Avital Ronell. About Idiocy. 2008 1/10

http://www.egs.edu/ Avital Ronnell, talking about the idiocy, the realm of the idiot, retardation, christianity, theological history, fundamentalism, fools for christ, transcendental idiots, lunatics, maniacs, otherness, dasein, reasonable, man, transhuman, overestimation, economy, violence, and stupidity, referring to Kaspar Hauser, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Emmanuel Levinas, Edmund Husserl, Stanisław Lem, Thomas Bernhard and Karl Marx. Free public open video lecture session given at the European Graduate School, Media and Communication Studies Department Program in 2000. EGS, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe. Avital Ronell 2008

Avital Ronell is Professor of German, comparative literature, and English at New York University, where she directs the Research in Trauma and Violence project. She is a member of the faculty of the European Graduate School, interested in Literary and other discourses, feminism, philosophy, technology and media, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, performance art, and has also written as a literary critic, a feminist, and philosopher.

Avital Ronell was born in Prague to Israeli diplomats and was a performance artist before entering academia. She received a B.A. in 1974 from Middlebury, studied with Jacob Taubes at the Hermeneutic Institute at the Free University of Berlin, received her Ph.D. under the advisement of Stanley Corngold at Princeton University in 1979. Avital Ronell taught at the University of California at Berkeley from 1984-1995 and at New York University from 1995 to the present. She served as Chair of the Department of German from Spring 1997 to Spring 2005. She taught an annual seminar in Literature & Philosophy at NYU with Professor Jacques Derrida and has taught with Professor Helene Cixous at Université of Paris VIII. She regularly teaches at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland and in Mexico. She was invited by the Humanities Council to offer a seminar at Princeton University in spring 2006.

Avital Ronell has produced English translations of Derrida's work.Her books and works include: The Uber Reader: Selected Works of Avital Ronell Ed. Diane Davis. 2006; 2005 The Test Drive, 2001 Stupidity, 1998 Finitude's Score Essays for the End of the Millennium , 1993 Crack Wars: Literature, Addiction, Mania, 1993 Dictations: On Haunted Writing, 1989 Telephone Book Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech, 1989 The Ear of the Other, trans., Jacques Derrida, and Dictations: On Haunted Writing 1986.

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• Avital
• Ronnell
• idiocy
• idiot
• retardation
• christianity
• theological
• history
• fundamentalism
• fools
• transcendental
• idiots
• lunatics
• maniacs
• otherness
• dasein
• reasonable
• man
• transhuman
• overestimation
• economy
• violence
• stupidity
• European
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[garthhudson]

To call clarity "right-wing" is giving way too much credit to the "right-wing."

"When the content of one's interrogation veers toward the unintelligible/unthinkable, it only seems fitting for the form to follow suit."

Very well, but this was all done much better hundreds of years ago by people like Nicholas of Cusa and Valentinus. Now it's feedback loops in a University cocoon. Still, this intellectual fad will pass like all the others. They play right into "right-wing" hands. Navel-gazing.

[garthhudson]

"I am prompted by Husserl to disturb the serenity of the historically-consistent overestimation of mathemes by means of suppressing necessary and constitutive cognitive power failures."

Is this woman an Andy Kaufman-like performance artist parodying the empty jargon and faux-profundity of post-modern academics?

[LewisMKster]

@garthhudson In a word, Yes. She got her start in performance art.

[robespierreyt]

"i wish you an unprecedented struggle wth genuine thought" haha!!! thanks Avital

[Krelianx]

You are giving him too much credit. She is not 'having fun' with prose, as if the point was some purposeless pyrotechnical game with words and references. If you understand the jargon then it is quite straightforward; Ronell is not Brassier, her theory is rather standard post-Derridean deconstruction, and not particularly difficult once you know the basic operations and understand the references. Now, understanding her references: Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida; that's a challenge for thought!

[kenzaburo]

Power Point!!! Keep it simple!

[kchamps]

love this woman.

[ElishaTexas]

Excellent!

I've never understood why densely written thought causes people to give up. For me, every turn of phrase I don't understand is a jumping off point for new discoveries. If I wanted something handed to me on a plate, I'd go to Denny's.

[robespierreyt]

But then her audience is limited to the few academics who share that jargon...they can entertain each other with these lectures but they cannot expect to convince the world of anything they say. For a far-reaching non-obscure philosopher try Schopenhauer.

[languagevirus]

Despite my earlier comment about the unintelligable, I really fail to see how this lecture in particular is obscure. If you understand the references she's making (that is, if you are to be considered part of her 'audience' -- if that word still retains any kind of meaning), then you'll understand. If not, then you won't.

[robespierreyt]

have fun with the prose? I thought she was trying to give a lecture...any honest lecturer would make every effort to keep the wording understandable for the audience...otherwise, it becomes(is) obscure

[languagevirus]

To be honest, I don't see anything wrong with it. I mean, if she presented herself as a philosopher doing work with propositional calculus, or as some kind of working-class intellectual, I'd think it inappropriate to use such an obscure delivery.

But since her work mainly falls within the realm of literary criticism, why not have fun with the prose? (Btw, Cusa's Ignorantia is a great work!)