University of Chicago Press, 2006 eISBN: 978-0-226-73505-4 | Cloth: 978-0-226-73502-3 | Paper: 978-0-226-73503-0 Library of Congress Classification PT2681.E18Z84 2006 Dewey Decimal Classification 833.914
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
In his Duino Elegies, Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that animals enjoy direct access to a realm of being—the open—concealed from humans by the workings of consciousness and self-consciousness. In his own reading of Rilke, Martin Heidegger reclaims the open as the proper domain of human existence but suggests that human life remains haunted by vestiges of an animal-like relation to its surroundings. Walter Benjamin, in turn, was to show that such vestiges—what Eric Santner calls the creaturely—have a biopolitical aspect: they are linked to the processes that inscribe life in the realm of power and authority.
Santner traces this theme of creaturely life from its poetic and philosophical beginnings in the first half of the twentieth century to the writings of the enigmatic German novelist W. G. Sebald. Sebald’s entire oeuvre, Santner argues, can be seen as an archive of creaturely life. For Sebald, the work on such an archive was inseparable from his understanding of what it means to engage ethically with another person’s history and pain, an engagement that transforms us from indifferent individuals into neighbors.
An indispensable book for students of Sebald, On Creaturely Life is also a significant contribution to critical theory.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Eric L. Santner is the Philip and Ida Romberg Professor in Modern Germanic Studies, professor of Germanic studies, and a member of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, most recently On Creaturely Life: Rilke, Benjamin, Sebald, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
REVIEWS
"Santner has many interesting things to say, and works ingeniously to bring this broad range of interests under the single umbrella of the 'creaturely'. . . . A challenging but rewarding attempt to explore the intersection between aesthetic and ethico-political strategies in both Sebald and twentieth-century thought in general."
— Ben Hutchinson, MLR
On Creaturely Life will likely be read by those who have read Agamben's Homo Sacer and The State of Exception. . . . But I would argue, however, that Santner's book invites a much wider readership. The concerns of the creature presented here open onto other areas of interest, including the extensive and diverse writings on 'animality' and contemporary philosophy's engagement with religion . . . as well as the ways in which contemporary art engages the life sciences."
— Eugene Thacker, Leonardo
"A sustained meditation on the nature of the 'human,' the relationship between life and the political, and the possibility of ethical relations in a posthuman world in which life finds itself subjected to particular forms of violence in the political domain. As such, it will be indispensable reading for both Sebald scholars and those intrerested in contemporary critical theory."
— Markus Zisselsberger, German Studies Review
"An admirable critical accomplishment, [the book] reveals Santner as a master choreographerof ideas central to the tradition of German (not just German-Jewish) modernism."
— Richard T. Gray, MLQ
"A critical masterpiece, which conceives of itself as an ethico-political intervention on the scene of contemporary cultural and literary criticism, a scene that is defined by a complex configuration of diverse material. . . . On Creaturely Life steps on this scene with a fascinating configuration of its own, one that draws upon and draws into proximity a number of famous texts from the German-Jewish tradtion of the first half of the 20th century."
— Volker Kaiser, Monatsheft
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editions of Sebald's Works
Preface
1. On Creaturely Life
2. The Vicissitudes of Melancholy
3. Toward a Natural History of the Present
4. On the Sexual Life of Creatures and Other Matters
Epilogue
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
University of Chicago Press, 2006 eISBN: 978-0-226-73505-4 Cloth: 978-0-226-73502-3 Paper: 978-0-226-73503-0
In his Duino Elegies, Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that animals enjoy direct access to a realm of being—the open—concealed from humans by the workings of consciousness and self-consciousness. In his own reading of Rilke, Martin Heidegger reclaims the open as the proper domain of human existence but suggests that human life remains haunted by vestiges of an animal-like relation to its surroundings. Walter Benjamin, in turn, was to show that such vestiges—what Eric Santner calls the creaturely—have a biopolitical aspect: they are linked to the processes that inscribe life in the realm of power and authority.
Santner traces this theme of creaturely life from its poetic and philosophical beginnings in the first half of the twentieth century to the writings of the enigmatic German novelist W. G. Sebald. Sebald’s entire oeuvre, Santner argues, can be seen as an archive of creaturely life. For Sebald, the work on such an archive was inseparable from his understanding of what it means to engage ethically with another person’s history and pain, an engagement that transforms us from indifferent individuals into neighbors.
An indispensable book for students of Sebald, On Creaturely Life is also a significant contribution to critical theory.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Eric L. Santner is the Philip and Ida Romberg Professor in Modern Germanic Studies, professor of Germanic studies, and a member of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, most recently On Creaturely Life: Rilke, Benjamin, Sebald, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
REVIEWS
"Santner has many interesting things to say, and works ingeniously to bring this broad range of interests under the single umbrella of the 'creaturely'. . . . A challenging but rewarding attempt to explore the intersection between aesthetic and ethico-political strategies in both Sebald and twentieth-century thought in general."
— Ben Hutchinson, MLR
On Creaturely Life will likely be read by those who have read Agamben's Homo Sacer and The State of Exception. . . . But I would argue, however, that Santner's book invites a much wider readership. The concerns of the creature presented here open onto other areas of interest, including the extensive and diverse writings on 'animality' and contemporary philosophy's engagement with religion . . . as well as the ways in which contemporary art engages the life sciences."
— Eugene Thacker, Leonardo
"A sustained meditation on the nature of the 'human,' the relationship between life and the political, and the possibility of ethical relations in a posthuman world in which life finds itself subjected to particular forms of violence in the political domain. As such, it will be indispensable reading for both Sebald scholars and those intrerested in contemporary critical theory."
— Markus Zisselsberger, German Studies Review
"An admirable critical accomplishment, [the book] reveals Santner as a master choreographerof ideas central to the tradition of German (not just German-Jewish) modernism."
— Richard T. Gray, MLQ
"A critical masterpiece, which conceives of itself as an ethico-political intervention on the scene of contemporary cultural and literary criticism, a scene that is defined by a complex configuration of diverse material. . . . On Creaturely Life steps on this scene with a fascinating configuration of its own, one that draws upon and draws into proximity a number of famous texts from the German-Jewish tradtion of the first half of the 20th century."
— Volker Kaiser, Monatsheft
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editions of Sebald's Works
Preface
1. On Creaturely Life
2. The Vicissitudes of Melancholy
3. Toward a Natural History of the Present
4. On the Sexual Life of Creatures and Other Matters
Epilogue
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE