Like many people, I choose what I read selectively. While I often read fiction that speaks to my lifeworld, I sometimes pick up a novel that challenges my life and tests my boundaries. But what really drives me to these texts is a kind of vicarious curiosity. What, I wonder, would it be like if […]
After speaking about pride, power, and “striving to be the best,” George Bataille – in his book Inner Experience – basically gives up and surrenders to childishness. As I have pointed out before, Bataille goes against the grain – as he usually does – and praises childhood as a form of redemption or “deliverance” from the game […]
The schlemiel is a man-child. The character presupposes a man who has not grown up or a child who has not matured to become a man. The schlemiel lives in the world of people but is in his own world because he doesn’t know how to live in that world. He lives in a […]
What does it mean to make “a fool out of oneself” or to act “childish?” Both terms suggest that imitating a child or acting like a fool is shameful. Now, imagine that the very thing that society despises most is designated as a spiritual practice. In our last blog entry, we pointed out that Georges […]
Abish is, for me – and several others like John Updike, Harold Bloom, et al, – one of the greatest fiction writers in America in the 20th century…that (not) many people knew about. He is a writer for writers, for those of us who love language. In a truly Derridian sense, Abish was a master […]
Shalom Auslander’s short story, “Somebody Up There Likes You” (in his Beware of God short story collection) opens up a comical side to negative theology and literally turns it inside out. This fictional foray into two realities, one of a schlemiel character (Bloom) who thinks he is saved by God, contrasted with the portrayal of […]
These days one cannot watch a comedian or see a comic show or film without coming across a punch line that doesn’t include an awkward reply or gesture. Many a comedian seems to be telling us that in most of our encounters there is an awkwardness that we find both endearing and terrifying. The fact […]
Nietzsche was obsessed with the relationship of the body to thought. And whenever he articulated his reading of the body, he always made sure to put it forth in what Peter Sloterdijk (winking at Diogenes) called a “cheeky” manner. He looked to offend and this gesture, for Nietzsche, was healthy. In the beginning of his […]
What can we learn from madness? And what does it imply when thinkers, writers, or artists suggest that we go mad or look to the mad for truth or insight? Many Continental writers, artists, and thinkers have found madness a source of thought and reflecting. Think of Antonin Artaud, Friedrich Nietzsche, or George Bataille. Think […]
I always felt like I was born a generation too late. My reception of 60s and 70s radicalism was, if anything, belated. It was the legacy of my parent’s and uncle’s generation. My generation was certainly affected by it but it didn’t “transform” us as it did them. To be sure, as an American growing […]
Schlemiel Theory 