen F'eldmesser, The edition (whieh gathers in
setting (or transgressmg, ) o bdor s ers,
the "divine government " of the ,
two volumes the treatises of Julius Frominus, Agg Urbieus, B
enus d) is graee llndersroo a himself not wlth hls
world, then the lan SUIV~y~" knobby stiek within reaeh -IS
Hyginus Gromatieus, and $ieulus Flaeeus) eontains an extensive ro ro d '. r-who presents "28 '

appendix that reproduces the iI1ustrations from the manuseripts,

Partieulariy striking among thom, and in twenty-nine variations,
instruments but rather Wlt t 'th rhe casde and its bureaucrats
engaged in an obstinate strugg e Wl , n implacable and very spe-
is the image of a castrum, whieh reealIs in a truly astounding way over th e 1,1m!'ts of this government, III a
the deseription of the easde that appears ro K. in the lirst ehapter cial constitutio limítum.
of theemnovel: "lt Was neither an old knight's fortress nor a mag-
nilie new ediliee, but a large eomplex, made up of a few two- 5 On January 16, 19 22 , dllll!lg , , of The Castle,
" rhe cOmpOSltlOn .
s'lderations on the sub)eet
story buildings and many lowel; tighdy paeked ones, Had one not ' , h' d' ysomecon ,
Kafka writes clown m 1$ lar h been underlined many tImes,
of limits, whose importance ave
33

(01' gru1na), a son of cross who

. F· small
Spondence with a point on the se --...,,;' uld have taken Ir 01 a ieh
and from who se ends hung fo taUt
to
~e, W',.. its sma
nwindows, wh
appears in the
ur his hometOwn,
Than1<s ta this instrument, the
straight lines (rigores) that permitt'e'Ud"u:su
and trace its limits. st constitutio limi~
of the lir tO the kardo and
'''''C;U ..
The two fundamentallines that aecordmg treme of
angle were the kardo, traced from crü'ss~,ct rthern ex
""., at the na . . . 1 of kardo.
nus, which tan from cast to west. K the 111ma
ktter , , s) In this way
the foundatian of the castrum (for maxl:nu 'ile DM (ab-
fum is the diminutive af <~''''''m'-')Ur limlt, wh, which
1 eeond lme,
the two principal roads around '''''''' "",U defines t :e s he same mcaning,
diers' tents, in the case of a military __''''''", 1t Kcarnes t l' 1 occasion s
1:l "co""others, in mu up e
For the Romans the original ~"co",..
mental constitutio limítum was beyond
Hyginus's treatise on rhe Constitution
"
nlstS rofession .In The
words: "Amang a11 the rites and acts p kar,d0, which
protago K means
,tfSW" .. • . nt
surements, the mOSt eminent is the conSttnlt
d he cardinal pOI
celestial origin and a perpetual eWUUl ance, itself towar s)t What K. does-
stituted in their reference ro the world: ha>'(1",,,,,~ caelz esl , h' h the
" h and w le
traced by fa110 wing the COurse of the sun, daims to ave) . s there-
ing to the axis of the poles. "26 'v",,'"'''' a kind of deliafn ce-:- ~,n' deed a
, l'ltl s
The con 11 lCt- d (accord-
mueh to o .
3· In r848, three eminent philologists not have as 'bT of settlrng
Blume, K. Lachmann, and A. Rudorff, 'o;C$ll'J':' Wl. th the pOSSl
1
1 Jty
ir does Wlt
, h the
first modern edition of the corpus of "O"!"U~" "
~cc"pt<'u by the cast e 1as (agarn , according
Schriften der ro'mischen Feldmesser, The 01 btnu'c<o. If the cast e ment" o f the
-l "divine govern , h his
two volumes the treatises of ]ulius "'"'''''''}"'''' ast le h'mself not wrt ,
Hyginus Gromaticlls, and Siculus ""c'""'.'"''' IVeyo,,-- .... - presents 1
. 1 within rcae h"28_1S

appendix that reproduces the i11ustrations "a knobby StlC { . bureaucratS

Partieular1y striking among them, and in '?~',.u,,,,._ with eastle anb~
in an implaca e and very spe-
the ltS
is the image of a castrum, which reca11s in
the deseription of the castle that appears ta
of the novel: "Ir Was neither an old Kl1,gn,",;::~
osition of . 'h e Castle,
r: . t
nificent new edifice, but a large complex, durillg t Ile com P . on the suhJec
story buildings and many lawel; tightly some consideratlOlls times,
have been underlined many
34 K K. 35

though they have never been linked to the prafession of the nove!'s ((jus t as much from madness as rrrom asc~nt"31 . ~A.h· . t1le
u;"stteg, agam
protagonist. Kafka speaks of a breakdown (Zusammenbruch) he 'dea of a movement upward) and a poene theology (the new Kab-
experienced in the preceding week, after which the interior world ~alah in opposition ro Zionism, the ancient and eomplex Gnos-
and the external one were divided and Cut off fram one another. tic-messianic inheritanee in opposition to the psychology and
The savage wildness (Wildheit) that was produced in the interi- superficiality of the westjüdische Zát in. whieh he lived). But the
ority is described as a "hunt" Vagen), in whieh "self-observation diary entry becomes even more declslve lf lt refers to the novel that
does nar lea~e al~y representation in peace but pursues thcm up- Kafka was writing at the time and ro its protagonist, the land ~ur­
ward [empoIJagt] 111 arder to then be the one who is being pursued veyor K. (kardo, "the one who directs himself ro,;ard the e~rdlllal
[wezterge¡agt] as representation by a new self-observation."29 At this point of the sky"). The choke of professlOn (whleh K. asslgns to
point the image of the hunt gives way to a reBection on the limit himself, sinee no one hlred hlm for the Job and Slllee, as the chaIr-
between humans and that which lies above and beyond them: man informs him, the village has no need for this service) is, then,
TI~is hun.t p~oceeds in a clirection opposite to rhar of humanity at once a declaration of war and a strategy. It is not the bound-
[ntmmt dte R¡chtung aus del' Menschheit] , Solitude, which for rhe mast aries between the gardens and the houses of the viUage (which,
pan !1aS ~een always foreed on me and in part sought by me (but in the words of the chairman, are already "marked out and duly
wasnt thls also a compulsion?), ís.. now Iosing alI irs amhiguity and egistered")32 that he has come to occupy himself with. Rather,
goes ~o rhe extreme .[geht aufdas AusseJ:íte]. Where is ir leading? Per- ;iven that life in the village is, in reality, entirely determined by
ha~s lt.leads, and rhis seems to me inescapable, ro madness [Irrsínn, the boundaries that separate 1t froID the castle and, at the same
whICh 1$ etyrnologically linked to ilnn, "wander," "eu"]; there is 11oth- time, keep the former inseparable fram the latter, it is these limits,
ing lefr te add, rhe hum passes through me and tcars me aparto Ol' bove alI that the alTival of the land snrveyor calIs llltO quesnon.
else 1 can (can I?), evcn if only to a smalI dcgl'cc, stay on my fect and a , b d'
The ((assault on the last limit" is an assault against the oun anes
aIJow myself to carry on the hum. Where, then, do 1 arrive? "Hum"
that separate the easde (the high) fram the village (the low).
!
is only an image; could also say "an assaulr 011 the last earthly limít"
[Ansturm gegen dle fetzte irdische Grenze]. This is an assaulr launched
7. Once again-and this is Katl(a's grand strategie intuition, the
from be.low: by ma~kind, and since this is aIso only an image, 1 couId
rcplace Ir wrrh the lmage of an assaulr aímed ar me from aboye. new Kabbalah that he prepares-the struggle is not against God
AH this literature is an assaulr on the limjt and, if Zionism had or the supreme sovereignty (Count Westwest is never reaUy dis-
n~t intervened, it might easily have deveJoped imo a new secret doc- cussed in the novel) but against the angels, the messengers, and
tnne, a Kabbalah [zu einer neuen Geheimiehre, eíner Kabbala1. There the bureaucrats who appear to be their representatives. A list of
are inrimations of this. Though of course it requires an inconccivabIe the casde's personnel with whom he has ro deal is, in this sense,
genius to srrike new roots in the oId ccnruries, or to create the cenru- instructive: various "girls of the castle," a substeward, a messenger,
ríes anew, withollt, in so doing, consuming their forces, but rather, ro a seeretary, and a director (with whom K. nevef had direct contaet,
only now bcgin consummaring them ..10
but whose narne, Klamm, seems to evoke the extreme points-
KM-of the kardo). At stake here-pace Kafka's theologieal in-
6. The in every scnse "decisive" character of this entry has not terpreters, whether Jewish or Christian~is not a conflict with the
eluded seholars. In a single gesture it involves an existential deci- divine but rather a relendess struggle with the lies ofhumans (ar
sion C"going aU the way ro the extreme," no longer surrendering angels) coneerning the divine (primarily those eurrent in the en-
to the weakness that, as he wiU note on February 3, has kept him viranmenr ofWestern Jewish intelIectuals to whieh he belonged).
K

These are the boundaries, separations, and barriers established

tween humans, as weI1 as between humans and rhe divine, On the Uses and Disadvantages of
rhe land surveyor wants ro put into question.
The interpretation according to which K. wants ro be accepted Living among Specters
the casde and setde in the village seems, then, all the more
ous, K. does not know what to make of the village as it is, and
less so of the casde, What the land SUlveyor is concerned with is
border that divides and conjoins the two, and this is what he
to abolish or, rather, render inoperative, Where this border actually.
passes, no one seems ro know. Perhaps ir does nar really exÍst
passes, like an invisible door, withill every human being.
Kardo is nor on1y a term in land surveying; ir also means
hinge of a door, "1\, hinge [cmdo]," Isidore ofSeville's etymology
us, "is the place on which the door [ostium] swings and moves, It is he University Institute of Archi-
so called after the Greek word for heart rapo tes kardias], because as In the inaugural addressda~ t F bruary 1993 Manfredo Tafuri
' y, 'e dellvere 111 e , ll'
the heart of man governs everything, so rhe hinge holds and moves teeture 111 ,~n~, "of Venice in no uncertain terms, Reca ;~¡;
the door, Whence the proverb: in cmdinem esse, 'to find on,ese:lt evoked the ca aver, h ho proposed to host the Wor s
I d agall1st tose w "Th
a turning point,"'33 "The door [ostium]," Isidore COntinues (with a the batt e wage 1d d '¡haut a note of sadness: e
h ' 1 eonc u e ,not WI d l'
definition that Ka/ka could have subscribed to without any reser- Fair in t e Clty, le h h ' s better ro put makeup an IP-
em t W et el' lt wa
varian), "i5 rhar which impedes ane from entering."3<i The ostíarii, probl was no h 1' it loo k so ridiculous that even
stiek on the eadaver, t us ma :mg . hat we-the power-
the doorkeepers, "are those who, in the Old Testament, impede the dh cked It' nor was It w ,
entrance of the impure into the Temple, "35 The hinge, the turning children woul ave mo d ' h -ended up with, that IS, a
less defenders, the dlsarme prop ets "1
point, is where rhe doo r rhar obstructs access 1S neutralized. And ' fy' b fore our very eyes, ,
if Bucephalus is the "new advocate," who studies the law only on eadaver hque IIlg e d' e this implacable diagnosIs,
the eondition that it no longer be applied, then K, is the "new land Almost two decades have palsse shlllcty nd competen ce, whose
' h amp e aut Ofl a
surveyor," who renders inoperative rhe limits and rhe boundaries penned by a person Wlt ossibl challenge in good faith (not even
that separate (and at the same time hold together) the high and the aeeuraey no one could p, ,Y d the rest who, then as today,
' h' t ets mmlsterS, an .
low, the casde and the village, the temple and the home, the divine the mayors, ale 1 e , d h ", deeency" to eontlnue to
. T f ., wor S t e m .
and the human, What would happen to the high and the low, the had and have, 111 a un s d ' ) 't the careful observer thls
divine and the human, the pure and the impure, once the door (¡hat doU up and undersell thehea ,~ver , , °no longer a cadaver, that if
h t at ventee IS
1S, rhe systcm of laws, written and unwritten, that regulate these aetually means, oweve~,. 1 b se I't has managed to move
'11' t IS ou y ecau
relatiouships) is neutralized? What would happen, in the end, to it somehow Stl eXlsts, 1 d h d the consequent decom-
beyond ¡he state rhat follows ea¡ an that of the specter, of the
that "world of truth" (to which the canine protagonist dedicates his
Position o f t h e corpse, Thls new state,
IS
e rably in the middle o
f
investigations in the story that Ka/ka wrote when he definitively in- 'h t warn II1g, p rere
terrupted the eomposition of the nove])? This is just ho w much the dead who appears Wlt ou d' ' 1 sometimes even speaking,
' h k' and sen IIlg sIgna s, , h'
land surveyor is allowed to eatch a glimpse of. the I1Ig t, crea II1g , ll' 'ble "Veniee IS w IS-
though in a way ¡ha¡ is not always Ime Igl ,

37
38 On the Uses and Disadvantages o[Living among Speetm On the Uses and Disadvamages o[ Living among Speelers 39

pering," Tafuri wrires, though he adds that such whispers are an , i ever rhin thar has happened in sorne lane,
unbearable sound ro the modern ear, Sirnilarly, rn the e ty, y g sorne sidewalk along a canal, rn
piazza 1I1 some street, on . d' ti
in sorne 1 U', ddenly eondensed and erystalhze mto a g-
Those who live in Venice attain a certain familiarity with this sorne bac (a ey tS lsub'le and exigent mute and winking, resentful
hat tS at once a r , f h 1
specter, Ir suddenly appears during a nocturnal stroll when, cross- ~~~ tdistant. Sueh figure is the speeter or genius o t e pace,
ing a bridge, one's gazc turns a cerner alongside a canal immersed
in shadows, as a glimmer of orange light 1S switched on in a distant h d d' "The work of love in recoUecring
window, and an observing passerby on another bridge holds Out a What do we owe to t e ea , , ", h k f the most
h . d d" Kierleegaard wntes, IS t e wor o
fogged-up mirror, Or when the Giudecca Island almost seems to the one w o lS . ea , d faithfullove."2 But it is certainly not the
gurgle as it drains fOtten algae and plastic botdes onto the Zattere disinterested, frdee, ~n 11 not only ask nothing from us, bur they
, t The dea alter a , 1'h'
promenade, And it was yet again the same specter that-thanks easles, . to do everyt
' h 'mg possr'ble in order to be forgotten, dtS,
to the invisible echo of a final ray of light, indefinitely lingering also seem, '1 h the dead are perhaps the most deman -
over the canals-Maree! saw enshrouded within the refleetions however, rs preerse y w y d f, 1 s and de!inquent with respeet
in objects of love. We are e ense es
of the palazzos in their ever-darkening obseurity, And prior still, g d fl f om and negleet them,
this speeter appears at the very origins of this eity, whieh was not ro the dea ; we ee r l' the Venetians' laek of love for
born, like almost every other city in Italy, as a result of the eneoun- Only in ;his ~:; ~;~ ~l~':;X:O~~o love it, nor are they capable
ter between late antiquity in its decline and new barbarían forees therr ctty, ,1 hey , he dead is diffieult. Ir is mueh easter to
but rather as a resuh of exhausted refugees who, abandoning their of lovrng rt, smee lovrng t ' d l' cate and bloodless members
d h 'tisalive 1Oeoverlts er
fiches behind thcrn in Romc, carried its phantasm in rheir minds, preten t at 1
le
, . d'
and rouge m 01' el ro ex 1
h 'bit ir to the tour-
to then dissolve ir into rhe city's waters, streaks, and colors. with sorne rna eup . . .' In Veniee the merehants are ro
ists who pay an admtSStOl~ p~::'in the 1Ombs, where they offend
What is a speeter made oE? Of signs, or more preeisely of sig- be found not rn the temp e tI e eadaver (or rather what
1 h living bur even more so 1 ¡;
natures, that 1S to say, those signs, ciphers, 01" monograrns that nor on y t e d ' h u h without being able 10 con ess
are etehed Onto things by time, A speeter always carries with it a they believe 10 be a ca aver, t o g , to sa (if the mer-
it), But this eadaver is actually a specter, that tS b 1 Y d subtle
date wherever ir goesjir is, in other words, an intimately historical ' eXlstenee
hants are aware o f ltS ' ) , the most ne u OllS . an .
entity, This is why old ciries are the quintessential place of signa- e , d thus as distant from a eadaver as one ean lmagme.
entlty, an
tures, which the flaneur in turn reads, somewhat absentmindedly,
in the course of his drifting and strolling down the streets, This " f l' ¡; a )osthumous or complementaty
is why the taste1ess restorations that sugarcoat and homogenize Speetrahty tS a form o r e,.~, 'flnished, Speetrality thus
European cities also erase their signatures; they render them iUeg- life th~t begins onlYl~hel~ e~~¿:~;:r~~le graee and astuteness of
ible, And this is why eities-and espeeiaUy Venice-tend to look has, wlth respect ro I e, t e and recision of those who
like dreams, In dreams the eyes of the dreaming person seize on that whieh is eompleted, the ~our~sy It Fs ereatures of this kind
110 longer have anythmg ahea o t, e~, VI ' (' his ghost sto-
each and every thing; each and every creature exhibits a signature learned ro pereelve m elllce
that Henry James
In
1 h nd 1 es) These speeters are so
that signifies more than its traits, gestures, and words couId ever
express, Nonetheless, those who stubbornly try to interpret their ries he compares them to sy l' s t
e:. Úving who invade their
diserete and so eluslve, that It IS a ways t e
dreams are stiU ar least partIy eonvineed that they are meaningless, homes and strain their retÍeenee.
40 ,I"L·· mang Specters 41
On the Uses and Disadvantages ofLiving among Specters On the Uses an d Disadvantages aJ tvzng a

. I n ua e speaks, a \anguage the

for the /irst rime(, ~har ~':it~O~lt ~ealizing that he has thus
But there is also another type of specrraliry rhar we may
larval, which is born fm m llor accepting lts own conditio ,
ll tíhil,)$Opwe> refers to t oug. ) by saying rhar it speaks-
forgetting ir so as ro prerend at aU COSts rhar ir srill has ..• . . \ a ,spectral conslstency
Ir Wltl
h,,;to'~w
weighr and !lesh. Such larval specrers do nor live alone bur
obstinately look for people who generated rhem through theit
conscience. They Iive in them as nightmares, as incubi ar sW;cUibi.
~- . mblem of modernity, eve~ 1 In a
·f·
Venice is therefore the tIue e e one evoked by Tafun ar the
internaUy moving their lifeless members with strings made
letely differenr sense flom rh . t new rnuava] but last
While the /irsr rype of specrrality is perfecr, since it no longer comp \ dd· Our tIme IS no e l!
cnd of his inaugura a [e~~al and larval. This is what we usua y
anything to add to what it has said or done, the larval specter.
must pretend ro have a furure in arder to cIear a space fOl" [l1ovissimoL (hat 1$ too say~ . ostmodernity, without suspectmg
understand as pOsrhIStOly 01 ~eans being consigned ro a posthu-
torment from their own past, for their own incapacity ro compre~
hat this conditIon necessatlly. .. thar the life of the spec-
hend that they have, indeed, reached completion. t ll ·c
U S and spectra IlC, WI
·thout Imagmlllg
.
.
d·ltion char ir tmpases
mO • • 1 d· pervlOuS c o n , .
.. the most hturglca an In:. 1 f onduct and feroclOuS
Ingeborg Bachmann once compared language ro a city, with irs tel 15 f romlsmg fU es o e . d
h observance o uneomp . ~ . dawn dusk, mghr, an
aneient center, its more recent and peripheraI boroughs, and fi- t. e. with al! rheir speclal prayers Ol ,
btames, . 1\
naUy the encircling beltway and its gas stations, which are also an
the rest of the canOillca lOur~ deceney of the larval specters who
integral pan of the city. The same utopia and rhe same ruin are
Henee the lack of ngor an d l! I nguages, al! orders and al!
contained in OUt city and in out" language, and we have dreamt
live among uso Al! peoples an da l! s:vereigns, the churehes and
and lost ourselves in both; indeed, they are merely the fotm that
institutions, al! parllaments an d ~he gowns, have slipped one af-
this dream and this loss take. If we compare Venice ro a lan-
the synagogues , rhe ermmes anlaI.val condirion, though they are
guage, then living in Venice is like studying Latin, like trying to
ter another, .mexora, bly mro, a f'< And so writers wnte • badI y,
prono unce every word, syllable by syUable, in a dead language;
unprepared for and unconsclOUShO irl~~nguage is alivci parlia~nents
learning how to lose and rediscover our way in the bottlenecks of
S·Ince they need ro pretend thar t e .mulate a political hfe for
dedensions and unexpected openings of supines and future in- . b h y nee d ro SI h
legislate in valll ecause t e d . ed of piety beca use t ey
/initives. It musr be remembered, tbough, that one should never . . r·
t heir larval natIons; le IglOns 1,
are epnv
b and feel at home among
dedare a language dead provided that it still somehow speaks and 1, bl ss t e rom s .
no langer know ow to eh e sl<:eletons and mannequms
is read; it is only impossible-or nearly impossible-to aSSume . . 1, wywese d
them. Thls IS t e reason. d· ro cheerful!y con uct
the position of a subjecr in such a language, of the one who says ·IB d ummles preten ll1g d
marching StI y an m . 1 . l· ·Ing rhat their decompose
"1." The truth is rhat a dead language, jusr like Venice, is a spectral h . Wit lOut lea IZ h .
their üwn ex umatlon, . 1, bl. s and tatters, char t elf
language rhat we cannor speak bur rhat stiU quivers and hums and 1 . g them 1Il s am e
whispers in ¡ts Qwn special way, so we can eventually come to un- members are eavlll 1 r and unintel!igible.
words have become gl0$50 a le
dersrand and decipher ir, albeit wirh so me effon and rhe help of
a dicrionary. But ro whom does a dead language speak? To whom y, nice knows n ot hing of any of this.
. Itp.
no
But rhe specter o f e . f rse to the tounsts. el-
do es rhe specrer of language rurn? Nor ro us, certainly, but not h y, tlans or o eou , . .
longer appears ro t e ene h ' 1, d away by brazen admIl1lS-
even ro its addressees from another time, of whom ir no Ionger has . w oaree ase .hh.
haps it appears ro b eggals. 1 f m lane ro lane wIt t elf
any recoUecrion. And yet, preeisely for rhis reason, ir is as if only trators, or to rats w ho anxlOUS y eross ro
42 On the Uses and Disadvantaffes 0+Li '
6' 'J. vmg among Specters

muzzles to the ground ' al' to tose

h rare pe 1 h l'
to 1ucubrate on this oCt 'd d < al' e w o, Ike exiles
11 en aVOI e le
argues, with its choirboy 1'1
S'
. sson. lIlce what the
' Gn What We Can Not Do
- 1 (e VOl ce IS th .f 11 1 '.
t h e 1anguages ofPur " a t 1 a t le Cltles and
h Jope now surVlve on1y a h
tose
.
who have underst d 1
00 tlese m ' .s l' antasms, then
lar deeds, only thos e 1 . ' OSt lIltlmate and mOSt
w 10 leCIte and re d 1 d'
an d stones, will perhaps b bl cor r le Iscarnate
· h h'
wh IC Istory-in wh' 1 j'fc e a e one day to reopen th at breach
IC 1 1 e-suddenly fulfills its pro mise.

Deleuze once defined the operarían of power as a separarían

af humans from what they can do, that is, from their potential-
iry. Active forces are impeded from being put into practice either
because they are deprived of the material conditions that make
them possible ar because a prohibitian makes them formally im-
passibl e. In both cases pawer-and rhis is its most oppressive and
brural form-separates human beings from their potentiality and,
in this way, renders rhem impotent. There i5, neverthe1ess, another
and more insidious operaria n of power rhat does nor irnrnediately
affeet what humans can do-their potentiality-but rather their
«imporentiality," that is, what rhey cannor do, or better, can nor
do l

That potentiality is always also constitutively an impotential-

ity, that every ability to do is also always already an ability to not
do, is the decisive point of the theory of potentiality developed
by Aristode in the ninth book of the Metaphysics. "Impotential-
iry [adynamia]," he writes, ('is a privation contrary to potentiality
[dynamis]. Every potentiality is impotentiality of the same [poren-
tiality] and with respect to the same [potenríality]" (1046a 30 -3 1).
"Impotentiality" does not mean hele only absenee of potentiality,
not being able to do, but also and above all "being able to not do,"
being able te nor exercise onc's üwn potcntiality. And, indeed, ir

43
44
On What We Can Not Do
On What We Can Not Do 45
is precisely this specifie ambivalenee of .111 potentiality-whieh
always the power to be and to not be, to do and to not "v-c"av_ ut thar evcn the executioner who kills me
defines, in faet, human potentiality. This is to say that human VI'deo artist tomorrow, _,. 1 asoaSI
. K fl ' bTheTrta I 'nger-is nothing bllt .the
ings are the living beings that, existing in the mode of potentiality, is aetually, as III a<a~ness that~veryone is simply bending hlm-
are eapable just as mueh of one thing as its opposite, to do jUst refieerionIf of thedawal h'
aceor lllg ro t IS Ilexibility that is today the pnmary
to nOt do. This exposes them, more than any other living being, hersetlat
al'ualrty l t e h market demands from eaeh persono
to the risk of error; but, at the same time, it pennits human beings
q h'
to aeeumulate and freely master their own eapacities, to transfo 10re im Poverished and less free than t 15
them into "faeulties." Ir is not only the measure of what someone nn Norhing makes us n . I Those who are separated [rom
f m Impotenna Ity. '11 d
can do, but also and primarily the eapaeity of maintaining one_ estrangement ro
d an loweVCl,. s tl'll resist,, they can. .srl Inot o.
I
self in relation to one's own possibility to not do, that defines the what they can o, e. ' d from their own impotennallty ose,. on
status of ones aetion. While fire can only bU1"l1, and Other living Those who are scpalatc
d ti· I . to resist And just as It 15
f all r le eapaelty .
beings are only eapable of their Own speeifie potentialities_they the other han,.
1st oreness o f w h at wc'annot
e
be that guarantees
h
are eapable of only this or that behavior inseribed into their bio- only the burnll1g awa .. I the lucid vis ion of w at we
h [ h t wc are so It IS on y .
logieal voeation-human beings are the animals eapabl of their the trut Ol"ocan
cannot) a dI'
w not, o t 1a t gives consistency to our actlOns.
Own impotentiality. e

It is on this other, more obseure, faee oE potentiality that today

the pOwer one ironically defines as "demacra tic" prefers to aet. Ir
separates humans not only and not so mueh from what they can
do but primarily and fo r the mOSt pan from what they can not
do. Separated fro m his impotentiality, deprived of the experienee
of what he can not do, today's man believes himself eapabl of
everything, and so he repeats his jovial "no problem," and hise ir-
responsible "1 can do it," precisely when he should instead realize
that he has been consigned in unheard of measure to forees and
proeesses Over whieh he has lost all control. He has be blind
not to his eapacities but to his ineapaeities, not to whateome
he can do
but ro What he cannor, or can nor, do.

Henee the definitive eonfusion in Our time between jobs and

voeations, professional identities and social roles, eaeh of whieh
is impersonated by a walk-o n actor who se arrogan ce is in inverse
Proponion to the instability and uneenainty of his or her perfor-
mance. The idea that anyone can do or be anything_the suspi-
cion that not only eould the doctor who examines me today be a
Identity without the Person 47

Ir is hardly surprising rhar one's recognition as a person was for

§6 Identity without the Person millennia one's most jealously guarded and significant possession.
Other human beings ate important and necessary primarily be-
cause rhey can recognize me. Even the power, glory, and wealrh
that the "others" seem so sensirive ro, make sense, in the final
analysis, only in view of this recognition of personal identity. Of
course, one can-as it is said that the Caliph of Baghdad, Harün
al-Raslüd, was fond of doing-walk incognito through the streets
dress ed as a beggar. But if there were never a moment in which
rhe name, glory, wealrh, and power were recognized as "mine,"
iE-as certain sainrs recommend doing-I were ro live my whole
lífe in nonrecognition, then my personal identity would also be
lost forever.
h The desire to be recognized by others is inseparable from being
~lm~n, Indeed, ~uch recognition is so essential thar, according to In our culture, however, rhe "persona-mask" does nor only have
ege , everyone IS ready ro put his or her own Jife in jeopardy in a juridical sígnificance. Ir also made a decísive contribution ro rhe
~:l~~t rO,obtam l,t. !his is nor merely a question of satisfaction or formation of the moral persono This formation (irst took place in
ove, :ather, ,Ir 1$ only through recognition by others thar man the theater but also in stoic philosophy, which modeled its ethics
can constltute hlffiSelf as a persono on the relationship between the actor and his mask. This relation-
ship is defined by a double intensity: on the one hand, the actor
h P:rs~n~ originally means "mask," and it is through the mask that can neither aspire ro choose nor ro refuse rhe part thar rhe au-
t e ,In .1~ldual acqUlres a role and a social idenrity. In Rome ev- thor has assigned to him. On the other hand, he cannot idenrify
ery mdlvldual was identified by a name that expressed his belon _ himself with the part without leaving sorne residue. "Remember,"
mg to a gen:, ro a lmcage; but this Jincage was dcfined in turn ~ Epicterus writes,
the ancestor s mask of wax that every patrician family kept in th~
thar you are an actor in a part that the author of rhe play chose to give
atflum of ltS ~lOme. F~~om here, ir only takes a small step to trans-
you: shorr jfhe wants ir short, long jfhe wants ir long. Ifhe wants you
form persona mto the personality" that defines the place of the in- to aet the part of a beggar, see that you act the part skillfully. And do the
;lvlduall~ the dramas and rituals of social Jife. Eventually, persona samc ifir is a part of a cripplc, or a public official, or a private citizen. Ir
f ame to Slglllfy the Jundlcal capaclty and political dignity of the is not up to you to choose your parto But what does depend on you is to
l
[ce mano The slave, masmuch as he OI she had neither ancestors skillfully perform rhe persona rhar has becn assigned to you.
?or a, m~s~(, nar a name, likewise couId not have a "persona," rha;
!s, a Jund~c~l capacity (servus non habet personam). The stru le Nevertheless, the actor (like the sage, who takes the actor as a para-
for recogllltlOn !S, therefore, the struggle for a mask but th' gg 1 digm) must not identify completely with his part, thus confusing
. 'd .h h " ' !S mase
himself with his srage persona: "The time is coming," Epicrerus
~Ol~~l es Wlt t e personality" thar society recognizes in ever
llld~Vldu~1 (or with the "personage" that it makes of the individu~ admonishes, "when actors will believe that their masks and cos-
Wlt ,at tunes, retIcent connivance). turnes reflect rheir very selves."2
Identity without the Person
Identity without the Person 49
The moral person constitutes himself, then, through, ar once
. "against the appearance, and increasing diffusian, af the
~n ~dhesion ro, an,d a distancing [rom, rhe social mask: he accept~ soclety f h' 1
ure that seems ro canstitute the ohsession o t e nmeteent 1
Ir wlthout reservatlon and, at rhe same time, almost i'lmF'en:eF'til,lv . ••.
distan ces himself from it. fig
centli1y. bourgeoisie'. the "persistent
. offender."
.. Both Francefiand
Perhaps nowhere does this ambivalent gesture, along with the E 1 nd passed laws that clearly dlstmgUlshed between the rst-
. ngeacriminal (whosc punishment was prison) an d th e reC1'd"lVIst
ethical gap that it opens up between man and his mask, aD'Dear
tIm ' (who was punished instead by being deported to the
with 5uch evidence as in the Raman paintings and masaies rhar cnmI nal . .1 .
represent the silent dialogue between the actor and his mask. The cO 1an1es . l'he necessity of being able to idennfy
. ) . .Wlt 1 cenalllty
the persa n arrested for a crime became at thIs pOlnt a necessary
actor is depicted here either standing or sitting in from of his
ndition for a functioning judiciary system.
mask, which is held in his left hand or is placed on a pedestal.
co Ir was this necessity that pushed Alphonse Beníllon, an obscure
The actor's idealized posture and engrossed expression, as he fixes
bureaucrat in the Paris police department, ro establish toward the
his gaze on the blind eyes of the mask, are a testimony ro the
end of the I870S a system of criminal identificanon based on an-
~peciaj significance of their relationship. This relationship reaches
thropometric measurements and mug shots. In just a few years 1t
ltS CfJtlcal threshold-and, at the same time, the beginning of its
would beco me known to the whole world as Bertillonage. Whoever
ded1I1e-at rhe cornmencemcl1t of rhe modern age, with portraits
happened ro be detained or arrested for whatever reason would
of actors in the commedia dellarte: Giovanni Gabrielli (known as il
immediately be subjected ro a senes of measurements of the skulI,
Sivello), Domenico Biancolelli (known as Arlecchino), and Tristano
arms, fingers, toes, ears, and face. Once the suspect had been pha-
Maninelli (he also known as Ar!ecchino). Now the actor no lon-
rographed both in profile and fr?,ntalIy, the two photos would he
ger looks at his mask, which is still displayed as he holds it in his
attached to the "Beníllon card, wluch contalned alI the useful
hand. The distance between man and "persona," so blurry in clas-
identificatÍan data, according ro the system that ¡ts inventor had
sical representations, is accentuated by rhe vivacity of the gaze thar
christened portrait parlé.
the actor decisively and inquisitively direcrs toward rhe spectator.

Around the same time, Francis Galron (a cousin of Charles

In th~ second half of the nineteemh century, techniques used by
Darwin)-by developing the work of Henry Faulds (a bureau-
the pollee undergo an unexpected development, which involves a
decisive transformation of the concept of identity. From this point crat in the English colonial administration)-began ro work on
a fingerprinting classification system, which would alIow for the
ldentlty no longer has, essentialIy, anything ro do with recognition
identification of recidivist criminals without posslbllrty of error.
and the person's social prestigc. lnstead, ir responds ro rhe neces-
Curiously, Galton was an avid supponer of Benillon's a~lthro­
sity of ensuring another type of recognition: that of the recidivist
pometric-photographic method and advocated ltS adoptlOn ll1
criminal by the poi ice officer. It is not easy for us-habituated as
England. But he also maintained that the statlstJcal survey of fin-
;ve are to the knowledge that we are recorded with great precision
gerprinting was particularly suited to natives from t~e calomes,
111 files and databases-to imagine juSt how arduous it could be to
whose physical characteristics tended to be confusmg and ~p­
ascenain personal identity in a society that had neither photogra-
peared indistinguishable ro a European eye. Al;orher field to WhlCh
phy nor documents of identification. As a matter of fact, in the
this procedure was quickly applíed was prostltutlon, because the
second half of the nineteenth century this became the principal
use af anthropometric procedures on women l11volved wl~at was
problem among those who saw themselves as the "defenders of
considered an embarrassing promiscuity, and anyway, theIr long
Identity without ¡he 1'ersoll 51
Identity without the Pmon

hair rendered measurements more difficult to take. Ir was probably densed Bertillon card) that it gradually became obligatory in ev-
reasoning of this sort-linked in same fashion ro racial ar sexual
ptejudices-that delayed the application of Galton's method be- ery state in the world. . d d . .11
But the extreme step Ilas been ta I<en on Iy 1Il our ay an lS sn
yond the colonial realm or, in the case of the United States, be-
·n the process of its full realization. Thanks to the developmendt
yond citizens of African or Asian descent. But by the first two 1f biometnc . teehnologles . t hat can rapl·dly btain fingerpnnts
o . . an
decades of the twemieth century the system spread throughout the oretinal or iris patterns by means o f opnea . I sea. nners ' blOmemc
. . ap-
world and, beginning in the 1920S, tended ro replace or to comple- · statlOnS and lmmlgra-
ment Bertiffollage. Paratuses tend to move 1Jeyon d th e po lIce
don offices ro penetrate the sp here o f evely . d ay !ife . The entrance
.
For the first time in the history of humanity, identity was no ro the high scho01 cafeteria, even in elementary schools In SOlne
longer a function of rhe social "persona)' and ItS recognition by . . o f tIle b·lOmetnc . sector'which
countries (the mdustnes . . are under- d
othets but rathet a function of biological data, which could bear lend that CltlzenS get use
g oing a frenetic deve Iopment, recomn I d
no re1ation ro it. Human beings removed rhe mask rhar [or centu- . car) I ' yo uth) is already. regu ateI
ro this sort of control from thelr
ries had been the basis of their tecognizability in arder to consign . blOmetnc
. . appararus, on which srudents dlstracted y
by an opncal .
rheil" identity to something rhar be10ngs ro thcm in an intimare tropean eountnes a new
and exclusive way but with which they can in no way identity. No Place their hands. In Franee an d ot her El .

biometric identity catd (I NES) · tS ·1Il t h e m aking '.WhlCh. has . an

longer do the "others," my fellow men, my friends or enemies, . mlCrodllp
. . contammg.. b· lements
elCCtrolllC aslC e .of ldentlficanon I
guarantee my recognition. Not evcn my ethical capacity to nor
Cfingerpnnts and 19tta p otoS , a s , a slgnarure sampble
. d· . I h ) well as
coincide with the social mask that I have nevertheless taken on
to facilitate eommercial transactions. As pan of ~he u~stop~ah e
can guarantee such recognition. What llQW defines my identity .. I power toward governmentallty-m whlC a
drifting of polltlca . .
and recognizability are the senseless arabesques that my inked-up . cunous . Iy converges w ith a stanst paradlgm-
liberal paradlgm .
thumb lcaves on a card in same poliee station. This is something . are prepanng .
Western democracIes ro establish an archIve . eon-d
with which I have absolutely nothing to do, something with which . . much ro cnsure secunty an
taining the DNA o f every Cltnen, as
and by which I cannot in any way identity myself Ot take distance
reptession of crime as to manage public health.
from: naked !ife, a purely biological datum.3
Our attention is ealled elrom vanous
. quar·ters to the dangers em-
Anthropomerric techniques that had been designed for ctimi- bedded in the absolute and limidess control of a power that h~s
nals remained their exclusive privilege foc sorne time. Even in . and genetlC
. .mformation of alllts Cltl-
at its disposal the biometnc
1943 the U.S. Congress rejected the Citizens Identification Act, . tion of the Jews Cand
zens. With such power at han d , t he extermma h
which aimed at instituting mandatory identification cards with
every other . .
tmagmable genoo·d e)-wh·lCh was undertaken
. Idonh t e
fingerprints for all citizens. Nevertheless, by the rule that stipu- ' d umentatlon-wou ave
basis of incomparably Iess effi oent oc
lates that what was invented for criminals, foreigners, Ol" Jews
been total and inctedibly swift. I I b
will Sooner or later be invariably applied ro all human beings as
Even more serious, Ínasmuch as it has been com~ ete y ~no d-
such, techniques that had been developed for recidivist criminals
served, are the consequences that the proeesses of blOmetrlCb' an
began to extend in the course of the twentieth century to all
biological identification have Oil the constitution of the su Jehct.
citizens. Thc mug shot, accompanied at times by fingerprints, . of ldent1ty
. . can one construct o n the basis of data
What kmd . t atd
became such an integral patt of the identity card Ca kind of con- ..
. merely btologtcal? . Iy not a pe rsonal identity, whtch use
lS Certam
52
ldentity without the Pmon
Identity without the Person 53

to be linked 'o the reeogni,ion by ather members of the

group and, at rhe saIne time, to (he capacity of rhe """""'1'01
take on the social tnask witho Ul, however, being redueed 'o 'i/ Ar'o," without rhe pers,on a
.
the juridieal person), Ir I: S
ainst rhis separation that t~e new
:7.ts the illusion no' of a uhnlty:
I At rhe mament w en m.
bt
1-

in the linal analysis, my idemity is now de'ermined by v,,' "Vi~l< '1' n of ma"s,. 1 . 1 and aSOCia
".",,, amulup ¡cano urely blO oglCa
, I 1'd en tlty,
d 11
faets-tha, in no way depend on my will, and over whieh 1
are n iled down to a bT p to assume aII the masks an ,ah
no control-then rhe COllsrruction of something like a "'n"" also promised ,he a lItY the Internet, none of wh!e
e,hies beco mes problema,ie, What relationship can 1 are d d ,hird lives posslble on ,
h econ add ,he fleetlllg
an h To th15 Qile can .
wi,h my lingerprillls or with my gene,ie eode? How can 1 r e sever lea
,11 y belong to t .em"f bemg recogmze " d by a machllle,
ca~
,
on, and also 'ake distan ce from, sueh faels? The new ,u.eI!irltj' Imo st insolent pleasUle o, I 'mplications ,hat are Illsepa-
.n a h burden of the emotlOna 1 b' The mote ,he
witho~t :u
an idelllity witho Ul the person, as it were, in whieh the space
erecognition by anothe1' humanac;l:r;h one anothe1',
r~ble Ill~\:oking
ethics as we used 'o think of i, loses its sense and must be lU'OU¡;lJt.'
through again fm m ,he ground up, Ulllil ,his happens i, en:oof ,he metropolis have lost eaeh orher in the
sense to expeet a general eollapse of the personal ethieal pl'lnclp1<:s, eltlz h have beeome meapable o , 'th the apparatus
he more t ey h 'tual 1I1t1lnaey WI d I
thar have governed Western edIles fo r centuries. ' I more consoling t e VIf d' turn to look so eep y
eye ne h has learne 111 d 11 I
' (an apparatus t at I 11 identity an a rea
beeomes 'fh re they have ost a b ee-
The redue,ion of man to a naked Jife is 'oday sueh a fai, .",v",>, ' their re,inas), e m~, ' as become for them lO e l'
'--~ó;,
belong:~, ~TM
pli ,ha, it is by now the basis of ,he iden'ity that ,he s'ate iOto , the more gratlfymg lt h , fi' nd minute vanants:
he Great Maehine in 1[$ 111 mte maehine, from
~r~~z~he :U;nstile of a ~ubwa~e~~~~a:~~e:::snthem while they en~~
nizes in its eitizens, As the deponees 'o Ausehwitz no longer
either a name or a nationality, and Were by then only ,he numt)ers
en
t~~ ank or walk down the meet t~e fL:r~re obligatory identlty
,hat had be 'a[[ooed on ,heir arms, so ,he con'emporary 'deo eamera that enevo he a ararus that opens t,
zens, lost in an anonymous mass and redueed 'o ,he level of po, :I lO
temial eriminals, are delined by no,hing other ,han their biomet, t door for them, all the ,,:,ay lO , e and any place for what
garage , hem 111 any '1m 'or
rie da'a and, ultimatelY_by means of a SOrt of aneient fate, whieh eard that will recogmze t h.' 'f ,he Machine reeognlzes me h '
has become all ,he more opaque and incomprehensible_their they inexorably are, 1 alIn e;~~e Maehine, whieh knowshnelIt er
DNA. Neverthcless, if man is he who can indelinitely survive the at least, sees me-, I1 am ab lve
t Ís1 eternally alert, gua rantees t dat d my
am
human, if there is stilI sorne humanity ,ha, always exislS beyond sleep no' wakefu ness, u 'f h Gre.' Memo,y has reeor e
the inhuman, then ethies must be possible even in ,he ex ,reme ' ,1 am no' forgorren
al¡ve, d 1 t e
posthistorieal ,hreshold in whieh Western humanity seems to be erieal or digital ata,
stranded with a feeling of bo,h joy and horror, Like every appara, num , 'es are artificial and illusory
tus, biome'ric idelllilication captures a more or less unconfessed , Iy those
That this pleasure an d these eertallltl , e this are precise
r
desire fo happiness, In this case we are dealing with ,he wilI 'o be is evident, and rhe 61'st Qnes ,to ~::~sg;hat does ir mean, in faet,
freed from the weight of ,he person, from ,he moral as mueh as who experience them on a. datly eco' nition is not a person but a
the juridieal responsibili,y ,hat it earries along with ir. The person to be reeognized, if ,h~ ~bh-etdo;:e ap~aratus that seems t~1 recog~
(in both ,ragie and eomie guises) is also the bearer of guilt, so numerical darum? An e m men who do nar rea y wa~
the e,hies implied is neeessarily asee,ie, sinee it is founded on a nÍze me, a'e there not Plerhaps ::~:t and ;eeuse me? And how is lit
separation (of the individual from ,he mask, of the ethieal person . me but on
to recogmze . y ro . co
h neither a sml'el110l
' a gesture, wIt 1
possible to commUfilcate wIt
54 Identity without the Person

?eith~r graciousness nor reticence, but rather rhrough a biological

,dentlty? Nudity
And yet, fo!Iowing the rule that stipulates that history never re-
turns ro a lost statc, we must be prepared, with neither regret nor
hope, to seareh-beyond both personal identity and identity with-
out the person-fot that ne~ figure of the human. Or, perhaps,
what we must seareh for IS sllnply the figure of the living bein
f~r tha'. faee beyond the mask juSt as mueh as it is beyond t;~
blOmetne focies. We sti!I do not manage ro see this figure, but the
preSentlment of Ir suddenly startles liS in our bewilderment as l'
d . . n
our reams, 111 oul' unconsciollsness as in our lucidity.

1. On April 8, 2005, a performance by Vanessa Beeeroft rook

place in Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie. A hundred nude women
(though, in truth, they were wearing transparent pantyhose)
stood, immobile and indifferent, exposed to the gaze of visitors
who, after having waited on a long line, entered in groups into
a vast space Oil rhe museum's ground floar. The visitors, at once
timid and eurious, began to east sidelong glanees at bodies that
wete, after a!I, there to be looked al. After walking around them,
as if they were conducting reconnaissance, rhe visitors began to
distan ce themselves embarrassedly from the almost military ranks
of the hostile, naked bodies. The first impression of those who at-
tempted tú observe nor only rhe women bu! also rhe visitors was
that this was a nonplaee. Something that could have and, perhaps,
should have happened did not take place.
Clothed men who observe nude bodies: this seene irresistibly
evokes the sadomasoehistic ritual of power. In the beginning of
Pasolini's Salo (whieh more or less faithfu!Iy reproduces de Sade's
One Hundred and Twenty Days ofSodom), four parry-officials are
abour ro loek themselves in their villa. While they remain fu!Iy
clothed, the offieials proeeed to attentively inspeet vietims whom
they compel ro en ter naked, so as to evaluate their merits and de-
feets. Clothed, too, were the American soldiers standing in front of
apile of their tortured prisoners' naked bodies in the Abu Ghraib

55
Nudity
Nudity
57

partouze: it was, rather, simple nudity. Precisely in this ample and

well-lllum11lated spaee-where a hundred female bodles of vari-
oUS ages, faces, and shapes were 011 display, which rhe gaze couid
examine with case and in detail-there seemed to be no trace of
nudity. The event that was not produeed (01', assuming that this
was the intention of the artíst, the event that took place by llot
happening) called the very nudity of the human body unequivo-
cally into question.

2. Nudity, in our culture, is inseparable f10m a theological sig-

natllre, Everyone Ís familiar with the story of Genesis, according
10 which after their sin Adam and Eve realized fo1' the very flrst
time that they were naked: ''And the eyes of both were opened,
and they knew that they were nakcd" (Gen. 37). According to
theologians this does not happen as a result of sin having erased
their simple, previolls unawareness, Though they were not covered
by any human clothing befo re the Fall, Adam and Eve were not
naked; rather, they were covered by elothing of grace, which clung
prison. But nothing of the like happened in the N .
10 them as a garment of glory (the Jewish version of this exegesis,
ene: 111 a certain sense th . l ' h' eue Natlonalgal_
. e le atlons lp here d b' which can be found fOJ example in the Zohar, speaks about "cloth-
51I1Ce there was nothin . lid' seeme ro e tnverted,
. g mOle per lOUS than tI, b d d' ing of light"). Ir is this supernatural clothing that was stripped
pcrtment gaze thar especiaIl t h . e ore an lln-
tinuously easting toward tl'Yd ~ youlngest glrJS seemed to be COn- from the two after their sin. Denuded, they are lirst foreed to
e el ense ess spect t N h cover themselves with a loineloth of flg leaves that they fashioned
supposed to happen and did not ha a ors. o: w at was
under any cirCUffiStance a sadom Ph~e~l couId not have been, themselves ("they sewed lig leaves together and made themselves
, aSac IStlc sé d waistbands" [Gen. 3:7]). Later on, at the moment of their expul-
an even more improbable orgy. ance, a pro fOme of
sion from Paradisc, they put on clothes made from animal skins,
Ir seemed as if evervone was ex eer .
painting of the LastJ 'd B P ant, as lf th ey were in a whieh had been prepared for them by God. AII this means that
, u gment. lit on cI - b . Oilr progenitors were nude in earthly Paradise only at two points:
hefe the roJes were reversed- th . 1 '. oser o servatlOn, even
cable and severe angels that'th e gtr s 111 pan.tyhose were the impla- the lirst, in the presumably very brief imerval between pereeiving
e lconographlc t d" I their nudity and making their loincloths; the second, the moment
resents as being eovel'ed b I d fa ltlOll a ways rep-
y ong reSses Th '. when they take off their lig leaves and put on their new garments
hand-hesitant and b dI d . e V1Sltors, on the other
. Un e -up as they . h of skins. And even during these two fleeting instanees, nudity ex-
BerJ111 winter-personi6ed h . Wele at t e end of that
t e lcsurrected a '. h" ists only negatively, so to speak: as a privarion of the clothing of
ment, whose depietion in fe II d' Wall111g t elr Judg-
. 1 nu lty even the m t . . grace and as a presaging of the resplendent garment of glory that
t IleoIoglcal tradition ha
s aur h ' d.
onze os sanctlmol110Us
the blessed will reeeive in heaven. Fullnudity exists, perhaps, only
What did not take pI I
aee was, t lcrefore, ncither tOHUte llor a in the bodies of the damned in hell, as they umemittingly suffer
58 Nudity Nudity 59

Scriptures define as rhe "opening of rhe eyes." Nudity is something

rhar Qne natices, whereas (he absence of clothes is something chal'
rem unobserved. Nudity could rhcrefore have been observed after
ains
sin only if man's being had changed. This change, brought on by ,he
Fall, must have entire!y affected Adam and Eve's nature. There must
have been, in other words, a metaphysical transformation, affecting
1
man's mode of being, rather than mere!y a moral change.

This "metaphysical transformation" consists, however, simply in

denudatio n , in the loss of the clothing of grace:
The disrortion of human nature through sin leads ro the "discovery"
of the body, ro the perception of ¡ts nudity. Before the Fall, man ex-
isted for God in such a way that his body, even in the absenee of
clothing, was not "naked." The human body's state of "not being na-
ked," despite ¡ts apparent laek of clothing, is cxplained by the faet
that supernatural grace enveloped the human person lilee a garment.
Man did not simply find himself in the midst of the light of divine
glory: he was dothcd in the glory of God. Through sin, man loses the
glory of God, and so in his nature a body without glory now becomes
visible: the naleedness of pure corporeality, the denudation resulting
in pure functionality, a body that lacles all oobility since its ultimate
2
dignity lay io the divine glory now lost.
the eternal
. torment of d·· . . 1 h·
lvme }ustlce . Peterson tries tO articulate in precise terms this essential connec-
t Ilat mChristianity tI . . . 11 t 1$ sense It can be said
lele IS no theolo f d· ' tion between the Pall, nudity, and the loss of clothing, which
of clothing. gy o nu lty, only a theology
seems tú make sin consist in a simple aet of undressing and baring
(Entblossung): "The 'denudation' of the bodies of the fírst humans
3· This
. is the reason why EII··1( Peterson one of h must have preceded the awareness of their bodies' nudity. This
th eo Ioglans who has refIeet d h' t erare modern
'discovery' of the human body, which allows its 'naked corporeal-
h. . l e a n t e question f d·
lS amc e Theologie des Kleie/, (Th I o nu lty, entitled ity' ro appear, this ruthless denudation of the body with all the
senrial themes of th h 1 ~s ea ogy of Clothing). The es-
r.ew d ense pages. Pirste t fea 11ogIcal
h.
tradition d·
. are summe up m a
signs of its sexuality, which become visible for the eyes that have
b o a , t ere 15 rhe 1m d' now been 'opened' by sin, can only be understood if we presup-
etween nudity and sin: me late con11ection
pose that what was 'covered' before the Pall is now what is 'discov-
ered,' that what was before veiled and dressed is now unveiled and
Nudi?, appcars only after sin. Befare 1
cIorhmg [Unbekfeidetheit] b h' t 1(: Fall there WJS an absence of undressed."3
NU d'lty presupposes th b' ut t 15 was . nor y ce nu d·lty [Nacktheit] .
.J ' e a sence of clothll1 b . d
Wlt 11(. The perception of 1 d' . r g, ut Ir oes not coincide 4. At this point the meaning of the theological apparatus hegins
1ll lty 1$ rnked ro rhe spiritual aet rhar rhe
60 Nudity Nudity 61

to take shape, by situating the very possibility of sin in the rela_

tionship that it establishes between nudity and clothing. Petersons
text appears, at least at first sight, to entail same contradictions.
The "metaphysical transformarian" thar results from sin 1S, in re-
ality, only the loss of the clothing of grace that hid the
corporeality" of the first couple. LogicalIy, this means that sin
at least the possibility of sin) already existed in this "naked COr-
poreality," which in ítself is depríved of grace. Ir means rhat the
loss of clothing now makes this "naked corporeality" appear in its
biological "pure functionality," "wíth alI the signs of its sexuality,"
as a "body that lacks any nobílity." If already before sin there was
a need to cover up the human body with the veil of glory, then the
blissful and innocent paradisiacal nudity was preceded by another
nudity, a "naked corporeality" that sin, by removing the clothes of
grace, allows, mercilessly, ro appear.
The trLlth of the matter is that the seemingly secondalY problem
concerning the relationship between nudity and clothing coincides
with another problem that theologicalIy is utterly fundamental: the
link between nature and grace. "Just as clothing presupposes the body
rhar must be covered," Peterson writes, {(so grace presupposes natllre,
which must reach its fulfilIment in glory. This is why supernatural . .' h nd (which is clarified by the caprion,
grace is granted to man in Paradise as clothing. Man was created with- ward them wlth hlS nght ~ " [God said 10 Adam, Where art
out clothe.>-which means that he had a nature of his own, distinct "Dixit DOl1unus Adam ub, es. . . d by the right hands of
, ]) TI' gesture lS mtrrOle
from divine nature-but he was created with this absence 01ctothing in thon?] [Gen. }:9 . llS. hl t make excuses for them-
. h 1 'ldlS yattempt o ,
order to then be dressed in the supernatural garment 01gtol]'."4 the culpnts, as t ey c 11 d E '111tS at the serpent. 1 he
. t Eve an 've po
The problem of nudity is, therefore, the problem ofhuman na- selves: Adam pOlntS a. l' l ' t us iIlustrates the verse
I . h artlcu ar y tnteres s , .
ture in its relationship with grace. next sccnc, W He p, . . D Adae et mulierí etus
.... "Et fiectt DOJJ1mus eus
from Genesls }:21:. . " (A d G d made for Adam and
' t ndu,t eos n o
5· Preserved in the ColIegiate Church ofSan Isidoro in León is tunicas pe 11Iceas e, ' . d I h d them). The unknown
· ·c . of sk1l1s, an c ot e l'
an eleventh-century silver rcliquary, 011 whose sides scenes froro for l115 WllC (umes d d, d .th a posture rcvea mg
. nts Adam aIrea y resse ,Wl . F
the book of Genesis are sculpted in relief. One of the panels artlst represe . hd r hrful inventiveness, he deptcrs ,ve
shows Adam and Eve shortly befo re their expulsion fram Eden. great sadness; but, Wlt e lhgl h L rd appears to be putting
. I '11 aked W 1 e t e o .
According to the biblical narrative, they have just realized that wlth her egs Stl n, , lose face we can Just
. l ' 1 f rce The woman, W1 .
they are naked and have covered their shame with fig lea ves, rhe tume on lCl )y o " f h d. ss resists this divine VIO-
held by their left hands. Before them stands their vexed creator, barely see above the neckl1l1e o tbe le 'd beyond aIl doubt not
. I II h· . ht· thlS can e plOve
wrapped in a sort of toga, and making an inquisitive gesture (0- lence Wlt 1 a er lmg ' . f I I . d the grimace of her
only by rhe unnatural torSlOl1 o lCf egs an
63
Nudity
Nudity

squinting eyes but also by the gesrure of her right hand, which
despcrately grasps at God's garmcnt.
Why does Eve not want to wear her "fue coat"? Why does she
want to remain naked (it appears that she has either taken the fig
leaf off or that, in the vehemence of the scume, she has lost it)?
Of caurse, an aneient tradition, which can be traced back to Saint
Nilus, Theodoret of Cynrs, and ]erome, conceives of garments
made from animal skins-the Septuagint's chitonai dermatinoi-
as a symbol of death (indeed, petticria, the lta/ian word for fur
coar, which maintains a sin fuI connotation up ro this day, derives
from tunicae pe¿¡iceae, the Vulgate's rendcrÍng of the same phrase).
This is the reason why, after baptism, those tunics of skins are
replaced by a garment made of white linen ("When, ready for the
clothes of Christ, we have taken off our tunics of skins," Jerome
writes, "we wilI then put on linen clothing, which has nothing to
do wirh death, but is wholIy white, so that, after having been bap-
tized, we can gird our loins in truth").' Other amhors, like John
Chrysostom and Augustine, insist instead on the literal meaning
of the episode. And it is probable that neither the maker of the
reliquary nor its buyers intended to give a particular significance
to Eve's gesture. Yet this episode acquires its proper sel1se only if
. f " t' 19 "given
we remember that this is the last moment of the couple's life in o "O o as Au ustine never tireS o lepea 11 o' "
tune, smce It was, g b . were not yet in eXIstenCe,
earthly Paradise, the last moment when Out progenitors could stilI 1 °t was tú e glvcn
when those tú w 10m 1 d o ted aS naked o it is always
be naked, befare being clothed in animal skins and expelIed from human nature is always altea y constltu '
Paradise forever. lf this is indeed the case, then the slim, silvery r
already "naked corpotea lty. h
"7
" . a garment while nature
figure that desperately resists being clothed is an extraordinary n the idea t at glaCe lS "
Peterso stresses o o h ' b "Clothes make the man
symbol of femininity. This woman is the tenacious custodian of . d f d' Cltlng t e plOver ,
is a km o nu lty. . " 1" eo ,le" [Kleider machen
paradisiacal nudity. . . Gel"man verSlOll, clothes ma <e p 1
(or lI1 lts
Leute]), he explains that .
6. That grace is something like a garment (Augustine calIs it h is made by bis dothes, since he IS
indumentum gratíae)6 means thar, like aH garments, ir was an ad- not only pea pie, l~ut manhas suc na!l nature according to ¡ts very
. 11 thout t em. H UI '
dition that can also be taken away. But for this very reason it also UI1lllterprct'd) e WI d" f II alizcd only through grace o
o b dO t grace an IS u y re " d
means that the addition of grace constituted human corporeality, goal, 1S su al' o1l1~te t~cd" ~ith $upcrnatural justice, innoc~ne~, a~
originaIly, as "naked" and thar its removal always returns anew to Henee Adam 1S do I l' Id bestow on him hIS dlgnIty
o L 1 eh e oniJ1g eou o f
the exhibirion of nudity as sueh. And sinco grace, in the words immortalIty, lar ~:1 y su G d d °ned him for through the gIft o
and thus makc ViSIble what:ro es!!
of the apostle, "was given to us in Christ befare the beginning of
Nudity Nudity

~;~~~il~;~l~~~Sr~;s ~~tc~:l~P~:I~l~:drhIet :;:~ ~hing tha~ rhe parac.l¡siacal reality," is the irreducible Gnostie residue rhar implies a constitu-
tive imperfection in creation, which must, at all evenrs, be covered
is rhe case with clothes . .' '. . S 10WS liS t lat-prcClscly as
be aranrcd to A l ' . ~{u$t1ce, 111llo~cncc, and immortality must up. Neverthc1ess, rhe corruption of nature, which has now come ro
", b . . (am In Ole er to makc hun complete. Finall, we 1 light, did not exist befo re sin but was itself produced by it.
lcach rhls ultimare rruth: rhar just as clorhcs vcil rhe body s): A ~ so
Sll}~C. r.natural
t len" gracc CQvcrs a naturc abandoned by Go,!',.' gory '1 ~ 111 d' lal~
an ert 7. If nudiry is marked in aur culture by sueh a weighry theologi-
_~ l~se "', _.115 IS prcscn,tc~ as rhe possib¡lity of human narme de en-
clatmg lnto what rhe Scnpturcs caH "Desl "1 b . .. g callegacy, if it is only the obseure and ungraspable presupposition
ma ' 1"" < . 1, t le CCOffilI1g VISIble of
of dothing, then ane comprehends why it could not have helped
,1~scnU(dJty. 1I1.ltS corruptioll and putrcfaction. There is thercfor
l' "J~;¡gn¡flcancc to rh e- r.aet. t llar t 1le C
a ploroun . tradirion caBse bur miss irs appoinrment in Vanessa Beecroft's performance.
"1 Jatho}¡c
e or 11J1g t lC gift of g" 1 . To eyes so profoundly (albeit unlenowingly) conditioned by the
b _'.' lace r lar man rCCClves in Paradisc. Man can
C~I~1 t? be ¡~1tcrpre~cd onl)' through such clorhing of glory rhar fl· theological tradition, that which appears when dothes (graee) are
a cel taIn pOInr of Vlew 1 1 1. < ,10m
taken off is nothing but their shadow. To completely liberate nu-
' f 1 l' , ,)e ongs ro 11m onl)' cxrel'iorl)', jusr likc any
pi cce
. .
o e ot l1na Somcrl .
b'
.
llng ver)' llnponanr is exp d' l' dity from the parterns of thought that permit us to conceive of
rcnol"lt)' of mere c1 h' _} resse In r lIS cx-
"abscnce of dorh' o:, .1ll : _~Ilat grace pr~s~¡~Jposes created naturc, irs
g it solely in a privative and instantaneous manner is a task thar
lI1g, as we as rhc posslbd¡ty of it bcing denudcd.8 requires uncommon lucidity.
In our culture one of the eonsequences of this theologieal nexus
itGcnesis
f¡ does
" not
. explicitIy say anywl1ele
. t h at. Iluman nature was that dosely unites nature and graee, nudity and dothing, is that
o~p~r eet, unll1tc~"prctable," or potcntially eorrupted and in need nudity is not actually a srare but rarher an event. Inasmuch as it
g aee. By asscrtrng the nceessity of graec, whieh lilee d tI . is the obscure presupposition of the addition of a piece of doth-
must eover the nudity of the bod yeti r h l' o U~'g, ing or rhe sudden result of irs removal-an unexpecred gift or an
.. f' I II ' "a 10 re t eo ogy malees lt a
SOH o rne1ueta> e supplcment that ,IJreeisely e . h' .
1 0 1 t IS lcaSOn prc- unexpected loss-nudity belongs to time and history, not to being
~upposes
1t "B
lUman nature as its obseure bcarer' "11al,ed
h' .. .
.' 1
eOlporea- and fonn. We can therefore only experienee nudiry as a denuda-
tl Y' 1 ult.t 15 °rngrnal nudity immediately disappcars undcrneath
r.
le e ot lIno O' 0raee
b '.
te then
~
reappear as natura lapsa only at the
ln~~l~el~t o S1J1, that lS, at the moment of denudation. Just as the
tion and a baring, never as a form and a stable possession. Ar any
rate, it is difficult to grasp and impossible to hold on to.
h is nor surprising, then, rhar in the performance ar rhe Neue
po ltIea I~ytholo?e~le of homo saca postula tes as a presu) osition Nationalgalerie, jusr as in aH the preceding ones, rhe womeIl were
ar;al~e1.~rfe that rs rmpurc, sacred, and thus leillable (th~~gh
this never eompletely naked but always bore so me trace of dothing
na <e 1 e was produced only by means of such resu osirion (shoes during the performance at the Gagosian Gallery in London,
so the naleed eorporeality of human nature is onl/the:~ue r:~ shoes and a SOrt of gauze mask at the Guggenhcim Colleetion in
s~Pjaslt1o~ of the ongmal and luminous supplcment ~h;t is~he Venice, a black cache-sexe at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa). Strip-
el ot lrn g o graee. Thaugh the presupposition is hidden' behind tease, thar is ro say, the impossibility of nakedness, is in this sense
l
t le supp.cm~n.t, It comes back to light whenever the caesura of sin the paradigm for our relationship with nudity. As an event that
on~~ ~gam dIVIdes n~ture and grace, nudity and clothing. never reaches its eompleted form, as a fonn rhar does nor allow
. lIS .means t~lar :In did not introduce evil into the world but itself ro be entirely seized as it occurs, nudity is, lirerally, infinire:
l~Clely tevealed.lt. SIn essentialIy consÍsts, at least as far as its effecrs ir never stops occurring. Inasmuch as irs narure is essentially defec-
ale concerned, 111 tbe removing of clothing. Nudity, "na 1<ed corpo- tive, inasmuch as ir is norhing orher rhan the event of rhe laek of
GG Nudity Nudity

8. Augustine's The eíty of God is, in every sen se, a decisivc

mament [01' rhe consuuction of the rheological apparatus of na-
ture (nudity) / graee (clothing). Augustine had already developed
rhe conceptual foundations for his vicw on the subject in the
polemies against Pelagius that can be found in On Natu,.e and
Grace. Aecording ro Pelagius-one of rhe most integral figures
among those wholll the dogmatie orthodoxy ended up pushing
to rhe margins of rhe Christian tradition-grace is nothing other
than human nature just as Cod ereated it, with free will (nullam
dicit dei gratiam nisi naturam nostram cum libero arbitrio).9 As a
result the possibility of nar sinning inheres in human nature in
an inseparable way (Augustine uses in his critique of Pelagius
the ward inamissibile, that whieh cannot be lost) and without
the need for further graee. Pe1agius does not deny the existence
of grace hut idcntifies ir with Edenic nature, which he in turn
identifies with the sphere of possibiliry or porentialiry (posse) that
precedes both wil! (velle) and aclÍon (acáo). Adam's sin-whieh
is a sin of rhe will-does nor necessarily signify, therefore, rhe
graee, nduldit y ea~ never satiate the gaze to whieh it is offered Th l055 o[ grace, which is in turn passcd 011 as a curse to rhe entÍre
gaze aVl y contInues to . h f, d' . e
pieee of clothing has be seale or nu lty, even when the smallest human raee ("per tmiversam íJzassam," as Augllstinc writes), 011
were hidden have been e:~1Í~I~~~~I~ ~:~le'f:whden a11 the parts that rhe contrary, though ir is a given thar humans have sinned and
lf at the b . . aee manner. continue to sin, ir nevertheless rcmains (l'ue thar, at least de sola
G ' eglllnlllg of the twentierh eentury, there spread f1 possibilitate, every man-just like Adam in Paradise-is eapable
ermany to the rest of Euro . rom
ane~ s?cial ideal thar couldP~e~~::1:~1~~ ~~~~c:::gh:~:~:m as
ture, lt 15 no surprise rhar this was ossiblc o . na-
of not sinning.
Ir is this identification of nature with grace that Augustine re-
obseene nudity of orn h p. nly by Opposlllg the jects so tenaciously in his anti-Pclagian writings, affirming instead
Lichtkleid (clothes ~ ograp y and prostitution with nudity as their irreducible difference. At stake in ,he differenee between the
. h l' f ltght), thereby unknowingly evoking the two is nothing less than the diseovery of the doctrine of Original
anClent t ca ogIcaI . f'
graee. Wh 1 eoneeptl~n o lllnoeent nudity as clothing of Sin, whieh would be offieialIy raken tlp by ¡he Church only twO
rather clot~t t lOse natutlsts dlsplayed was therefore not nudity bU! eenturies later, at the Second Cotlncil of Orange. Ir is enough for
. ~ng nor l1ature but rather grace. now ro observe that the interpretation of the Edenic condition and
An lllvestIgation tl .h .
of l111dity must first all:~ ~lS. es to senously confront r,he problem Adam's PalI in The City ofGod is based on this opposition between
so urce of the theologieal oOlClnost gOb baek arehaeologleally ro the nature and grace. Adam and Eve were created with animal rather
n . d. . pposItlon etween nudlty and clothing than spirimal bodies, but theil' bodies were clothed with grace as if
atUle an glaee. The aun h . ' . '
rior to the s . b ele 1$ not ro tap Into an original state it had been a garment. Consequent1y, just as they knew neither ill-
P eparatlOn ut to ca 1 d d . ness nor death, likewise, they did not know the libido, that is, the
paratus that p' j di' mpre len an neutraltze the ap-
loe uce t 11$ separatlon. uneontrolIable excitation of tbeir private parts (obscenae). Libido
68 Nudity Nudity

is rhe technical tcrm in Augustine thar defines rhe consequcnce of rhis opposirion, rhis srrugg[e berween libido and will. On rhe con-
sin. On the basis of a passage fro111 Paul (" Caro enim concupiscit trary, our private pares, like all the orher pares of rhe body, would
advmul' [Gal. 5'17]), libido is defined as a rebellion of the flesh have been ar rhe service of rhe will. Thar which was crea red fo1' rhis
and its desires against rhe spirit, as an irremediable split bct\Vcen end would have sown the ficld of generarian, as the hand sows rhe
eareh .... Man would have sown his sccd and woman would have
flesh (caro--sarx-is the term by which Faul expresses the subjec-
received ir in her genirals, ooly when necessa1'y, aod ro rhe dcgrec nec-
don of man ro sin) and wilL Augustine writes rhar befare sin,
essary, as a result of rhe will's command, and nor due ro rhe excitation
as che Scripturcs say, "man and his wife were botb nakcd, and were of rhe libido."12
nor ashamed." This was llor beca use chey did nor see ebeir nudiey;
racher, thcir nudity was nor yet indecent, because rhe libido did nor To substantiare his hypothesis, Augustine does nar hesitate to rurn
yet aro use their members against eheir will. ... Their eyes werc open, to a somewhat grotesque example of the will's control over those
bue nor in arder to recognize what was granted to them under che badily pans that seem to be uncontrollable:
clothing of gracc, since rheir members did nor yet know how to rebel
We know of mCl1 who scr rhemselvcs apare from orhers, by theír
against ebejr wiII. When chis grace was srripped from rhem, in order
amaziog ability to achíeve wirh rheir body things other meo are abso-
ro punish rheir disobcdicnce wirh a commensurare punishmenr, a
lurely incapable oC There are rhose who can move their ears, one ar a
new impudence was awakened in rhe urges of rheir bodies. The con-
rime or both rogether. Orhers arc able to move their hairline, shifting
sequence was rhar rheir nudiry became indecent, rhus making rhem
their scalp back and forth at will. Still others can vomir on command
aware of rheir condirion and dismayed by ir. 10
everyrhing thar rhey have devoured by slighrly pressing 00 rheir belly,
The parts of the body that could once be freely exposed in their as if it were a bago Some can imirare the críes of birds and beasts, as
glory (glorianda) thus beco me something that had ro be hidden well as rhe voiees of orher men, so perfectly rhar no difference can be
dcrecred. And flnally, there are rhose who can volumarily emir from
(pudenda). Hence the shame that drives Adam and Eve ro cover
thcir anus a variet)' of sounds withour any unpleasanr odor, ro the ef-
themselves with fig leaves, and which becomes fram that day on
feer rhar rhey appear ro be singing from thar region. 13
such an inseparable element of the human condition that, Augus-
tine writes, "even in the dark solitudes of India, even those who It is on the basis of this not very edifying model that we must
ate accustomed ro philosophize in the nude (and are therefore imagine Edenic sexuality under the clothes of grace. With a signal
called gymnosophists), cover their genitals in order to differentiate of the will, the genitals would have been aroused, just as easily as
them from the other parts oftheir body.'", we might raise a hand, and the husband would impregnate his
wife without the burning stimulation of the libido: "It would have
9. At this point Augustine presents his surprising conception of been possible for man tú transmit his seed ro his wife without
Edenic sexuality, or at least what this sexuality would llave been harming her physical integrity, just as now the flow of the men-
had humans not sinned. If the posdapsarian libido is defined by strual blood can come forth fram the womb of a virgin without
the impossibility of conrralling the genitals, then the state of grace compromising her integrity."14
that preceded sin consists in the will's perfect control over the sex- This chimera (''At present," Augustine writes, "there is noth-
ualorgans: ing that would enable us to demonstrate how this is possible")
of a nature perfecdy submissive ro grace renders the corporeality
In Paradise, if culpable disobedience had nor been punished wirh an-
of mankind after the Fall even more obscene. The uncontrallable
orher disobedience, marriage would nor have known this resisrance,
Nudity Nudity 71

nudity of the gcnitals is rhe ciphcr of nature's corru!1tion after . of a person who is simply nude is idenrieal ro-and nevertheless
'lh' . S111, different from-the nudity of a person who has been denuded,
Wllle 1 UIDal1lty tranSl111ts through procreation.
so human nature, which has lost what was not nature (grace), is
different from what it was before grace had been added to it. Na-
10. Ir is worth emphasizing the paradoxical conception of hu-
tute is now defined by rhe non-narure (grace) that it has lost, just
man na~ure. d:<lt lies ar rhe foundarían of rhe aboye claims. This
s nudity is defined by the non-nudity (cIothingl that has been
COl1CeptlOll 15 In a?"reement with rhe doctrine of Original Sin (even a h '
stripped from it. Nature and grace, Iludiry and dot ing, constltute
though the tcchmcal term peccatum originale is still missing) that
AugustIne espouses, cOlltrary to Pelagius. Confirmed by the COUll- a singular aggregate whose elements are separate and autono:nous,
though-at least wirh regard ro nature-rhey do not r:emarn un-
d of OI:a~,ge in 529, it would achieve its full elaboration only ill
ScholastlClsm. Accordmg to rhis doctrine human nature was C01'- ehanged aftet their separation. But this means that nudrty and na-
ture are-as such-impossible: there is, instead, only banng, only
rupred by Adam's
. sin (through which "all have sinned ' " Ro m.
) d
5:12 , ~n wtthour rhe aid of gracc human beings became abso- corrupted naturc.
lutely 111capable of doing good. But if we now ask ourselves what
IL The Bible nowhere states that Adam and Eve were unable to
the naturc ~hat became CO~Tupted is, the answer is nor so simple.
see their nudity before they had sinned because it was covered by
A,dam \:as 111 faet crcatcd l11 grace, and rhereforc his nature, like
the c10thes of grace. The only thing certain is that in the begin-
hIs nudIty, was c10aked with divine gifts right from rhe start. Be-
ning Adam and Eve were naked and feIt no shame ("And they
cause man abandoncd Cad, after sin he was abandoned to himself
were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed"
and left entirely ro the mercy of his nature. Nevertheless, the loss
[Gen. 2:25]). After the FalI, by contrasr, rhey felt the need ro cover
of grace does nor simply allow a previous and, for thar matter, un-
themselves with fig leaves. The transgression of the divine com-
known n,ature t~ appear. Instead, what appears is only a corrupted
mand entails, then, a passage from nudity without shame ro nu-
na~ure (m detenus commutata) thar results fmm this 1055 of grace.
WIth the rC1~~val oE grace an original nature comes ro light thar is dity that must be concealed.
The nostalgia for nudity without shame, the idea that what was
no longer ongmal, beca use only sin Ís original, and so this nature
lost through sin is the possibility of being nude without blush-
has become mcrcly a derivation of this sin.
ing, forcefulIy resurfaces in the Gospels as welI a;. in extracan~nieal
It is not a coincidence thar in his commentary Oil Thomas
texts (which we unreasonably contInue to call apocryphal, thar
Aquinas's Summa Theologica, Thomas Cajetan (a perceptive theo-
is, "hidden"). In The GospelAccording 10 Thomaswe read: "His dis-
logran who opposed Martin Luther in 1518 at the behest of the
ciples asked: 'When wilI you reveal yourself ro us, and when wilI
Carholíc Ch~rch) found it necessary ro make use of a comparison
we see you?' Jesus answered: 'Whcn you undress wlthout shame,
wIth nudIty 111 arder to ilIustrate rhis paradox. The difference, he
when you take off your cIothes and trample on rhem wirh your
says, bct\iVcen a supposedly «pure" human nature (that was nor cre-
feet like children: then you will behold the Son of the living God,
ated in gracc) and an originally graceful nature that was rhen 10st
is the same as [he difference betwecn a Ilude person and a person and you Wl'11 have no leal'.
e "'15
In rhe tradition of the Christian community of the firsr twO
who has been denuded (expoliata). This analogy is illuminating
centuries, the only occasion in which one could be nude without
llor only 111 rcgard to nature but also in reoard ro nudity and it
also c1arifies the sense of the theological stI~regy rhat stubbornly
shame was rhe baptismal ritual, which was not usualIy performed
on newborn babies bur mainly on aduIrs (the baptism of infants
1mks dotlllng wlth gracc, nature with nudity. Just as the nudity
72 Nudity Nudity 73

beeame obligatory only after the doctrine of Original Sin w Ir is ro this idea tha!" we owe the praetiee (attested to-though
sively-by sources up ro the slxteenrh century) of re-
eepted by the entire Chureh). It entailed the irnmersion in as
of the naked catechumen in the presence of mernbers of th
lu
~=. . .
vin for boys (pum) the privilege of singmg dunng re 'glOUS
l"

rnunity (it is to this ritualistic nudity of the baptized that ~e

ser
e .g s almost as if their "w h'" . ( voce b
lte vOlCe ' ) conta111ed ,
lanca
Iuncno n ,
rhe relatlve and otherwise unexplainable tolerance in our .' ntrast ro rhe «murated" voices afrcr puberty (voces mutatae),
!O eo 'da h"
h signature of prelap5arian innocence. Cand, "or w lte, 15 r le
1
toward beach nudity). The Catechetica! Lectures by Cyril
lem commcnts 011 this rite in rhe following way: "As soon as t ~ . of the linen clothing that the baprized reecive after they
enter, immediately take off your dothes, in order ro the ~~:: removed the clothes that symbolized sin and death. "Wholly
removmg of the old man and his sins.... How Marvelous! white," writes Jerome, "because it bear5 no trac~ o~ dearh, and
a,re nucle in front ~f everyone's eyes, and they do not feel ashamed, o after having been baptized, we can gird our 10111s 111 truth and
smee they
scover
, all the shame of our past 5111S. y m t1le fi.lst cen-
. "18 But al rea.d'
" are the unage of Adam ' the first-formed man , wh owas
Id In Paradlse and was nor ashamed."16
lla<e . Quintilian uses the word candida ro descnbe an attrIbute of
wy lW '
The clothes, whieh the baptized trample on with their feet the human voiee (though, naturally, he does not refer ro e 1l ren s
"h l h fh " ,are voices). Thus, in the hisrory of sacred music we sce the artempr
t ~ e ot es o s ame, heirs of rhe "tunics of skins" thar Our pro-
gel1ltors wore at the moment they were expelled from Parad' ro ensure rhe persistcnce of rhe young voice by means of rhe ca8-
These are the dothes that get replaced after baptism by the g~;~ tration of the ehoirboys (pueri cantores) befare they have reaehed
meu: m~de of,wlute lmen. Bur what is decisive in rhe ritual of uberty. The "white voiee" is the cipher of this nostalgia for a lost,
PEdenic innocence-for something I '
that, like pre apsanan nu d'lry,
baptIsm 1$ prcClsely its evocarian of Adamic nudity without shame
as a symbol and pledg~ of redemption. And it is for this nudity we no longer undersrand.
that, on the relIquary 111 San ¡s,doro, Eve feels nostalgia, as she
refuses to put on the dorhes that God is foreing her ro wear. 13. A perspieuous example of thcologieal eategories persisting in
laces where we least expect ro encounter them occurs m Sartre. In
.12. "Like children": that infantile nudity is the paradigm of nu- ~,e ehapter from Being and Nothingness dedieated ro the relation-
~1ty wlth~ut shame is a very aneient morif, nor only in Gn05- ship with the Orher, Sartre deals with the subjeet of nud1ty In con-
tlC rexts lrke The Cospel According to Thomas but also in Jewish nection with obscenity and sadismo He does so 111 terms so closely
and Chnstlan doeume.nts. Even though the docrrine aeeording resembling Augustinian categorics rhat-we~e th.c pro~imity not
to wh1eh Ongmal Sm 1S propagated through proereation implies explainable by noting the eommon thcolog1eal mhentance that
rhe rc)cctlon of l11fantile innocence (hence~as we have seen- infuses our entirc vocabulary of corporealny-we mlghr condude
the practiee ofbaptizing newborns), the faet that ehildren are not rhar rhe connection was intenrional.
ashamed by their nudity is often linked in the Christian tradition Desire, according (O Sartre, is aboye all a srrategy directed (0-
with paradisiacal innocence. As we read in a Syrian text from rh ward making the "flesh" [chai,. in French, carne in ltalian] appear
fifth eentury, "when the Seriptures say that 'they were both naked: in the body of the Other. Impeding this "incarnarion". (another
and. were nor ashamed,' this means rhar they were unaware of rheir theologieal term) of the body are not so mueh the matenal clothes
nudity, just like ehildren."t7 Though marked by Original Sin, ehil- and the makeup that usually eoneeal it but rather the faet that the
dren, msofar as they do not pereeive their nudity, dwell in a sort of body of the Other is always "in situarion": it is always already 111
l~mbo, unaware of the shame rhar, according to Augustine, sanc- the proeess of eompleting this or that gesture, th1S or that move-
nons the appearance of the libido.
74 Nudity
Nudity 75

ment, with some goal in mind: "The Other's body is originally a

body in situation; flesh, on the contrary, appears as the pure con~
tingeney 01presence. Ordinarily, it is hidden by makeup, clothes,
and so forth; but above all it is hidden by movements; nothing is
less 'in rhe flesh' rhan a dancer, even if she is nude. Desire is an at-
tempr to strip the body of its movements as of its clothes in ordet
to make ir exist as pure flesh; ir is an attempt to achieve an incar_
nation of the Other's body.""
This being always already "in situation" of the Other's body is
what Sartre calls "grace":

In grace, che body appears as a psychic being in situation. Ir rcveals

aboye all lts transccndencc, as a rranscendcnce-transcended; ir is in
aet and is understood in tcrms of che sítuation and of che cnd ehar
ir pursues. Each movcment is apprehendcd in a perceptivc process
rhar goes from che present ro che [uture, ... Ir is chis imagc of l1eces_
sity and [reedom in movement ... char, strictly speaking, consritures
grace .... In grace rhe body 1S the instrument thar manifesrs freedom.
The graceful acr, insofar as it reveals rhe body as a precision instru~ .' when the body adopts poseures that entirely strip it of
mene, furnishes rhis body at each instant wirh its justification fo r ex~
isting. 20
~::~~t~ ~~d reveal the inertia of its flesh."22 This is the reason why
the sadist tries, in every possible way, to make the flesh appear, ro
force the body of rhe Other into incongruous posmons that reveal
Even the theological meraphor of graee as clothing that impedes
its obscenity, that is, irs irreparable loss of al! grace.
the perception of nudity appears at this point: "Facticity, then, is
clothed and disguised by grace: the nudity of the flesh is wholly
14 Analyses that have deep-even if unintentional-theologi
cal r~ots are often very pertinent. In many count~es ahge~r;, oÉ
present, but it cannot be seen. Thus the supreme coquetry, the '
t
supreme challenge of grace, is to exhibit the body unveiled with
sadomasochistic publications has recendy spl~ea , W lC 11S
no clothing, with no veil except grace itself. The most graeeful
present the fltture victim elegantly dressed and In her u~ual c~n:
body is the naked body whose acts surround it with an invisible
text: smiling, strolling with her friends, or flIpp1l1gd~ rolu g
garment, hiding its flesh entirely, though it is completely present
to the spectators' eyes."2l .
magazrne. TUI"nI'ng a few pages forward, thed reader su enh y sees
st
· dup,
the same girl un d resse d ,tIC ad n force
. to assume temo.
fr h
Ir is against this garment of grace thar the sadist directs his
unnatural and painful positions, removrng all grace even d ~m t e
strategy. The special incarnation that he wants to bring about
lineaments of ber face, which are deformed and ~ontorte y spe-
is "the obscene," which is nothing other than the loss of grace:
. I .mstrutncnts. 1'he sadisric apparatus-wlth ItS straps,
Cla . 1 WhIPS,
f .
"The obscene is a species ofBeing-for-the-Other which bel ongs ro
and poires d'angoisse-is here the perfeet profane eqUlva ent o SIn
the genus of the ungraceful [disgracíeux] . ... The ungraceful ap-
whieh according to theologians, removes the clothes o~ gra;efian ci
pears ... when Orre of the elements of grace is thwarted in its real-
brusq~ely liberates in rhe body the absence of grace t at enes
Nudity Nudity 77

"nakcd corporeali","
"J'
Wh at t h e 5a d'1St tnes
. to ' . h'
I ¡he empty shell of . , I I
11an seIZe ¡S not ll1g other entirely obscene and bteathless flesh, docilely holding the position
. " gIaCC, t le s 1adow that 1 "b' dictated by the torturer [carnefice]; it seems to luve definitively lost
tIon (the dressed girl in the hoto r 11e ell1g in situa-
c10thing of light, casts on tI~ b : abhs on the next pagel, or the both freedom and grace. But it is exactly this freedom that necessar-
the desire of the sadi t S e o y. ut preClsely for this reason ily remains unobtainable: "The more me sadist persists in treating
, s -as ante does n t f '1 . rhe Othcr as an instrument, rhe more this freedom eludes him."23
for failure, since he never ¡n o al to notc-IS dcstined
". anages to truly gr . b I h The nudity, rhe «ungracefulness" (hat rhe sadist tries te seize in
l11carnation" (har he n I ' 11' asp Hl ot 1 ands (he
. lec 1amea y tnes ro . d e ' his victim, is (like Adam's naked corporeality, according to theolo-
demed result seems to b l' d plO uce. ertall1ly, the
e ac lleve : the body of the Other is now
78 Nudity Nudity 79

rhe intestines, until finaUy, inside the womh, one can make out a
small fetus. But no matter how much we open the wax model and
scrutinize it wilh our gaze, the naked body of the beautiful, dis-
cmboweled woman remains obstinately unobtainablc. Hence rhe
gians) nothing other than the hypostasis and the evanescent sup- impurity, almost the sacredness, that scems ro inhere in this wax
pon of freedo,:, and grace: Nudity is that thing that must be pre- model. Like naturc, nudity is impute because ir is acccssiblc only
supposed as pnor to grace In arder for something I¡Ice sin to OCCUf. by the removal of clothes (gracc).
Naked corporeality, like naked life, is only the obscure and impal-
pable bearer of gllllt. In rruth, there is only baring, only the infi- 15. In November r981 Helmur Newton published a diptych in
nlte gestlculatlons that remove clothing and grace from rhe bod . Vogue thar would soon become famous under the titIe "They Are
Nudity in our culture ends up looking like the beautiful feminil~ Coming." On the magazine's left page we see four completely na-
nude rhat Clemente Susini created in wax for rhe Grand Duke of ked women (apart from their shoes, which rhe photographer appar-
Tuscany's Museum of Natural History. One can remove the lay- entIy could not do withour) walking in a cold and stiff manner, like
elS o~ dus anatomrcalmodel ane at a time, allowing first the ab- models in a fashion show. The facing page to the right displays the
dom111al and pectoral walls to appear, then the anay of lungs and same models in che very same positions, but this time rhey are im-
Vlscera snll covered by rhe greater orncntum, thcn rhe heart and maculately dressed in elegant clothes. The singular effect produced
80 Nudity Nudity 81

by rhis diprych is rhar, contrary ro al1 appearances, rhc rwo images immediately afterward, but what they then come to know is des-
are actuaUy rhe same. The models wear rheir nudiry in exactly rhe ignated by ¡he Bible only aS nudity: 'And the eyes of both were
same way thar, Oil rhe opposite page, they wear their attire. Even opened, and they knew tha¡ they were naked." The only content
if ir is nor likely rhar ¡he phorographer had a rheological intent, of meÍt knowledge of good and evil is, therefore, nudity. But what
certainly rhe nudiry/clorhing apparatlls seems ro be evoked here is this first objec¡ and conrenr ofknowledge, this thing that we caU
and, perhaps uninrentionaUy, called into quesríon. AU rhe more so nudity? What do we come ro know by knowing nudity?
when, republishing me same dipryeh two years larer in Big Nudes, Commenting on rhe biblical passage in question, Rashi writes:
Newron reversed rhe order of rhe images so rhar rhe dressed women "What does it mean 'they knew rhat they were naked'? It means
precede rhe nude women, jusr as in Paradise rhe clorhing of grace that they possessed a single precepr from God, and they stripped
precedes rhe denudarion. Bur even in this reversed arder the elfect themselves of it."" Genesis Rabbah explains thar Adam and Eve
remains unchanged: neither rhe eyes of the models nor the eyes of were deprived of the justice and glory ¡har carne wirh the obser-
rhe spectator have been openedj there is neither sharne nor glory, vanee of God's commandment. According ro rhe apparatus thar
neither pudenda nor glorianda. The equivalence of the two images should be familiar ro us by now, the knowledge of nudity leads
is further enhanced by the faces of the models, which express-as back, once again, to a privation: rhe knowledge thar something
is rhe conventÍan among fashion models-the sarne indifference in invisible and insubstantial (the c10thing of grace, the justice that
both photos. The fáce-which in the pictorial depicríons of the Pall comes with rhe observance of rhe commandments) has been 10st.
is rhe place where rhe artíst represents rhe sorrow, shame, and dis- Ir is possible, however, ro offer a different interpretation of rhis
may of the faUen couple (one thinks, above aU, of Masaccio's fresco absence of content of humanity's first knowledge. That this firsr
in the Brancacci Chape! in Florence)-acquires here the same gelid knowledge is devoid of cantent can, in faet, mean thar ir is nor rhe
inexpressiveness: ir is no longer a face. knowledge of something but rather the knowledge of pure know-
In any case the essential point is that in Newron's diprych, as in ability. It means that to know nudity is not ro know an object but
Beecroft's performance, nudiry has not taken place. Ir is as if naked onlyan absence of veils, only a possibiliry ofknowing. The nudiry
corporealiry and fallen nature, which had functioned as the theo- rhar rhe first humans saw in Paradise when their eyes werc opened
logical presupposiríons of cloming, have both been eliminated, is, then, rhe opening of truth, of "disclosedness" (a-letheia, "un-
and so denudation no longer had anything left ro unveil. The only concealment"), withour which knowledge would not be possible.
thing left is rhe fasbion clothing, thar is, an undecidable element The condition of no longer being covered by the clothing of grace
between flesh and fabric, nature and grace. Fashion is the profane does not reveal rhe obscurÍry of flesh and sin bur rather the light
heir of the theology of clothing, the mercantile secularizaríon of of knowability. There is nothing behind the presumed clothing
the prelapsarian Edenic condition. of grace, and it is precisely this condition of not having anything
behind it, this pure visibiliry and presence, rhat is nudity. To see a
16. In Genesis the ftuit that Eve gives ro Adam comes from the body naked means ro perceive its pure knowability beyond every
tree of knowledge of good and evil and is meant, according to the secret, beyond al' befare its objective predicares.
tempting words of rhe serpent, to "open their eyes" and commu-
nicate to them tbis knowledge ("Wben you eat from it, your eyes '7. This kind of exegesis is not completely unfamiliar to Chris-
will be opened, and you wil1 be like God, knowing good and evil" tian theology. In rhe Eastern tradition, represented by Basil the
[Gen. 3:5]). And indeed, rhe eyes of Adam and Eve are opened Great anel John of Damascus, the knowledge of nudiry (epígnosis
Nudity Nudity

te~ ~r;yn71~otitos) signifies the 1055 of rhe condition of cestas)' and the est), but also insofar as it relates to the very proeess of knowledge.
bhssful 19noranee of self that defined the Edenie condition, as welI In medieval psyehology the medium of knowledge is eaIled an tm-
:5 the. conse~llel~t ,:mcrgcl~cc in man of his wicked yearning to age, or "phantasm," or speeies. The proeess that brings about per-
filI 11ls defieleneles (ton !upontos anap!erosis). Befare sin, the first feet knowledge is therefore deseribed as a progresstve banng of thts
human beings lived in a state of idleness (schole) and fuIlness. The "phantasm," which-passing fmm the scnses to the imagm:tlon to
true signifieanee of the opening of the eyes is the closing of the memory-is srripped Iitrle by Iittle of its sensible elements t!1 order
eyes of the semI and rhe pcrccption of one's own state of fullncss to present itself, once the denuCÚttio pe¡fecta has been completed, as
and ~eatitude as a statc of weakness and atechnía (rhar is, a lacle of an "inteIligible speeies," apure intention or image. Through the act
apphed knowledge). Sin, then, does not reveal a laek or a defeet of intelleetion, the image beeomes perfeetly nude, and-Avtcenna
111 human nature, whieh the clothing of graee eovered up. On the writes~"if it were not alrcady naked, it would at any rate become
contrary, Sll1 conslsts ltl percciving the fuIlness tbar defined the so, because the contemplative faculty strips this image in such a way
Edenic condition as él lack. that no material affection can remain in it."26 Complete knowledge
If man had remained in Paradise, Basil writes, he would have is comemplation in and abour nudity.
owed his clothes neither to natllre (as animals do) llor ro a tech- In one of Eckhart's scrmons this connection between image and
nieal ability but only to the divine graee that responded to the nudity is further developed in a way that turns the image (identi-
love he had far God. By eompelIing humans to abandon their fied with "naked essenee") into something like the pure and ab-
blissful Edenic contemplarían, sin plunges thcm into the vain solute medium of knowledge: "The image is a simple and formal
search for the technicaI knowledge and rhe sciences thar distraer emanation thar transfuses in its totality the naked essence, whtch
them from the eontemplation of God. Aecording ro this tradi- is how it is coneeived by the meraphysician .... It is alife [vita
t~on, nud1ty does not refer to corporeality) as it do es in Augus- quaedam] that can be coneeived as something that begins ro swelI
tlne and the rest of the Latin tradition, but rather to the 10ss of and tremble [intumescere et bullire] in itself and by itself, without
con:emplation-that is, the knowledge of the pure knowability however thinking at the same time about its expansion outwards
of (,od-and lts substitlltion by applied and earthly knowledge. [necdum cointe!!ecta ebullitione] ."27 In Eekhart's terminology bu/-
In faet, when God makes Adam fall asleep in order to remove his litio signifies the trembling 01' tbe internal tension of tbe obJ~et
rib) Adam enjoys a state of perfect contemplation that culminates in the mind of God or of man (ens cognitivum), whereas ebulizttO
~n ecstasy ('~Through ecstasy," Augustine writes, "he participated signifies the eondition of real objeets outside the mind (~ns extra
tl1 the angelte court and, by penetrating the sanetuary of God, he anima). The image, inasmuch as ir expresses naked bemg, 1S a ~er­
undersrood the mysteries")." The Fall is therefore not a fall of the feet medium between the objeet in the mind and the real tht!1g.
¡¡esh but of the mind. At stake in nudity and the loss of innoeenee As such, ir is neither a mere logical object nor a real enrity: Ir .1S
is not this or that other way of making love but the hierarehy and something that lives Ca life"); it is the trembling of the thing tl1
modaltttes of knowledge. the medium of its own knowability; it is the quivering in whtch
the image alIows itself to be known. "The forms that exist in mat-
18. Nudity-or rather denudation-as a eipher of knowledge, tcr/) wrires one of Eckhart's pupils, "tremble incessandy (col1tm~e
belongs ro the voeabulary of philosophy and mystieism. This is the tremant], like an ebullient strait between twO seas [tamquam. m
case not only beeause it relates ro the objeet of supreme knowledge eurippo, hoc est in ebullitione] . ... This is the reason why nothtng
that is, "nakcd being)) (esse autem Deum esse nudum sine velamin~ about them can be concelved . o f as ccrtalll
. 01' stable. "28
Nudity Nudity

The nudiry of rhe human body is its image-rhat is, the trem_ time lcads the inapparent to vanish ioto nothing, whcreupon revela-
bling rhat makes rhis body knowable bllt rhar remains, in itself, don dissolves all sccrets. 29
ungraspable. Hcnce rhe uniquc fascination rhar imagcs exercÍse
ayer rhe human mind. Precisely beca use the irnagc is not the This law rhar inseparably unires veil and veiled wirhj¡~ rhe sphere
rhing, but rhe thing's knowabiliry (irs nudity), it neither expresses of beauty comes up unexpecredly short preclselywhen Ir confranrs
nor signifies the thing. Nevertheless, inasmuch as ir is nothing human beings and rheir nudiry, Due ro rhe ~l11ty thar IS formed
orher rhan rhe giving of the rhing over to knowledge, norhing between rhe veil and rhe veiled, Ben¡amm clalms rhar beauty can
orher rhan rhe stripping off of rhe clorhes rhat eover it, nudiry is exisr as essence only where the dualiry of nudity and clorh1l1g no
nor separare fram the rhing: ir is rhe rhing irselE longer exisrs: in art and the phenomena of naked narure [blogen
Natur]: "On rhe conrrary, the more clearly rhls duahry explesses
'9, An atrempr ro think abollt nudiry in all irs rheological com- itself in order ro finally be confirmed ar its highesr leve! in rhe
plexiry and, ar the same rime, ro move beyond rhe theological pet- human being, rhe more ir beco mes clear rhar 111 nudlty wlrhour
specrive is accomplished in Walrer Benjamin's work, Toward rhe vds the essenrially beautiful has vanished, and rhe naked body
end of his essay OIl Goethe's Electh;e Affinities, he examines the f rhe human being achieves an exisrence beyond al! beaury-rhe
relarionship in beallty berween rhe veil and the veiled, appearanee ~ublime-and a work rhat goes beyond all crearions-rhar of rhe
"30
and essence, in connectiol1 with the character of Ottilia (who crearor, . , '1' h
rn
Benjamin saw as a figuration of Jula Cohn, rhe woman whom he In rhe human body, and particularly in Goerhe s Ow la-w o
was in love wirh ar rhe rime), In beauty the veil and rhe veiled, the is, in the novel, rhe paradigm of this pure appearance-beaury
envclopment and rhe objecr that ir envelops, are linked by a nec- 1 be apparenr, Hence, while in works of art and of nature
can on y
I f '1 b'l' ", 1 r
licable principIe is thar o "non-unvel a I Iry, 111 r le lV-
essary relationship thar Benjamin calls "secrer" (Geheimnis), The
ne app 1 bl ffi d« h'
beauriful, rhen, is rhar object for which rhe veil is essenrial. Thar ing body rhe opposite principIe is imp aca dY ahrme: ,~~r 111~
Benjamin is aware of rhe rheological deprh of rhis rhesis, which mortal is non-unveilable,"31 Nor only, rhen, oes r e pOSSl I Iry o
irrevocably links rhe veil ro the veiled, is suggesred by a reference being denuded condemn human beau~y ro appearance, bur un-
ro the "age-old idea" rhar rhe veiled is rransformed by irs unveiling, '1 bility consritures in sorne way Its Clpher: m rhe human body
vel a 1 bl" , 1 b
since ir can remain "equal ro itself" only underneath ¡ts envelop- beauty is essential!y and infinirely "unvei a e; Ir can a ways e
ment. As a result beauty is in ¡ts cssence an impossibility of unveil- exhibited as mere appearance. There is, however, a hmIt, .beyond
ing; ir is "non-unveilable" [unenthüllba¡j: which exists neither an essence that cannot be furt~e~' unvelled nol'
a natura lapsa, Here one encounrers only rhe veIl ltsel( appea~-
Unveilcd, rhe beautiful objcct would prove tú be infinitcly inappar-
ance I'rself, which is no longer rhe appearance of anyrh1l1g, , 1Thls h
ent [unscheinbar] . .. ,Thus, in facing whatcver is beautiful, the idea indelible residue of appearance where norhing appears, rhls c ot ,-
of unveiling beco mes (he idea of ¡ts non-unvcilability.... If only the
, h o body can wear anymore-rhis is human nudlty, Ir IS
beautiful, and nothing OLttside of it, can cxist essentialIy as veiled and mg t ar n ' . bl'
what remains when you remove the ved from beauty. ~t IS su .1me
remain veiled, then the divinc grollnd of beauty would líe in the se-
cret. In bcauty, appcarance is jllSt this: not the superfluous envelop- because, as Kant claims, rhe impossibility of present1l1g rhe Idea
mcnt of things in themsclvcs, but rather the necessary envdopmcnt of through the senses is reversed at a certain point b~ a presentatlon
things for uso Such vciling is divindy necessary ar certain times, jusr as f h ' her order where whar is being presented IS, so ro speak,
o a 19 , , ,h '1
ir is divinely esrablished that an unveiling rhar takes place olltside of presentation itself. Ir is in this way that, 111 nudlty Wlt out ve! s,
86 Nudity Nudity

pearance rhar ''rhe most extreme hope" is entrusted, and rhe prin-
ciple according to which it is absurd ro desire the appearance of
rhe good "suffers its unique exception."32 If beauty, in its most
intimare condirían, was once secret-that is ro say, rhe necessary
relation of appearance and essence, the veil and the veiled-then
here appearance unties itself from this knot and shines for a mo-
ment by itself as the "appearance of ¡he good." Accordingly, the
ligh¡ from this star is opaque, ro be found only in certain Gnostic
texts: no longer a necessary and "non-unveilable" envelopment of
beauty, it is now appearance, to the extent that nothing appears by
means 01this appearance. The place where this inappearance-this
sublime absence of rhe secret of human nudity-most promi-
nently leaves its mark is the face.

20. At the end of the 1920S and the beginning of the 1930S Ben-
jamin associated with a group of very attractive female ftiends.
Among them were Gert Wissing, Ola Parem, and Eva Hermann,
whom he thought al! shared the same special relationship to ap-
pearance. In the diaries he kept during his stay on the French Riv-
iera between May and June of 1931, Benjamin sought ro describe
this relationship, linking it with the theme of appearance that he
had confronted some years before in his essay on Goethe's novel.
"Speyer's wife," he writes,

reported this astounding statement by Eva Hermano, from rhe period

of her greatest depressioo: "The faet that I am unhappy doesn't mean
thar I have to mn around with a faee full of wrinlcles." This made many
things dear to me, above aB that the rudimentary eontaet that I have
had io reeent years wirh these ereatures-Gert, Eva Hermaon, and so
on-is ooly a feeble and be!ated echo of one of the most fundamental
experienees of my Jife: the experieoee of appearanee [Schein]. I spoke
yesterday with Speyer about this, who for his pan also cootemplated
appearance itself appears and displays itself as infinitely inappar- about these women and made the curious observation that they have
ent, infinitely free of SeCl"et. The sublime, then, is an appearance no sense of hooor, or rather thar their code of honor is actually to say
that exhibits its own vacuity and, in this exhibition, al!ows the everythiog they think. This is a very true observatioo, and it proves
the profundity of the obligation they fee! toward appearance. For this
inapparent to take place.
"sayiog everything" is meant aboye all to destray what has beeo said; ol'
As a result, at the end of Benjamin's essay, it is precisely ro ap-
88 Nudity Nudity

rather, once ir has been destroycd, ro turn ir 111(0 an object. Only 11150- eclipse rhe faec, or make ir invisible, is stated with ~reat clarity in
far as ir is apparent [scheinhtifi] are rhey able ro assimilate ir.33 Charmides, the dialogue Plato dedieates to the sub)eet ofbeauty.
Charmides, the young man who lends his name to the dIalogue,
One eould define this attitude as the "nihilism of beauty," eom-
has a beautiful faee, but, as one of rhe interlocutors comments,
mon to many beautiful women, which consÍsts in reducing one's
own beauty ro pure appearanee and then exhibiting this appear- h · body is so beautiful that "if he were to undress, you would
IS
believe .
that he had no faee" (that he would be Inera 11y "craee less,."
anee with a SOft of remote sadness, stubbomly denying the idea
aprosopos, r54d). The idea that the nude body can ~ontest. the pn-
that beauty can signifY something other than itselE. But it is pre-
maey of the faee, to then offer itself as a faee, IS ImphClt In the
eisely the very laek of illusions abollt itself-this nudity wirhout
response rhe women accused of witchcraft gave to rhose who WO~­
veils that beauty thus manages to aehieve-that fumishes the most
dered why they had kissed Satan's anus during the Sabbath: theH
frightful attraetion. This disenehantment ofbeauty, this speeial ni-
defense was that even there, there is a faee. Slmtlarly, 10 the first
hilism, reaehes its extreme stage with the mannequins or the fash-
stages of eratie phorography, models had ro affeeI a romantle and
ion models, who leam befo re all e1se ro erase all expression from
dreamy expression, as if the unseen lens had surpnsed them 11l the
thcir faces. In so doíng, their faces become pure exhibirían value
intimaey of their boudoir. But in the coutse of tlme thls proeedure
and, as a result, acquire a particular allure.
was inverted, to the effeet that the faee's only task beeame the ex-
pression of rhe shame!ess awareness that the naked body was betng
21. In our culture, the faee-body relationship is marked by a
exhibited ro the gaze. Barefaeedness [sfocciataggine, etymologleally,
fundamental asymmetry, in thar OUt faces remain for the most
the loss of the faee] is now the neeessary eoumerpart tonudrty
part naked, while our bodies are normally eovered. Correspond-
without veils. The faee, now an aeeompliee of nudlty-as It looks
ing to this asymmetry is the primaey of the head, whieh may be
into rhe lens 01' winks at rhe spectator-lets rhe abse~~e. of secrct
expressed in many ways but remains more 01' less constant in all
be seel1; ir expresses only a letting-be-seen, apure eXhlhltlOll.
fields: fram polities (where the highest power is usual!y eal!ed the
"head") to religion (Paul's eephalie metaphor of Christ), from art
22. A miniature in one of the manuseripts of the Clavis physi-
(where one can represent in a portrait the head without the body
cae by Honorius of Aurun shows a eharaeter (perhaps the author)
but nor, as is evident from "nucle" depictions, the body without
holding a ribbon on which is written: ((lnvolucrum rerum petzt
the head) to everyday life, where the head is the loeus of exptes-
is sibi jieri clarum" (He who tries ro clarifY the enve!opment of
siveness par exeel!enee. This last point seems to be confirmed by
things).'" One eould define nudity as the enve!opment that reaehes
the faet that while the bodies of other animals often exhibit very
a paint where ir becomes clear thar clanficatlon 1$ no lO!1ger P,os-
Iively and expressive signs (the pattem of the leopard's skin, the
sible. Ir is in (his sense thar we must understand Goethes maxlffi,
fiery colors of the mandrill's sexual otgans, bllt also the butterRy's
aecording to whieh "beauty can never clarifY itself."35 Only be-
wings and the peaeoek's plumage), the human body is singularly
cause beauty remains ro rhe end an "envelopment,': only because
devoid of any expressive fcarures.
it remains "inexplicable" [etymologieally, rhat whlch eannot be
This expressive supremaey of the faee finds its eonfirmation, as
unfoldedJ, can appearanee-whieh reaehes its supreme stage 111
wel! as irs point of weakness, in the uncontral!able blushing that
nudity-be ealled beautiful. That nudity and beauty eannot be
attests to the shame we fee! at being nude. This is perhaps the
clarified does not therefore mean that they contain a secret th~t
reason why the assertion of nudity seems to cal! the primaey of
eannot be braught ro light. Sueh an appearanee would be mysten-
the faee into question. That the nudity of a beautiful body can
Nudity

ous, but precisely for this reason ir would not be an envelopment,

sÍnce in this case one couId always continue ro search for rhe secret § 8 The Glorious Body
that is hidden within it. In rhe inexplicable envelopment, on rhe
orher hancl, rhere is no secret; denuded, ir manifests itseIf as pure
appearance. The only rhing that the beautiful face can say, exhibit-
ing its nudity with a smile, is, "You wanted ro see my secret? You
wanted ro c1arilY my envelopment? Then look right at it, if you
can. Look at rhis absolute, unforgivable absence of secrets!" The
matheme of nudiry is, in this sense, simply rhis: haecce! there is
norhing orher rhan this. Yet ir is precisely the disenchantment of
beauty in the experienee of nudity, rhis sublime bur also miser-
able exhibirion of appearance beyond all mystery and all meaning,
thar can somehow defuse rhe theological appararus and allow us
to see, beyond tbe prestige of grace and the chimeras of corrupr I.The problem of rhe glorious body, that is to say, rhe nature
nature, a simple, inapparenr human body. The deactivarion of this and characteristics-and more generally the life-of the body of
apparatlls retroactiveIyoperares, rherefore, as much 011 nature as rhe resurrected in Paradise, is rhe paramount chapter in rheology,
on grace, as mueh on nudity as on c1othing, liberaring rhem from and is c1assified in rhe literature under the rubric de fine ultimo.
rheir theological signature. This simple dwelling of appearance in Neverthe1ess, rhe Roman Curia, in arder to settle on its compro-
the absence of seerers is its special trembling-it is rhe nudity thar, mise with modernity, decided ro c10se in a rather hasty manner the
like the choirboy's "white" voice, signifies nothing and, precisely eseharological door that leads ro the discussion concerning "Iast
for rhis reaSOll, manages ro penetrare uso rhing5," 01' rather, ir froze this-if not obsolete, rhen at least cer-
tainly cumbersome-discussion. Bur as long as the dogma of the
rcsurrection of the flesh persists as an essential pan of the Chris-
tian faith, this impasse cannot bur remain problematic. In the
pages that follow we will revive rhis frozen theological theme and
thus examine a problem that is equally ineseapable: that of the
ethical and politieal sta rus of eorporeallife (rhe bodies of the res-
urrected are numerically and materially the same as the ones they
had during their earrhly existen ce) . This means rhat the glorious
body will serve as a paradigm that will allow us to meditate on the
figures, and the possible uses, of the human bodyas such.

2. The first problem that theologians have ro confronr is the

identity of the resurrected body. Supposing that the soul will have
to rake on the same body once again, how then can its identity
and integrity be defined? A preliminary question involves the

9I
92 The Clorious Body The Clorious Body 93

age of the resurrected: must they rise again at the age at which body (rhat of rhe devoured and that of rhe son) and will therefore
they died, decrepit as decrepit, baby as baby, adult as adult? Man have ro be resurrected, impossibly, in different bodies. For Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas responds, must be resurrccted with no natural the solution to thi$ last case gives [¡se ro a Solomonic split:
defects. But the nature of an individual can also be defective as
a te~ult of not having yet reached its perfection (as happens with The embryos as such will not take pare in the rcsurrection if they did
bables) or as a result o~having left its perfect state behind (as hap- not fi.rse livc as rational souls. But at this stage the maternal womb
pens wlth the elderly). fhe resurrection will therefore bring every- already adds new nourishment to the subsrancc of rhe semen. Con-
sequently, assuming that someone were to car such human embryos,
body back to the perfewon that coincides with theit youth, that is
and rhen procreate by means of rhe surplus of such food, the sub-
ro say, Chrises age when he was resurrected (área tríginta annos).
srance of rhe semen would rise again in him who was begorten by ir,
Paradise is a world for those in their thirties, invariably balanced unlcss rhis semen did nor contain elemenrs belonging to the subsrance
between grawth and decay. Apart fram this, however, the bodies of rhe semen of those whose flcsh was devoured, as such clemenrs
will maintain the differences that once distinguished them fram would rise again in the former and not in rhe larter. The remainder
one another, /irst and foremost (contrary to those who daim that of rhe earen flesh, which was nor transformed into semen, wil! clearly
since the feminine condition is imperfect, rhe resurrected would rise again in rhe hrst individual, while rhe divine power will intcrvene
all be males) their sexual differences. in order ro supply rhe missing parts. 1

3· Much more insidiaus is the question of the material identity 4- Origen offers a more elegant and less muddled solution to
between the body of the resurrected and rhe body rhat dwelled on the problem of the identiry of the resurrected. That which remains
carth. How is ane ro conceive of rhe integrated identity of each constant in each individual, he suggests, is the image (eidos) thar
and every last partide of matter between the two bodies? Will we continue to recognize every time we encollnter the individual,
each speck of dust that the body has decomposed into rerurn to despite inevitable changes. This same image will also guarantee
rhe same place ir used ro have in the living body? Here is pre- the identity of the resurrected body: "As our eidos remains iden-
Clsely where the dif/iculty begins. We could certainly grant that tical from infancy to oId age, even though our material features
the amputated hand of a thief-who later on repenred and was undergo a continuolls mutation, so in the same manner, it is this
redeemed-would rejoin his body at the moment of resurrection. eidos that we had thraughout our earthly existence thar will be
But what abollt Adam's rib, which was removed from his body in resurrected and remain identical in the world ro come, though ir
arder to form Eve's body: will it be resurrected in his glorious body has been changed for the better and become more glorious." The
or hers? And whar about rhe case of the anrhrapophagus: will rhe idea of such an "imaginarl resurrection, like many other of Ori-
human flesh that he has eaten and assimilared inro his own body gen's themes, was suspected of heresy. Neverrheless, the obsession
be resurrecred in rhe body of his victim or his own? with an integral material identity was pragressively replaced by rhe
One of rhe hyporheses rhar put the subrlety of the Church Fa- idea that each pan of the human body remains immutable as far
thers ro the greatesr test dealt with the scenario of an anrhrapoph- as its aspect especies) is concerned, though it is in a continuous
agus who eats norhing bur human flesh, or even only embryos, ebb and flow (fluere et rejiuere) as far as its material composition
and rhen begets a son. According te medieval scicnce, semen is is concerned. ''And so in the parts that compase aman," Aquinas
generated de superfluo alimenti, by an excess or surplus of digested writes, "the same thing happens that occurs in the population of
food. Thls means that the same flesh will belong to more than one a city, where single individuals die and others come ro take their
r
l~f(

~. ,
~{i~xAN,:' "
'•.,• •. •. •. •.•,'•. .•1.• .• .• •.'•. •'.• .• . •'.•.,•,.•.'••'......

•. 94 The Glorious Body The Glorious Body 95

place. From a material paint of vicw, rhe components rhar com~ though there will be no need for food, perhaps beeause "on the
pose the populaee sueceed one another, but fotmally the populaee tongue of the e1eet there will be a de!ieious humor."4 Andt~ueh
remains the same .... In like mannet, in the human body there will perceive particular qualities in bodies thar sccm ro a~tlC1~ate
are also pans that, in their ebb, are replaeed by others that take the those immaterial properties of images that modern art hlstonans
same shape and posiríon, and so materially all the pans ebb and call ((tactile values."
flow, while numerically man remains idemiea!.'" The paradigm
of paradisiaeal identity is not material sameness, whieh poliee de- 6. How are we to understand the "subtle" nature of the glorious
panmems around the world try to set today through biometrie body? According to a posiríon that Aquinas deems heretieal, sub-
apparatuses, but rather the image, that is to say, the body's likeness tlety-as a son of extreme rarefaetion-renders the bodies of the
to itself. blessed similar to air 01' wind and thus penetrable by other bod-
ies. They are so impalpable that they are indistinguishable from
5· Once the shared idemity of the glorious body and the eanhly a breath or a spirit. Sueh a body eould therefore simultaneously
body is guaranteed, ir remains ro be ascertained what distinguishes oeeupy the spaee already oeeupied by another body, whether this
rhe one fmm rhe other. Theologians enumerare four characteristics other body is glorious or nor. Against sueh excesses the prevalem
of glory: impassibility, subtlety, agility, and c1arity. opinion defends the view that the perfeet body has. an extended
That the body of the blcssed is impassible does not mean that it and palpable eharaeter. "The Lord will be revlved wlth a gloflous
has no capaeity to sense, whieh is an inseparable pan of the body's body, but he wil! still be palpable, as it is wrÍtten in the Gospel:
perfeeríon. Without this eapaeity, the life of the blessed would re- 'fee! me [palpale] and see me, for a spirit does not have flesh and
semble a kind of sleep; that is to say, it would be half of a Efe (vitae bones.' And so the glorious bodies will also be palpable.'" Never-
dimidium). Impassibility means, rather, that the body will not be theless, sinee they are ful!y subjeeted to the spirit, they can also
subjeeted to those disordered passions that wrest it from its perfee- decide not to impress their touch and J by a supernatural virtue,
rían. AIl the pans of the glorious body will be, in faet, submissive remain impalpable to nonglorious bodies.
to the dominio n of the raríonal soul, whieh will in turn be per-
feetly submissive to the divine wil!. 7. Agile is that which aptly moves effortlessly and uninhibit-
Some theologians, however, seandalized by the idea that there edly. In this sense the glorious body, perfectly submissive to the
eould be something to smel!, taste, 01' toueh in Paradise, exclude glorified soul, will be endowed with agility, .and "in al! its mov:~
all the senses from the paradisiaeal eondition. Aquinas, along with ments and in al! its acts it will be ready to sWlftly obey the Spltlt.
the majority of the Chureh Fathers, rejeets sueh an amputation. Once again, eontrary to those who cantend that the glorious body
The sense of smel! of (he blessed would not be deprived of an can move from one place to anarher without passing through the
objeet: "Does not the Chureh say in its songs that from the bod- space in between, the theologians reaffirm their position that this
ies of rhe saints emanare a gentle scent?l)·~ In its sublime state, rhe would contradiet the nature of corporeality. But against those who
odor of the glorious body will be, in faet, deprived of any material conceive of movement as a kind of corruption) as almost an im-
humidity, as happens in the exhalations of distil!ed fumes (sicut perfeeríon of the body (as far as its place is eoncemed), and thus
odor fúmalis evaporationis). And so the nose of the blessed, not endorse the immobility of the glorious bodies, theologlans valonze
hindered by any sueh humidity, will then pereeive the smallest agility as a sort of grace that carries the blessed almost instantly
nuances (minimas odorum differentias). Tastc will a150 be exercised, and effortlessly wherever they want to go. Like dancers, who move
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -• •~------. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-i
1
The Glorious Bod} The Glorious Bod} 97

in space with neither aim llor necessity, the blcssed move in the parts that few theologians, it would seem, considered suitable ro
heavens only in order ro exhibit their agility. the patadisiacal condition) is tteated by Aquinas just befare he
confronts the equalIy embarrassing problem of the resurrection of
8. Clarity (claritas) can be thought of in two ways: like the shim- the bodily humors (blood, milk, black bile, sweat, sperm, mucus,
mer of gold (due ro its density) or like the splendor of crystal (be- urine, and so forth). The animate body is called "organic" because
cause of irs transparenc)'). According to Gregoty the Great, the the soul makes use of its various parts as if they were instruments.
bodies of the blessed possess clariry in both senses: they are di- Among these parts, sorne are necessary in arder tú exercise a func-
aphanous like a crystal and impervious to light like gold. It is this tion (the heart, the liver, the hands), while others are meant ro
halo of light, which emana tes from the glorious body, that can be preserve the necessary organs. Examples of the second kind are
perceived by a nonglorious body, and its splendor can differ ac- hair and nails, which wilI be resUl'rected in the glorious body since
cording to the quality of the blessed. The greater or lesser clarity of they contribute in thcir own way ro the perfection of human na-
the halo is only the outermost index of the individual differences ture. The petfectly depilated body of the fashion model and the
between the glorious badies. parn star is cxtraneous to glory. Ncvertheless, since ir is difficult
to imagine celestial hair and nail salons, we must assume (though
9· Impassibility, subdety, agility, and clatity-as characteristics theologians fail ro addtess the mattet) that just as the age of the
and almost ornaments of the glotious bod)'-do nat present an)' blessed will forever remain the same, so will the length of theit
particular difficulties. At stake in each case is the assurance that hait and nails.
the blessed have a bod)' and that this body is the same as the As for rhe humors, Aquinas's salutian demonstrates thar already
one that the individual had on earth, even if it is incomparably in the thirteenth century the Church was ttying ro hatmonize
better. The far more atduous and decisive problem is the way in theological and scientific demands. Sorne of the humors-includ-
which this body exercises its vital functions, that is ro say, the ing urine, mucus, and sweat-are in faet extraneous to rhe per-
articulation of a physialogy of the glorious body. The body, as fection of the individual, insofar as they ate residues that nature
we have seen, Ís resurrected as a whole, with alI the organs it expels in via corruptionis: they will nor, therefore, be resurrected.
possessed during its earthly existen ce. Therefore, the blesscd wiU Others are useful only in arder to preserve the species in anather
forever have, according to their sex, either a virile member or a individual, b), means of procreation (sperm) and nutrition (milk).
vagina and, in both cases, a stomach and intestines. But what Ir is not expected that these humors wiU be resurrected, either. The
for, if, as seems obvious, they will need neither to reproduce nor othet humors familiar to medieval medicine-above aU the four
to eat? Certainly blood will circula te in their arteries and veins, that define the body's temperaments: blood, black bile or me/an-
but is it possible that hair wiU stiU grow on their heads and faces chol)" yeUow bile, and phlegm, which were later joined by ros,
or that their fingernails will grow, as well, poindessly and irtitat- cambium, and gluten-wiU be resurtected in the glorious body,
ingl),? In confronting these delicate questions, theologians come since they are directed toward its natural perfectian and are in-
up against a decisive apoda, one that scems to exceed the limits separable from it.
of their conceptual strategy but that aIso constitutes the locus in
which we can think of a diffetent possible use far the body. n. Ir is with regard ro two principal functions of vegetative
life-sexual reproduction and nutritian-that the problem of the
10. The problem of the tesurrection of hair and nails (bod)' physiology of the glarious body reachcs its critical threshold. If
The Glorious Body
The Glorious Body 99
the organs thar execute thes e functions-testl· I . .
b l··
wom : Stomac 1, mtestmes-will neccssarily b _, . 'h
ces, pe!l1S vagH
la, possible use, and enter the sphere of Vorhandenheit, of mere avail-
urrectlon, then.wh~t funetion are they supp~s~~e::n~~~e: ; res- ability with no aim. This, however, docs not imply another use for
end of procreanon IS to multiply the I h. . The the instrumenr; ir simply suggests its being presenr outside of any
f .. . luman mee, w de rhe d
o nutrttlOn IS the restantion of the indl·vI·d I AC h en possible use, which the philosopher likens ta an alienated concep-
. h ua. ltcr t e res rían ofBeing that is dominant in our day. Like those human insrru-
rcenan, owever, rhe human race wilI reach rhe crfeer n lit-
that had been preordained by God, and the b d p. umber ments scattered around the feet of the melancholic ange! in Dürer's
undergo either diminution or r . o. y w¡]1 no longer engraving, like toys abandoned by children after playtime, objects
will th· f, I g owth. PlOcreatlOn and nutrttion separated [rom thei1' use become enigmatic and even unnerving. In
. ~re ore no anger have any reason for being "7
lt IS Impossible, though, that the corres ondin . the same way, the etemalIy inoperative organs in the bodies of the
pletely use!ess and superfluo us (super p ) g organs are Com- blessed-even if they exhibit the procreative function that belongs
~f perfcer nature nothing exists in vai~~c~ni:t l~:l~~l:~~; t~:e state to human natu1'e-do not represenr another use for rhose organs.
non of the body's other use finds its f¡ . ques- The ostensive body of rhe elect, no matter how "organic" and real
A " , rsr, stammenng formularÍan
qumass strategy 1$ cIcar: ro se . . ' it may be, is outside the sphere of any possible use. There is perhaps
ph . I . I f í · palate organs from thelr specific
yslO oglca UnCtlOns. The purpose of each organ, like that of nothing more enigmatic than a glorious penis, nothing more spec-
any ll1strumcl1t, 15 lts operation' but l' d tral than a purely doxological vagina.
h . e . ' t l1S oes not mean that "f
t e operatlOn ¡atls, then the instrumem beco me I (fr I
. I ) TI s use ess uslra stl
tns rumentum. le organ or instrument that dC 13. Between the years I924 and I926 the philosopher Alfred
. . was separare rfOm
ltS operatlOll and remains, so to speal . f . 50hn-Rethe!lived in Naples. By observing the behavior of fish-
' . (, In a state o suspenslOn
acqmres, preCIsely fol' rhis reasOn an o t . fí . . '. ' ermen grappling with their little motorboats, and drivers trying
1 '. . , s enSlve UnctlOnj It exhIblt
t le vHtue correspondmg ro the suspended operatiO!l "Th. s to stan their run-down ca1's, he carne ro formulate a theory of
ment se I . e mstru- technology that he calIed in jest "Philosophy of the Broken" (Phi-
h . .
rves not on y tú execute the agent'
[
. b
s operauon ut a so to
I
S. ow ItS vl1'tue ad ostendendam víJ'tutem íflsíus] "8] ' . d losophie des Kaputten).9 According to 50hn-Rethel, a thing begins
ttsemenrs or 01' h h :r. usr as m a ver- ta function for a Neapolitan only when it is unusable. By this he
. p nograp y, w ere the simulacra of merchandise Or
bodles exalt then appeal precisely to ti h means that a Neapolitan only begins ro realIy use technical ohjects
be used but onl exh·b· . le extem t at they cannot at the moment when they no longer function. An imact thing
organs ':'ill displYay tI I lted, s~ 110 the resurrection the idle sexual that functions welI on its own irritates Neapolitans, so they usualIy
le potenna Ity or th .. f .
The glorious bod . .' e Vll tue, o procreatlOn. avoid it. And yet, by shoving a pieee of wood in the right spot,
y IS an ostenSlve bod h fi .
execured but rather dis la ed. G " y w. ose un.ct~ons ~re nor or by making a slight adjustment with a smack of the hand at
.h. . . p y lor¡, 10 thls sense, IS 10 sohdarity
Wlr 1ll0peratlvlty. the right moment, Neapolitans manage ro make their apparatuses
work according to their desires. This behavior, 50hn-Rethe! com-
12. h it possible, then, to speak of a differem use of th b d ments, contains a higher technological paradigm than our current
the ba.sls of the glorious body's useless or unusable or an:' l~ ;e~n one: true technology begins when man is able ta oppose the blind
and Irme, Instrumems that are OUt of use-h gl· ~ and hosrile automatism of the machines and learns how ro move
thar is broken, and rhus ino erari 01' examp e, a hammer rhem into unforeseen rerrirories and uses, lilee thar young man Oll
Zuhandenh· f b . hP ve-Ieave the concrete sphere of the street in Capri who rransformed a broken motorcycle engine
fIt, o elIlg-at- and where th 1
' ey are a ways ready for a
imo a device that makes whipped cream.
100 The Glorio"s Body The Glorious Body lO!

In this example rhe engine continues ro spin on sorne level but ask themselves whether the broiled nsh that Jesus ate was also di-
from rhe pcrspective of entirely new desires and ncw needs. Inop- gested and assimilated and whether the residues of his digestion
erativity is nor lefr here ro ¡ts Qwn devices but instead becomes rhe were eventualIy evaeuated from his body. A tradition that dates
opening, rhe "open-sesame," thar leads to a new possible use. baek ro Basil of Caesarea and the Fathers of the Eastern Church
affirms that the food eaten by Jesus-during his ¡ife and after the
14. In the glorious body it beeame possible for the first time ro resurreerion-was so completely assimilated into his body thar no
eoneeive the separation of an organ from its physiological fune- eliminarÍon of its residues was necessary. Another opinion asserts
rion. But the possibility of diseovering another use of the body- that in the glorious body of Christ, just as in the bodies of the
whieh this separation alIows us to glimpse-has remained unex- blessed, food is immediately transformed into a spiritual nature by
plored. In its place we find glory, understood as rhe isolarion of rneans of a sort of miraculous evaporation. This, however, implies
inoperativity in a speeial sphere. The exhibition of the organ sepa- (and Augusrine was the first ro draw this eonclusion) that glorious
rated from its exercise ar (he empty repetirian of its funetian have bodies-beginning with Jesus's-while not requiring nutrition of
no aim other than the glorifieation of Cod's work, exaetIy as the any kind, maintain in sorne way their patestas vescendi. In a SOft of
arms and insignias exhibited by the vietorious general in the Ro- gratuitous aet, or a kind of sublime snobbery, tbe blessed will ear
man trillmph are rhe signs and, at rhe same time, rhe effectuarion and digest their food without having any need ro do so.
of his glory. The sexual organs and the intestines of tbe blessed are In reply ro the objection that, since excretion (deassimilatio) is
only the hieroglyphs or the arabesques that divine glory inscribes as essential as assimilation, there will be a conversion of matter
onto irs own eoat of arms. The earthly liturgy, like the celesrial from one form to another in the glorious body-and therefore
ane, does nothing other rhan incessandy capture inoperativity and also a form of corruption and vileness (turpitudo)-the above-
displace it into the sphere of worship ad maiorem Dei gloriam (for mentioned theologian affirms that there is nothing in itself vile
the greater glory of Cod). in the operations of nature: "As no part of the human body is in
itself unworthy of being elevated to the Jife of glory, so no organie
15. In his rrearise The Ultimate ~End 01 Human Lifo a twentieth- operation needs to be considcrcd as unworthy to participate in
eenrury Freneh theologian poses the question of whether it is pos- sueh a Jife .... It is a produet of false imagination to believe that
sible to attribute to the blessed the fulI exercise of their vegetarive our eorporeallife would be more worthy of Cod ro the extent that
Jife. For understandable reasons he is partieularly interested in the it differs from our present eondirion. Cod does not destroy natural
nutritive faeulty (potestas vescendz). He argues that eorporeallife laws by means of his supreme gifts; rather, with his ineffable wis-
essentialIy eonsists in the funetions of vegetative Jife. The perfeet dom, he completes and perfeets these laws."lI There is a glorious
restitution of corporeal life that will take place in the resurrec- defeearion, which takes place only in order to show the perfeetion
tion cannar fail to entail, therefore, rhe exercise of such functions. of natural functions. But as far as its possible use is concerned, the
"Indeed," he writes, "it seems reasonable that the vegetative poten- theologians remain silent.
tiality not only fails to be abolished among the elect, but that in
sorne marvelous [mirabiliter] way it aetualIy inereases."lO The para- !6. Clory is nothing other than the separation of inoperativ-
digm of this persistence of the nutritive function in the glorious ity inro a speeial sphere: that of worship or liturgy. In this way
body is the meal that the resurreeted Jesus shares with his diseiples what was merely a threshold that granted aeeess to a new use is
(Luke 24:42-43). With their usual innoeent pedantry theologians transforrned into a permanent condition. A new use for the body
I02 The Glorious Body The Glorious Body I03

is thus possible only if ir wrests rhe inoperative functÍon from its and privare bur only common. And jusr as, acc.ording r.o Benja-
separarían, only if ir succeeds in bringing together withiI1 a sin- min, rhe sexual fulfillment rhat renders rhe body 1I10perarlve severs
gle place and in a single gesture borh exercise and inoperariviry, rhe bond rhar ties man ro nature, so rhe body rhar contemplares
economic body and glorious body, function and its suspension. and exhibits its potentiality through its gestures enrers.a secand,
Physiological function, inoperativity, and new use aIl persist in rhe final narure (which is nothing orher rhan rhe rrurh of lrs former
body's single field of rension, a field from which rhey cannor be nature). The glorious body is not sorne other body, more agile and
separated. This 1S becallse inoperativity is nor incaj Oil rhe con- beautiful, more luminous and spirirual; ir is rhe body ¡rselE, ar rhe
trary, ir allows rhe very porentialiry rhar has manifesred irself in rhe mamenr when inaperariviry removes rhe spell from it and opens it
aet ro appear. It is nor potentiality rhar is deactivated in inopera- up ro a new possible comman use.
riviry but only rhe aims and modaliries into which irs exercise had
been inscribed and separared. And ir is rhis porentialiry rhar can
now become rhe organ of a new possible use, rhe organ of a body
whose organiciry has been suspended and rendered inoperative.
T'o use a body, and ro make ir serve as an insrrument for a par-
ticular purpose, are not the same rhing. Nor are we dealing hefe
wirh a simple and insipid absence of a purpose, which ofren leads
ro a confusion of erhics and beaury. Rarher, ar srake here is rhe
rendering inoperative of a11y activity directed toward an end, in
arder ro thcn dispose ir toward a new use, one rhar does nor abol-
ish rhe old use bur persisrs in it and exhibirs it. This is precisely
whar amorous desire and so-called perversion achieve every time
they use rhe organs of rhe nutritive and reproductive funcrions
and rum rhem-in rhe very acr of using rhem-away from rheir
physiological meaning, roward a new and more human operarion.
Ol' consider the dancer, as he 01' she undoes and disorganizes rhe
economy of corporeal movements ro then rediscover rhem, at once
intacr and rransfigured, in rhe choreography.
The naked, simple human body is nor displaced here in ro a
higher and nobler realiry; insread, liberared from rhe wirchcrafr
rhat once separared ir from itself, it is as if rhis body were now
able ro gain access ro its own rrurh for the first time. In rhis way
rhe mouth rmly beco mes a mouth only as ir is abour ro be kissed;
rhe mosr intimare and private parrs become a place for shared use
and pleasure; habitual gestures become rhe iIIegible wriring whose
hidden meaning rhe dancer deciphers fOl' all. ¡nsofar as an organ
and an object have potenriality, their use can never be individual
i1
r;¡
ti
i:
, !
Hunger 01an Ox 10 5

vah evokes the object of escharological awaiting in the Psalms, he

§9 Hunger of an Ox: Considerations on says of the impious thar «they shall nor en ter into my inoperativ-
the Sabbath, the Feast, and ity" (Ps. 95:n).
As a result the rabbinical tradition has devoted itself (with its
Inoperativity usual meticulousness) ro defining the types of work that are not
permissible during the Sabbath. The Mishnah lists thirty-nine
such activities (melachot) fmm which Jews must take every care to
abstain: from reaping and sowing ro baking and kneading, from
weaving and unraveling threads ro tanning hides, from writing to
lighting 6res, fmm carrying things ro umying knots. As a matter
of faer) according ro rhe extensive interpretarían of the oral tradi-
tion, the melachot coincide with the emire sphere of labor and
productive activity.
1. That there is a special relationship between the feast and in-
operativity is evident in the Jewish Sabbath.' The feast day par 2. This does nor mean thar human beings must abstain from ev-
excelIence of the Jews-for whom it is the paradigm of faith (yesod ery sort of activity during the celebration of the Sabbath. The de-
ha-emunah) and in some way the archetype for every day of cel- cisive question is whether the activity aims toward production. In-
ebration-finds its theological paradigm in the fact that it is not dced, according ro rhe Jewish traditioll) an act of pure destruction
rhe work of crearíon, but rarher rhe cessation of aH work thar is thar has no constructive implicarion does nor constiture me/achah
declared sacred:
and is not considered a transgression of the Sabbath repose (for
On rhe scventh day Cad finishcd rhe wark chat he had done, and On rhis reason fesrive behaviors, even beyond ]udaism, often involve
the sevcnth day he ceascd from all his wark. Cad blessed rhe seventh a joyous and, ar times even violent, exercise of destruction and
day and consecrared ir, beca use on chis day he ccased from all rhe squandering). And so, iflighting 6res and cooking are prohibited,
work of his crearían. (Gen. 2:2-3) the spirit of menuchah nonetheless finds a particular expression in
the consumption of meals-an activity ro which, as with any fcast
Rcmember rhe Sabbarh day ro sanctify ir. Far six days yau shalllabor
day, we give a very special attention and care (the Sabbarh con-
and do all yom wor-k, but the seventh day is a Sabbarh ro the Lord
yaU!' God. (Exod. 20:8-10) sists of at least three festive meals). GeneralIy speaking, the emire
sphere of licit behaviors and activities-from the most common
The condition of the Jews during the celebration of the Sabbath everyday gestures to hymns of celebration and praise-is invested
is thus calIed menuchah (in the Greek of the Septuagint and of with that indefinable emotive tonality that we calI "festiveness." In
Philo, .anapausis or katapausis), that is ro say, inoperativity. This the Judeo-Christian tradition this particular mode of shared doing
condltlOn do es nor concern only humansj rather, it is a joyous and living is expressed in rhe commandmenr (whose significance
and ~,er;ect reality tI,;at dchnes the very essence of God ("Only we seem to have completely forgotten in our day) ro "sanctifY the
God, I hIlo wntes, IS truly an moperatlve bcmg.... The Sab- feasrs."3 The inoperativiry rhar defines rhe feasr is nor mere inertia
bath, which mcans inoperativity, is God's Sabbath")2 When Jeho- or absrenrionj ir is, rather, a sanctincation, rhat is ro say, a particu-
lar modality of acting and living.
I04
Ir----------------------....--------------------~~
I06 Hunger 01an Ox Hunger ofan Ox I07

3· Despite the faim air of nostalgia that stil! surrounds the feast with the meaning of the above feasts is proved beyond all doubt
day, lt IS all too.obvious that it eannot be expetieneed today en- by the faet that what is chased away is not hunger and fa~1Oe but
tlrdy 111 good falth. In this spirit Kerényi eompared the loss of fes- rarher the "hunger of an ox": the beasrs' continuous and Insanable
tlVlty ro rhe condition of a person who wants ro dance but can no eating (symbolized by the ox, with its slow and uninrerrupted ru-
longer hear rhe music. We continue to perform the same gestures minarion). Chasing away rhe "bulimic" slave means,. rhe~, exp~l­
our grandparents taugh~ lIS-to abstain more or less completely ling a certain fotm of eating (devouring or engo~g111g lrke wlld
from labor, to prepare wlth more Ol" less care rhe Christmas turkey beasts in order ro satiate a hunger that is by definltlon Illsatlable),
or the Easter lamb, to smile, give gifts, and sing-but in reality and thus clearing a space for another modality of eating, one that
,:c l¡~O longer hcar rhe musicj we no longer know how ro "sanc- is human and festive, one that can begin only once the "hunger of
tlfy.. And yet we are not ablc ro give up Ollr celebrations, so we an ox" has been expelled, once the bulimia has been tendered Ill-
cont~nue t? pursue,on every possible occasion (even beyond rhe operarive and sancrified. Earing, in rhis re~pect, is ~l~t a melachah,
offielal holrdays) t~lS peeuliar~and lost-modality of aeting and an activiry direcred toward an aim, bur an Inoperanvlry and me1'lU-
Irvl11g that we cal! . edebratl11g. We insist on dancing, making up chah, a Sabbath of nourishment.
for the loss of mUSle wlth the noise of discos and loudspeakers; we
~on~mue to squander and destroy-even, and increasingly often, 5. In modern languages the Greek term fot the hunget of an ox
]¡fe ltsdf-tlrough we are no longer able to reaeh menuchah the has been preserved in medical tenninology, where ir has come to
simple, bu~ for lIS impracticable, inoperativity thar couId alon'e re- designate an eating disorder that, sinee the end of the 1970s, has
store mean10g to the feast. But why is inoperativity so difficult and beeome common in opulent societies. The symptomology of thls
so 1Oae~esslble for us? And what is this attribute of human living disorder (which appears at times in COllnection with its sy~metn­
and aet10g that we cal! festiveness? cal opposire, anorexia nervosa) is characrerized by. recurnn~ or-
gies of eating, by the sensation of losing control dunngthe b111ge,
4- In his Convivial Questions Plutarch relates having witnessed and by induced vomiting immediately after the bulrmlc eplsode.
at Cheronea a feast cal!ed "expulsion of bulimia." "There is an Eating disorders, whieh come to be sporadieally observed l~ the
ancestral feast," he ~r!tes, "~e1ebrated by the archon at the public second half of rhe nineteenrh century, acquire rhe characrenstlcs
altar and by all ;he cltl~ens 10 their own homes. It is called 'expul- of an epidemic only in our time. Yet it has been noted that, in the
SlOn of bulImIa [bouZ,mou exelasis]. They ehase away from theit religious sphere, rhese disorders find rheir precu~sors In ntua~ fasr-
homes one of therr slaves by striking him with a staff made from ing (the medieval "anorexic sainrs"), as well as 111 the O~poslte of
the chaste tree, while shouting: 'out with bulimia, in with wealth ritual fasting: banquets that ate Iinked to feasts (the Englrsh phrase
and health."" Boulimos means in Greek "hunger of an ox." PI u- "eating binges," which the DSM uses to define bulimic episodes,
~arch 1l1forms us thar a similar feasr also existed at Smirne, where originally referred ro excessive eating dunng festlve eelebratlons,
111 arder to chase away the boubrostis ("eating like an ox"), a black and there are celebrations, such as Ramadan, thar seern ro conslst
bull was saenficed complete with its emire skin. of apure and simple ritual alternation between anotexia and buli-
To undersrand what was rruly at srake in rhese feasrs, ir is firsr m ¡a, fasting and feasting).
necessary ro free oneself from rhe false assumprion that rhese were From this perspecrive ir is possible ro view bulimia nervosa as
att~mprs ro propiriare rhe gods in order ro achieve material pros- linked in some fashion to its eponymous festival described by Plu-
penry and abundanee of food. That this has nothing at al! to do tareh. Just as the slave, chased away from the ha me with a staff
ro8 Hunger 01an Ox Hunger 01an Ox 10 9

made from the chaste tree, personified with his own body the hun- 7. Animal voracity and human dining, which ritual behaviors
ger of an ox-a kind of hunger that had ro be removed from the necessarily represent as two distinct lTIOlnents, are in reality in-
city in arder ro make way for festive eating-so bulimics) with separable. If at Smirne the expulsion of the boubrostis (of eating
their insatiable appetite, live in their very flesh the hunger of an like an ox) coincided with the sacrifice of the ox and the ritual
ox that has become impossible ro expel from the city. Often obese, meal, so also at Cheronea the sacrifice (Plutarch caUs it thysia)-
insecure, incapable of self-control, and for rhis reason (unlike the insofar as it was followed by a public banquet-seems essentiaUy
anorexic) subjected ro rhe condemnation of society, rhe bulímic ro have consisted of rhe hum of the boulimos, that is to say, of
is the useless scapegoat for rhe impossibility of an authenric fes- rendering inoperative the hunger of an ox that undeniably occurs
tive behavior in our time-rhe unusable resídue of a purifying in the human body itself. In a similar manner it is as if the bulimic
ceremony, the meaning of which has been lost to contemporary patiem-vomiting food immediately after having swallowed it,
society. almost without realizing it-were really vomiting and devouring
at (he same time, vomiting and rendering inoperative (he same
6. There is, however an aspect of the bulimic's behavior that animalistic hunger.
seems to attest, at least in pan, to (he memory oE a cathanic de- This intermingling between animal and man, between the hun-
mando 1 am referring ro vomiting, an aet thar (he bulimic performs ger oE an ox and festive nourishment, contains a precious teaching
eirher mechanicaUy, by inserting two fingers down the throat, or by about the relationship between inoperativiry and the feasr that I
taking emetics and purgatives (it is precisely this latter practice that have proposed to make intelligible. Inoperarivity (this, at leasr, is
can put a patient's life at risk, as in (he famous case of rhe singer the hypothesis that I intend ro suggest) is neirher a cOllsequence
Karen Carpemer, who died as a result of abusing emetics). From nor a precondition (the abstention from labor) of the feast day but
(he very first studíes on bulimia, rhe rccourse ro vomiting has been coincides with festiveness itself in rhe sense (har ir consists pre-
considered an integral part of the diagnosis, even though a smaU cisely in neutralizing and rendering illoperative human gestures,
percemage of bulimics (around 6 percent) do nor resort to this actions, and works, which in turn can become festive only in this
practice. Attributing rhis self-wiUed nausea ro a preoccupation with way (celebrating (for ftstaJ, in this sense, literaUy involves killing
gaining weight (chiefly among female patiems) does not seem a sat- (fore la ftsta], consuming, deactivating, and finally, eliminating
isfactory explanation. In reality, by throwing up what was eaten a something) .
moment prior during the binge, bulimics seem to undo and render
inoperative theÍr hunger oE an OX, thereby in some way purifying 8. That the Sabbath-that every feast-is not simply a day of
themselves of it. For a momem-even if aU alone, and with the repose rhat is added ro the workweek (as our calendars would have
absolute incomprehension of other human beings, in the eyes of it), but signifies a special time and a special activity, is implicit
whom vomiting seems even more reproachable rhan binge-eating- in the very narration of Genesis, where repose and completion
the bulimic seems to unconsciously take 011 (he cathartic function of work coincide on the seventh day Con the sevemh day God
that the slave happily performed for the citizens of Cheronea (and ir finished the work that he had done, and on the sevemh day he
is precisely in relation to (his regulated alternation of excessive eating ceased from all his work"). Precisely in order ro underline the im-
and vomiting, sin and expiation, that in a book significandy entided mediate continuity-and, at the same time, the heterogeneity-
Responsible Bulimia, the author could claim to have practiced buli- between work and repose, the author of the commentary known
mia "consciously and successfuUy" for a good number of years). as Genesis Rabbah writes: "Man of flesh and blood, who knows
no Hunger 01an Ox Hunger 01an Ox III

not his times, his moments, and his hours, takes something from instead by the fact that what is done-which in itself is not un-
profane time and adds it to sacred time: but the Holy One, blessed like what is accomplished every day-becomes undone, rendered
be his name, who knows his times, his moments, and his hours, inoperative, liberated and suspended fram its "economy," from
entered the Sabbath by a hair's breadth."5 And it is in the same the reasons and aims that define it during the weekdays (and not
sense thar one must rcad [he assertion oE another cornmentator, doing, in this sensc, is only an extreme case ?f this s~spension).
according to which "the precept of the Sabbath is equivalent to al! If one eats, it is nor done for the sake of bcmg fed: lf one gets
the precepts of the Torah," and that the observance of the Sabbath dressed, it is not done for the sake of being covered up or taking
"brings about the coming of the Messiah."6 All this means that the shelter from the cold: if one wakes up, it is not done for the sake
repose of the Sabbath is not a simple abstention, unrelated to the of working: if one walks, it is not done for the sake of going some-
precepts and actions of the other days of the week: it corresponds, place; if one spcaks, it is not done for rhe sake of commUnIcanng
rather, to the perfect fulfil!ment of the commandments (the com- information; if one exchanges objecrs, it is not done for the sake
ing of the Messiah signifies the definitive fulfi!!ment of the Torah, of selling or buying.
its becoming inoperative). For this reason the rabbinical tradition Every feast day involves, in some measure, this element of sus-
sees the Sabbath as asma!! part of the messianic kingdom and an pension and begins primarily by rendering inoperative the ,:,orks
anticipation of it. The Talmud expresses with its usual bluntness of meno In the Sicilian feast of the dead descnbed by Pltre, the
this essential kinship between the Sabbath and the olam habbah dead (01' an old woman called Strina, from strena, a Latin name
rhe time to come: «Three things anticipare the time ro come: th~ for the gifts exchanged during the festivities of the beginning of
sun, the Sabbath, and tashmish [a word that signifies either sexual the year) steal goods from tailors, merchants, and bakers to .then
unian or defecation]."7
bestow them on children (something similar to this happens 111 all
How should we understand, then, the re!ationship of proximity feasts that involve gifts, like Halloween, where the dead are imper-
and almost reciprocal immanence between Sabbath, WOl'k, and in- sonated by children). Presents, gifts, and tays are objects with use
operativity? In his commentary on Genesis, Rashi harkens back to and exchangc value that are rendered inoperative, wrested from
a tradition according to which even on the Sabbath samething was their economy. In every carnivalesque feast, such as the Roman
created: 'After the six days of creation, what was sti!! missing from saturnalia, existing social relations are suspended o~ inve~ted: not
the Ulllverse? Menuchah [inoperativity, restJ. The Sabbath carne, only do sI aves command their masters, but soverelgnty IS placed
[he ,m.enuchah carne, and the universe was complete."8 Even inop- in the hands of a mock-king (saturnalicius princeps) who takes the
eratlVlty belongs to crearian; ir is a work of God. But ir is a very place of the legitimate king. In this way the feast reveals itself to
spec~al work, as ir were, which consisrs in rendering inoperative, in be first and foremost a deactivation of existing values and pow-
puttmg to rest al! the other works. Rosenzweig expresses this het- ers. "There are no ancient fcasts without dance," writes Lucian,
erogeneous contiguity between the Sabbath and creation when he but what is dance other than the liberation of the body from its
writes that it is at once both the feast of creation and the feasr of utilitarian movements, the exhibition of gestures in their pute in-
redemption or, more precisely, that in the Sabbath we celebrate a operativity?' And what are masks-which playa role in various
creatian that was destined for redemption (that is, for inoperativ- ways in the feasts of many peoples-if not, first and foremost, a
lty) from the very beginning.
neutralization of the face?

9· The feast day is not defined by what is not done in it but JO. This does nor mean that the human activities that the feast
JI2
Hungerofan Ox

has suspended and rendered inoperative are neeessarily separated

and transported into a more elevated and solemn sphere. Ir is pos- § 10 The Last Chapter in the History
sible, in faet, that this separation of the feast into the saered sphere,
which certainly carne about at a certain point, was the work of ofthe World
the Chureh and the c1ergy. We should, perhaps, try ro invert the
familiar chmnology aceording to whieh religious phenomena are In tbe marionette, or in God.

plaeed at the origin, only to be seeularized later on, and instead -Heinrich van Klcist, "Tbe Puppet Theatre"
hypothesize that what comes first is the moment in whieh human
activities are simply neutralized and rendered inoperative during
the feasr. What we call "religion" (a term that, in its eutrent mean-
ing, is missing from ancient culture) intervenes at thar mament by
eapturing the feast in a separate sphere. Lévi-Strauss's hypothesis-
whieh reads the fundamental coneepts by whieh we usually think
of religion (mana, wakan, orenda, taboo, and the like) as excessive The ways .m w h'1Ch we do not know things are. just as . important
k
signifiers that are in themselves empty, and preeisely for this reason and erha s even more important) as the ways In Whl~h we ~ow
can be laden with any son of symbolic content-gains, from this (
them. PTIlere P are ways of not knowing-earelessness, . bmattentlOn,
h
perspective, an even widet meaning. Signifiers with "zem symbolie ¡; tD Iness-that lead to c1u111siness and uglllless, ut t ere are
value" may correspond to human actions and objects that the feast o~~eers~the unselfconsciousness of Kleist's young man, the en-
emptied out and rendered inopetative and that religion then carne chantmg sprezzatura o f an infant-whose .completeness
. . we never
h
to separate and tecodifY thmugh its ceremonial apparatus.10 · o f ad mlnng.
tire .. On tbe one hand
, repreSSlOn lS the name .psye 0- .
At any rate, whether festive inoperativity precedes religion or ana1ySlS .• glves ro a way of not knowing that often produces mauspl- h
results [rom the profanation of its apparatuses, what is essential ·
ClOUS efCrects m
. the life of the one who does not know. . d But,h on'tl e
here is a dimension of praxis in whieh simple, quotidian human
oth er h an d , we eall beautiful a woman whose 111m dseems Th appl y
aetivities are neither negated nor abolished but suspended and ren- unaware of a seeret that her body is perfeedy attune too . ere are,.
dered inoperative in arder ro be exhibited, as such, in a festive then, suceessful ways of not knowing oneself, and beauty lS one of
manner. Thus, the proeession and the dance exhibit and transform t h em l t 1S· pOSSl'bl'n
e, 1 er;aet , tbat the way m whleh we are able blto
the simple gait of a human body walking, the gift reveals an un- . . .
be 19norant lS preelse . 1y what defines the rank of what we I ared a 'e
expeeted possibility within the produets of eeonomy and labor,
to k now an d that t he artieularíon of a zone ofh nonknowf e 11ge lS
and the festive meal renews and transfigures the hunger of an ox.
t h e con d·ltlon-an
. d at the same time the touc. stone-o ' f h a our d
The aim is nor ro render these activities sacred and untouchable knowledge. If rhis is true, then a catalogue razsonne o temo ~s
but, an the contrary, to open them to a new-or more ancient- .
an d types o f 19nOlanc . e would be J' ust as useful as the systemane . ,
possible use in the spirit of the Sabbath. The blunr and derisive classincation of the sciences on which we base the tranSffilSSlOn
language of the Talmud-whieh speaks in the same bread, of the
o f 1mow IedgAnd e. Yet
, while humans have refleeted . k for I deentu-
Sabbath and sexual union (or defeeation) as a pledge of the time to · h
nes on ow to preserve" . l' mprove and ensure thelr . now e ge,E we
.
comc-demonstrates here its utter seriousness. lack even the elemenrary principIes of an art of 19noranee: plS-
temo Iogy an d t h e seienee of method investigate and establrsh the

II3
4

II4 The [ast Chapter in the Histol) 01the World

eonditions, patadigms, and statutes of knowledge, bU[ there is no

recipe f01" articulating a zone of nonknowledge. Indeed, articulat- Notes
ing a zone of nonknowledge does not mean simply not knowing;
it is not only a question of laek or defeet. Ir means, on the con-
trary, maintaining oneself in rhe right relationship with ignoran ce,
allowing an absenee of knowledge to guide and aecompany our
gestures, letting a srubborn silenee clearly tespond for our words.
Or, to use an obsolete vocabulary, we couId say thar what is mast
intimare and nourishing does nor take rhe form of science and
dogma but of graee and testimony. The art of living is, in this
sense, rhe capacity to keep ourselves in harmonious relationship
with that whieh escapes uso
Even knowledge, in the final analysis, maintains a relationship
with ignorance. Bur ir does so through repression or, in an even
Chapter 1
more effeetive and potent way, presupposition. The unknown is
1. The Tósefta: Nashim, transo J. Neusner (New York: Ktav, 1979),201.
that whieh knowledge presupposes as the unexplored eountry to
2. M u h am ruad ibn 'Abd al-Kadm Shahrastani, Ltvre des reltgtOns et
be conquered; rhe unconscious is rhe darkness into which con- des sectes, ~ol. 2, transo J. Jolivet and G. Monnot (Paris: Peeters/Unesco,
sciousness will have to carry its light. In both cases something gets 199J), 1JO-JI.
separated in order to then be permeated and attained. The rela- 3. ShahrastanI, Livre des religions et des sectes, 13I.
tionship with a zone of nonknowledge, on the other hand, keeps 4. Dante Alighieri, La vita nll-ova, transo B. Reynolds (London: Pen-
watch over rhis zone so thar ir will [cmain as Ís. This is done nor guin, 1969), 7+ . . .
by exalting its darkness (as in mystieism), not by glorifying the 5. Friedrich Holderlin, Werke und Enejé, vol. 2, ed. F. BelSsnel and J.
areane (as in liturgy), and not even by filling it with phantasms (as Schmidt (Frankfurt: Insel, 1969), 880.
in psyehoanalysis). At issue here is not a seeret doctrine or a higher
science, nor a knowledge thar we do nor know. Rather, ir is pos- Chapter 2
sible that the zone of nonknowledge does not reaUy eontain any- L This cssay takes up a text prepared for the inaugural lccrure of a
thing speeial at all, that if one could loo k inside of it, one would course in Theoretical Philosophy, 2006-7, the Faculty of Arts and De-
only glimpse-though this is not eertain-an old and abandoned slgn the University IUAV ofVenicc,
sled, only glimpse-though this is not clear-the petulant hinting , 2.' Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Uses and Abuses ofHisto? to Life,"
of a little girl inviting us to play. Perhaps a zone of nonknowledge in Untimely Meditations, transo R. J. Hollingdale (CambrIdge, VK:
does not exist at aU; perhaps only its gestures existo As Kleist un- Cambridge Vniversity Press, 1997), 60. . .
derstood so well, the relationship with a zone of nonlmowledge is 3, Translators' note: Here and elsewhere Agamben uses mannequm 111
a dance. the less familiar sense of "living fashion model," though the more com-
mon sensc of "dummy" is quite suggestivc, .
4- Sce Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Proje~t, t~ans~ H. EIland and
K. MeLallghlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard VntVerslty 1 ress, 1999),66.

II5
II6 Notes Notes II7

Chapter 3 29. Franz Kafka, The Diaries of Franz Kafka, vol. 2, ed. M. Brod
1. Franz Kafka, The li-ial, traos. B. Mitehell (New York' Seh k (New York: Schocken, I949), 202.
1998),3. . oc en,
30. [bid., 202-3·
2. Davide Stimilli, "Kaflds Shorthand " 31. [bid., zr8-I 9·
at rhe Warburg Institute in 1 d M' a conference paper deIivered 32 . Kafka, The Castle, 59: "The boundarie, of our ,mal! holdings have
,011 on, ay 20 2006
3· Kafka, The n-ial, 14: "1 can't re P on d~ " been markcd out, everyrhing has bcen duly registcred."
anyrhing, or more accurately 1 dan'r k 'far YOhuve beco accused of 33. [sidore of Seville, The Etymologies of Isidore ofSeville, ed. S. A.
'd , n o w 1 you ave."
4. ¡b 1 ,,224. Barney and W. J. Lewis (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
5· Franz Kafka, The Crea! %11 ofCh' d . 2007), 3II.
Muir and E. Muir (Lo d . M S I m a an Other heces, transo W.
6 Kafk T'. Ti.!,n on. . ee <er, 1933), 245-46. 34. [bid.
. a, 10C na 213. 35. [bid., 17 2.
7· ¡bid., 94-
25 . Kafka ,Th
1998. ),Franz e
e as!le, transo M. Harman (New York: Schocken,
8 2 Chapter 4
1. Manfredo Tafuri, "Le forme del tcmpo: Venezia e la moderniú,"
9· Kafka, The Tria!, 106.
in Uníversita IUAV di Venezia, lnaugurazioni accademiche, 1991-2006
10. Franz Kafka, Dearest Father- Stories a d O ¡ ..
Kaiser and E. Wilkins (N Yc .k. S· h n t Jer Wrttmgs, transo E. (Veniee: [UAV, 2006).
ew 01 . e ocken, 1954) 308 2. S0ren Kierkegaard, Works o[ Love, transo H. V. Hong (Princeton,
11. Franz Kafka, Letters fo Milena t· p:' .
Sehoeken, 1990), 4- 5. ' tans. . Boehm (New York: NJ: Ptineeton University Pres" 1995), 35 8.
21 1
12. ¡bid., 201.
13· ¡bid., I98. Chapter 5
14· Franz Kafka, The Complete Stories ed 1. Translators' note: We follow here Daniel Heller-Roazen's more pre-
Sehoeken, I9 ), I5 . ' . N. Glatzer (New York:
88 6 cise but less natural renditions of potenza as "potentiality" and impotenza
I5· ¡bid.,150. as "impotentiality," though it is helpful to bear in mind the simpler no-
IG. ¡bid., I45. tions of"power" and "powerlessness."
17· [bid., 165.
18. Kafka, The Tria!, 2Z6.
19· [bid., 230. Chapter 6
20. [bid. 1. Epictetus, The Handbook, transo N. P. White (Indianapolis: Hack-
21. [bid., 213. ctt, I983), 16.
2. Epicterus, The Discourses, transo R. Dobbin (London: Penguin,
22. Kafka, Dearest Father, 87.
23· Kafka, The Tria!, 2I5. 2008),7 2 .
3. Translators' note: Although Daniel Heller-Roazen's rendering of
24- [bid., 215, 2I7.
nuda vita as "bare Jife" is certainly warrantable, we transIare it hereafter
25· [bid., 216.
as "naked lífe" for reasons that the next chapter will make dear.
' ifi Hyginus Gromaticus , l"De
26. ml'I t"b .
I us constltuend' ". D'
SclJn en der romíschen Feldmesser, vo I 1 ed F BI L hIn te
K ¡S,
and A. Rudorff (Berlin' GR' 8 . )' . . ume, . ae mann,
, . Clmer, 1 48 166 Chapter 7
27· Kafka, The Castle, 8. ,. 1. Erik Peterson, "Theology of Clothes," Selection, vol. 2, ed. C. Hast-
28. [bid., 4. ing' and D. Nieholl (Landon: Sheed and Watd, 1954), 54-55·
1I8
Notes Notes 1I9
2. Ibid., 56.
3· Ibid., 55. 26. Aviccnna, Lt'b er ae
-' annn
. a'} seu, Sextus de naturalibus, vol. 1, ed. S.

van Riet (Louvain: Peeters~ 197 ), ~4-95'd lateinischen Werke: Die latein-
4· Ibid., 57-58. 2

5· Saim Jerome, Episrle 64.19; sce ]onathan Z. Smith, "The Garments 27· Meister Eckhart, Dle deutsc en uhn . 1994) 4 5- (Latin
' . W . Ko lh amme!,
ischen Werke, va 1. 3 (S tuttgart. , 2 26
ofShame," in Map ls Not Territory (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 17.
6. Saint Augustine, The City ofCod against the Pagans, ed. R. W Dy- Sermon 49)· . . Loss 1<y, TI'é l . é(7'ative et connaissance de Dieu
28 Sec Vladlmu 1 rJ o ogle n e,

IE9713),II7An~63"!'r'!es
son (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Ptess, 1998), 5.
61
7· 2 Timothy 1:9; Saint Augustine, Christian lnstruction, in The Fa- chez Maltre Eckhart (Paris: J. Vrin, " in Se/eeted Writ-
. . "G the's" ectLve fl 1
Benpm:~, a~~ W.
,
thers of the Chureh: Augustine, vol. 4, transo J. J. Gavigan (New York: 29·vol.
Walter k M. Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Har-
CIMA, 1947), 159. ings, 1, ed. M. Bu oc
vard University Press, 2004), 351.
8. Peterson, "Theology of Clothes," 56-57.
30. [bid.
9· "The gracc of God is nothing at aH execpt our own narure with
JI. ¡bid., 353.
free will" (Sainr Augustine, Foul' Anti-Pe!agian WJ'itings, transo J. A.
2
Mourant and W J. Collinge [W"hington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 1992], 154).
3 . ¡bid., 355.. . "
33· Walter Ben¡am1l1, May-
d M . W . Jenn1l1gs, H. E!land, an
2, e.
¡
June 1 31 " Seleeted Writings, vol. 2, part
G' Smirh (Cambridge, MA: Har-
.
ro. Saint Augustine, The City 01 Cod against the Pagam, 5.
n. [bid., 617. 61 8o
vard Universiry Prcss, 2005), 4 .. CL . Ph sicae ed. P. Lucentini
12. [bid., 624-26. Honorius Augustoduoensls, avlS. y '.
3+ . 1 974) !llustratlOn 1.
13· [bid., 626-27. (Rome: Ediziooi di sto na e etterat~ra,~ xi~s and Reflections, transo E.
14· Ibid., 629. 35. Johann Wolfgang van Goet le, a
SIOpp (London: Penguin, 1998), 29·
1). The Gospef Accordíng to Thomas, transo A. Guillaumont ct al.
(Leiden: Brill, 20or), 23.
16. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, "Mystagogical Lectures," in The 117o,,.s of
Saint Cyri! offemsalem, vol. 2, tlans. L. P. McCauley and A. A. Slephenson Chapter 8 Thomas Aqumas,
1. Saiot . Summa Theologica, 5 vols. (Westminsrer,
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1970), 161-62. MD: Christian Classics, 1981), p887·
17· Theodore of Mopsuestia; quoted in Smith, "The Garments of 2. [bid.
Shame," 19.
3. ¡bid., 2897.
18. Quored in Smith, "The Garments ofShame," 17. + ¡bid., 2899.
19· Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Eísay 5. ¡bid., 2906.
on Ont%gy, transo H. E. Barnes (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 6. ¡bid., 2907.
506.
7. [bid., 2891-92.
20. ¡bid., 519.
21. [bid., 520. 8. [bid., 2882. r' Id Kanutten (Bremen: Wassmann,
9. Alfred Sohn-Rethel, Das wea es r
22. [bid., 519-20.
990
23· [bid., 525. 1 ViruS d e B'lOgl'le, D e fine ultimo humanae vitae (Paris: Beauchesne
ro.)..
24· Pentateuch with Rashis Commentary: Genesis, ed. A. M. Silber- et ses fils, 1948), 285.
mann (Jerusalem: Rourledge, 1973), 13. 11. ¡bid., 293-9+
25· Saillt Augustine, "The Literal Meaning of Genesis," in On Gen-
esis, lrans. E. HiIl (New York: New Ciry Press, 2002), 39 6-97.
120 Notes

Chapter 9
I. Translators' note: The !talian flsta encompasses a broader semantic Credits
field thao aoy of the comparable Eoglish terms: ftast, ftstiva4 holiday,
part)!, ar celebratíon. In (his contextfoastshould brÍng to mind a periodic
and ritualistic celebration rather rhan a sumpruous meal.
2. Philo, "00 the Cherubim," in Phi/o, voL 2, transo F. H. Colson
aod G. H. Whitaker (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uoivcrsity Press, 1929),
6r.
3. TransIarars' note: The commandmcnt, "Remember rhe Sabbath
day, ro keep ir holy" (Exod. 20:8), is rendered in ¡ts mnemonic Italian
version as "Ricordari di santificare le feste."
+ Plutarch, MOl'alia, vol. 8, traos. P. A. Clemeot and H. B. Hoffleit
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uoiversity Press, r969), 495-97.
5· Cenesis Rabbah: The judaic Commentdly to the Book ofCenesis: A 6 VB 43 Gagosian Gallery,
Vanessa Beecroft, VB43· o 9· re , f Gil'
New American Translation, vol. r, transo J. Neusner (Adama: Scholars London. © 2009 Vanessa Beecroft, Courtesy o a erIa
Press, 1985), I07. Lia Rumma & Massimo Minini
6. The Zohar, vol. 4, transo D. C. Matt (Staoford, CA: Staoford Uoi-
versity Press, 2007), 504. Fl CI iesa di Santa Maria del Cannine, Cap pella
orence,. M' l' o Aclaro and Eve in Earthly Paradise,
7. The Talmud ofBabylonia: An Academic Commentmy, vol. !, trans.]. BrancaCCl aso ln , . . .
Neusoer (Adanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 338. affresco. With rhe permission of the ServJZ10 Musel
8. Hebrew-English Edition 01 the Babylollian Talmu¿' Megillah, traos. Comunali.
M. Simon (London: Soncino, 1984), 9a.
From: The Art 01MedievalSpain, AD 500-1200, The
9· Ludan, "The Dance," in Lucían, vol. 5, transo A. M. Harmon p.6¡
(Cambtidge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), 229. Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y. I993·
10. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Introduction to the Works of Mareel Mauss,
Expulsion ¡mm Paradise, Masaie in rhe, Cattedrale
transo E Bajer (Loodon: Routledge, 1987), 64. p.63
di Monreale, Palerma, Italy, WikimedJa Commons,
anonymous photographer.
d VB 7 Peggy Guggenheim
p. 66 Vanessa Beecroft, VB47·34I. r, 4 f
. "e¡,ice. © 2009 Vanessa Beecroft, Courtesy o
C o IIecuon, v' ..
Galleria Lia Rumma & Massimo MiDlnl

f rhe Museum of Natural History, University

pp. 7 6-77 C ourtesyo ' 1 B b'-Museo di Storia
of Florence, Photo credlt: Sau o am 1
Naturale/Firenze

The Helmut Newton Estate / TDR

pp. 78-79
From Marbacher Magazine 55, 199 0
p. 86
I2I
MERIDIAN

Crossing Aesthetics

Hans Blumenberg, Care Crosses the River

Bernard Stiegler, Taking Care ofYouth and the Generations
Ruth Stein, For Lave 01the Father: A Psychoanalytic Study 01Religious
Terrorism
Giorgio Agamben, "What is an Apparatus?" and Other Essays

Rodolphe Gasché, Europe, or the ¡njinite Task: A Study ola

Philosophical Concept
Bcrnard Stiegler, Tec/mies and Time, 2: Disorientation

Bernard Stiegler, Acting Out

Susan Bernstein, Housing Problems: Writing and Architecture in Goethe,
Walpole, Freud, and Heidegger
Martin Hagglund, Radical Atheism: Derrida and the Time 01 Lijé

Camelia Vismann, Files: Law and Media Technology

]ean-Lue Nancy, Discourse 01the Syncope: Logodaedalus
Carol Jacobs, Skirting the Ethical: Sophocles, Plato, Hamann, Sebald,
Campian
Cornelius Castoriadis, Figures 01the Thinkable
Jacques Derrida, Psyche: Inventions ofthe Otha, 2 volumes, edited by
Peggy Kamuf and Elizabeth Rottenberg
Jean Genet, Fragments ofthe AJ'twork
Mar~ Sanders, Ambiguities ofWimessing: Literature and Law in the
Tune ofa Truth Commission Shoshana Felman, The Scandal ofthe Speaking Body: Don Juan with

Sarah Kofman, The Sarah Kofman Reade/; edired by Thomas

J L. Austín, or Seduction in Two Languages
Albrechr, w!rh Georg!a Albert and EI¡zaberh Rottenberg Peter Szondi, Celan Studies
Susannah Young-ah Goctlieb, ed. Hannah Arendt~· Reflections Neil Hertz, George El;ot's Pulse
on Literature and Culture
Maurice Blanchot, The Book to Come
Alan Bass, Interpretatíon and Díffirence: The Strangeness ofCare
Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb, Regions ofSorrow: Anxiety and
Jacques Derrida, H. C. flr Lifé, That!s to Say . .. Messianism in Hannah Arendt and W H. Auden
Ernsc Bloch, Traces Jaeques Derrida, WithoutAlibi, edired by Peggy Kamuf
Elízabeth Rottenberg, Inheriting the Future: Legacies ofKant Freud Cornelius Castoriadis, On Platos 'Statesman'
and Hzubert ' ,
Jaeques Derrida, Whos Afraid ofPhilosophy' Right to Philosophy I
David Michael Kleinberg-Levin, Gestures ofBhical Lifé
Peter Szondi, An Essay on the Tragic
Jacques Derrida, On Touching-Jean-Luc Nancy
Peter Fenves, Arrestíng Language: From Leibniz to Benjamin
Jacques Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason
JiU Robbins, ed. 15 It Righteous to Be?: Interviews with Emmanuel
Peggy Kamuf, Book ofAddresses Levinas
Giorgio Agamben, The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Louis Marin, Of Representation
Letter to the Romans
Daniel Payor, The Architect and the Philosopher
Jean-Lue Naney, Muüiple Arts: The Muses ¡¡
J. Hillis Miller, Speech Acts in Literature
Alain Badiou, Handbook ofInaesthetics
Maurice Blanchor, Faux pas
Jaeques Derrida, Eyes ofthe University: Right to Philosophy 2
Jean-Luc Nancy, BeÍllg Singular Plural
Maurice Blanchor, Lautréamont and Sade
Mauriee Blanehor I Jaeques Derrida, The Instant ofMy Death /
Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal Demeure: Fiction and Testimony
Jean Gener, The Declared Enemy Nildas Luhmann, Al't as a Social System
Shosana Felman, Wríting and Madness: (Literature/Phílosophy/ Emmanual Levinas, Cod, Death, and Time
Psychoanalysis)
Ernst Bloeh, The Spirit of Utopia
1

Giorgio Agamben, Potentíalities: Cofleeted Essays in Philosophy

the Practiee ofthe Letter
Ellen S. Burt, Poetrys Appeal· Freneh Níneteenth-Century Lyrie and the Serge Leclaire, A Child Is Being Killed' On himary Narcissism
Polítical Space
and the Death Drive
]acques Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas
Sigmund Freud, Writings on Art and Literature
Werner Hamacher, Premises: Essays on Philosophy and Literature Cornelius Casroriadis, World in Fragments: Writings on Potities, Society,
ftom Kant to Celan
Psychoanalysís, and the Imagination
Aris Fioreros, The Gray Book
Thomas Keenan, Fables ofResponsibility: Aberrations and Predieaments
Deborah Esch, In the Event: Reading Journalism, Reading Theory ín Ethícs and Politics
Winfried Menninghaus, In Praise ofNonsense: Kant and Bluebeard Emmanuel Levinas, Proper Names
Giorgio Agamben, The Man Without Content Alexander García Düttmann, At Odds with AIDS: Thínking and
Talking About a Virus
Giorgio Agamben, The End ofthe Poem: Studies in Poetics
Mauriee Blanchot, fríendshíp
Theodor W. Adorno, Sound Figures
]ean-Lue Nancy, The Muses
Louis Marin, Sublime Poussin
Massímo Caeciari, Posthumous People: Vienna at the Turning Point
Philippe Laeoue-Labarthe, Poetry as Experience
David E. Wellbery, The Specular Moment: Goethes Early Lyric and the
Ernst Bloeh, Literary Essays
Beginnings of Romanticism
]aeques Derrida, Resistances ofPsyehoanalysis
Edmond Jabes, The Little Book of Unsuspected Subversion
Mare Froment-Meuriee, That Is to Say: Heideggers Poeties
Hans-Josr Frey, Studies in Poetie Discourse: Mallarmé, Baudelaire,
Francis Ponge, Soap Rimbaud, Holderlin
Philippe Lacoue-Labarrhe, Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules ofArt: Genesis and Stnlcture ofthe Literary
Field
Gíorgio Agamben, Homo Saeer: Sovereign. Power and Bare Lifo
Nieolas Abraham, Rhythms: 012 the Work, Translation, alld
Emmanuel Levinas, OfCod Who Comes to Mind
Psychoanalysís
Bernard Stiegler, Technies and Time, I: The Fault ofEpimetheus
]aeques Derrida, On the Name
Werner Hamacher, pleroma-Reading in Hegel
David Wills, Prosthesís
Serge Leclaire, Psychoanalyzing: On the Order ofthe Uneonscíous and
Maurice Blanchor, The Work ofFire
]aeques Derrida, Poínts . .. : lnterviews, 1974-I994
J. Hillis Miller, Topographies
Philippe Lacoue-Labarrhe, Musiea Fieta (Figures ofWagner)

Jacques Derrida, Aporias

Emmanuel Levinas, Outsíde the Subject

]ean-Frans:ois Lyotard, Lessons Oil the Analytic ofthe Sublime

Peter Fenves, "Chatter'~· Language and History in Kierkegaard

]ean-Lue Nancy, The Experience ofFreedom

Jean-Joseph Goux, Oedipus, Philosopher

Hallo Saussy, The Problem ola Chinese Aesthetic
lean-Lue Nancy, The Birth to Presence
,.