Bookbot

The Body of This Death

Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS

Maggiori informazioni sul libro

Examining the AIDS pandemic and Japanese A-bomb literature, this book asks the question of how the experience of unimaginable and unrepresentable loss affects the experience and constitution of the social and the discourses of history. It argues that those objects which are presumptively given to thought under the rubrics of “AIDS” and “Hiroshima/Nagasaki” pose an essential threat, in their existentiality, to conceptual thought and, ultimately, to rationality altogether. It therefore argues that any serious thinking about AIDS and nuclear terror must think the essential insufficiency of thought to its putative objects—the insufficiency of “society” to think sociality, the insufficiency of “history” to think historicity. The author first attempts to think the incapacity of every invocation of historical consciousness (or, indeed, of “history” itself) to think the existential historicity of that event which is presumptively not only its object but its ground. Readings of works by Nishida Kitaro, Ota Yoko, and Takenishi Hiroko written in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki attempt to mark the limit of historical consciousness. The author then considers erotic sociality in the time of AIDS, specifically as articulated in texts by David Wojnarowicz, focusing on the themes of vulnerability, anonymity, the erotic, and nomadism.

Acquisto del libro

The Body of This Death, William Wendell Haver

Lingua
Pubblicato
1996
product-detail.submit-box.info.binding
(Copertina rigida),
Condizioni del libro
Danneggiato
Prezzo
9,20 €

Metodi di pagamento

Titolo
The Body of This Death
Sottotitolo
Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS
Lingua
Inglese
Pubblicato
1996
Formato
Copertina rigida
Pagine
244
ISBN10
0804727163
ISBN13
9780804727167
Serie
Descrizione
Examining the AIDS pandemic and Japanese A-bomb literature, this book asks the question of how the experience of unimaginable and unrepresentable loss affects the experience and constitution of the social and the discourses of history. It argues that those objects which are presumptively given to thought under the rubrics of “AIDS” and “Hiroshima/Nagasaki” pose an essential threat, in their existentiality, to conceptual thought and, ultimately, to rationality altogether. It therefore argues that any serious thinking about AIDS and nuclear terror must think the essential insufficiency of thought to its putative objects—the insufficiency of “society” to think sociality, the insufficiency of “history” to think historicity. The author first attempts to think the incapacity of every invocation of historical consciousness (or, indeed, of “history” itself) to think the existential historicity of that event which is presumptively not only its object but its ground. Readings of works by Nishida Kitaro, Ota Yoko, and Takenishi Hiroko written in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki attempt to mark the limit of historical consciousness. The author then considers erotic sociality in the time of AIDS, specifically as articulated in texts by David Wojnarowicz, focusing on the themes of vulnerability, anonymity, the erotic, and nomadism.