The event of interpellation

an aesth-ethic reading of Rilke

Authors

  • Dror Pimentel Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59391/inscriptions.v5i1.143

Keywords:

Rilke, interpellation, event, ethics, alterity

Abstract

Contrary to Levinas, the event of hospitality does not take place in the face of the other, but rather, in the work of art. Art should therefore not be viewed as provoking pleasure, but rather, as an event of hospitality of radical alterity possessing the power to shake the foundation of its viewers. This is what endows art with an ethical dimension, articulated in re-inscribing aesthetics as “aesth-ethics.” Rilke’s poem “Archaic Torso of Apollo” is as a perfect example of this claim. The statue is teeming with life and sexuality, from which a gaze bursts out, shaking the viewer’s existence by calling him to change his life. As Althusser’s analysis of interpellation shows, the subject is constituted from a call coming from the outside. However, in Rilke’s case, the call does not originate from the Big Other, regulating the order, but from radical alterity residing outside the order.

Author Biography

Dror Pimentel, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem

Prof. Dror Pimentel teaches at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem. Among his areas of expertise are continental philosophy, phenomenology, aesthetics and semiotics. Among his publications: The Dream of Purity: Heidegger with Derrida (Magnes Press, 2009 [Hebrew]); Aesthetics (Bialik Institute, 2014 [Hebrew]; Heidegger and Derrida: Being Written (Palgrave Macmillan NY, 2019). He recently translated to Hebrew Heidegger’s Letter on ‘Humanism’ (Magnes Press, 2018).

References

Althusser, Louis. “On Ideology.” In On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, translated by G. M. Goshgarian, 171–208. New York: Verso, 2014.

Man, Paul de. Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.

Heidegger, Martin. “The origin of the work of art.” In Basic Writings, edited by David F. Krell, 139–212. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.

Rilke, Rainer Maria. “Archaischer Torso Apollos.” In Neue Gedichte, S. 83. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel Verlag, 1907/8.

Downloads

Published

2022-01-15

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2022): Being and event

Section

Academic articles

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Dror Pimentel

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors who submit manuscripts and publish with Inscriptions retain copyright to their original work and agree to the following terms:

  • Inscriptions is granted the right to first publish the work under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License unless otherwise agreed in writing prior to publication;
  • Inscriptions and its publisher Tankebanen forlag is granted the right to produce and reproduce the work in any form, printed or electronically, for free distribution and for sale;
  • Authors are permitted to post their work online and to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of their work as long as its initial publication in Inscriptions is acknowledged.