Passive Voices (On the Subject of Phenomenology and Other Figures of Speech)

Passive Voices explores how language affects the subject of speech through readings of confessional, philosophical, and fictional writings, tracing the pathos of language and its resonance in literary experiments. It exposes the ways in which speech occurs in the passive voice and affects any claim to experience.

Format: Hardback
Length: 305 pages
Publication date: 01 February 2023
Publisher: State University of New York Press

Addressing the question of how language affects the subject of speech, "Passive Voices (On the Subject of Phenomenology and Other Figures of Speech)" explores readings of confessional, philosophical, and fictional writings. It delves into the pathos of language, where affections in the soul are symbolized through language. Aristotle and others suggest that language is experienced before any sense can be voiced, making the pathos of language a question of how language affects the subject of speech. The book examines how language shapes the subject of speech and responds to questions of language. It begins with readings of Augustine's investigations into language and mind and Husserl's descriptions of passive synthesis. It then traces the resonance of these interventions in selected literary experiments by Georges Bataille, Franz Kafka, and Maurice Blanchot, which recall Husserl and Augustine while exceeding the restrictive fictions of phenomenological science. By highlighting the echoes across confessional, philosophical, and fictional writings, the book exposes how speech occurs in the passive voice and affects any claim to experience.

Weight: 606g
Dimension: 158 x 236 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781438491974