Narrative Identification
-
Vladimir Biti
Narrative is usually considered as one of the most established forms of mediation between the self and community. The point of departure for a closer examination of this common truth will here be the provocative thesis put forth by the Italian philosopher Adriana Cavarero in her recent book Tu che mi guardi, tu che mi racconti (1997; Relating Narratives according to the English edition of 2000). Pointing out narrative's dyadic ethic instead of its triadic social connection, she represents it as a scene of exposition of myself to the other: inasmuch as I am not the master of my own life-story, and inasmuch as I cannot find out who I am without it, I am constitutively dependent on You, who is the only being able to narrate it to me. Cavarero thus displaces the classical subject in favor of a narratable self that exists in a permanent need of a supplementary other. Without that unique other my ethical uniqueness (who I am) gets reduced to my social substitutability (what I am). The present study compares Cavarero's account, which relies on Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas, with that of Judith Butler, which is closer to the thought of Michel Foucault. Butler insists on an anonymous linguistic structure that imposes the third-person perspective upon a subject that is willing to give an account of itself.
© Copyright 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction. Identity, Community, and Comparative Literature
- Cosmopolitanism and Identity: Challenges for Comparative Literature
- Narrative Identification
- The Formative Influence of Literature. Analogical Thinking, Statements, and Identification
- Grillparzer's “The Poor Musician”: The Artist-Hermit in Search of a Community
- The Apocatastasis of Community in Late Burroughs
- The Condition of “East Asia” Discourse. Theory and Practice of De-homogenization
- First Nations Identity, Contemporary Interpretive Communities, and Nomadic Legacies
- Conditions of Identity in Writing or: about a Genocide
- (Mis)taken Identities. Myths of Origin in a South African Familienroman
- Aufklärerische Metaphysik. Walter Benjamin zu Nikolaj Lesskov und Johann Peter Hebel
- Krieg und Gartenpartys. Oberflächen des Politischen bei Rainer Maria Rilke
- Rezensionen
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction. Identity, Community, and Comparative Literature
- Cosmopolitanism and Identity: Challenges for Comparative Literature
- Narrative Identification
- The Formative Influence of Literature. Analogical Thinking, Statements, and Identification
- Grillparzer's “The Poor Musician”: The Artist-Hermit in Search of a Community
- The Apocatastasis of Community in Late Burroughs
- The Condition of “East Asia” Discourse. Theory and Practice of De-homogenization
- First Nations Identity, Contemporary Interpretive Communities, and Nomadic Legacies
- Conditions of Identity in Writing or: about a Genocide
- (Mis)taken Identities. Myths of Origin in a South African Familienroman
- Aufklärerische Metaphysik. Walter Benjamin zu Nikolaj Lesskov und Johann Peter Hebel
- Krieg und Gartenpartys. Oberflächen des Politischen bei Rainer Maria Rilke
- Rezensionen
