antw. absurd & nauseating

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, lorentzen-nicklaus wrote:
>  ???
>
> Monica Belevan schrieb:
>
> > but if we are going to reduce everything ad absurdum ad
> > nauseam, then we better discuss Husserl

Here's one take, Kai & Monica ('kai' means 'perhaps' or 'likely'
in Finnish, depending on the context, whereas 'moni' means 'many'.)

Yes, what do you know - just took a coffee break, surfed some, and
stumbled on the following. Did further investigations and noticed
that the English Department at Stockholm University hosts a whole
Phenomenological Research Unit (PRU), and phenomenology and "the
theological turn in philosophy" [Husserl of course and the named
Michel Henry, but probably also Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Derrida,
Irigaray, Marion etc.] flourish as theoretic povs of finished and
upcoming theses[!] Way to go, neighbors - the more heavygoing the
better! (When the diss reaches Oulu as all Nordic theses do, it'll
no doubt also become clear how "rhizomatic" can be seen "promoting
transcendence" in _Mason&Dixon_ as in Deleuze&Guattari it promotes
anything but... best, Heikki)


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www.su.se/forskning/disputationer/spikblad/JoakimSigvardsson.pdf

Immanence and Transcendence in Thomas Pynchon 's _Mason & Dixon_

A Phenomenological Study
by Joakim Sigvardson
Doctoral dissertation
to be publicly examined in
G-salen, Arrheniuslaboratoriet, Frescati
on 25 May, 2002 at 10 a.m.
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Abstract
Sigvardson,J.
Immanence and Transcendence in Thomas Pynchon 's _Mason&Dixon_:
A Phenomenological Study.
Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis.
Stockholm Studies in English XCVII.
Pp.x+156.ISBN 91-22-01962-6.

The investigation studies Thomas Pynchon 's _Mason&Dixon_ as a novel that
comes to givenness in terms of three strata of manifestation: the arty,
the rhizomatic, and the acosmic. Utilizing a new affective turn
implemented within the phenomenological movement by Michel Henry, the
study proposes that alongside a rhizomatic mode of accessibility promoting
transcendence, _Mason&Dixon_ manifests a withholding of transcendence.
The study investigates the manifestation of this ontological withholding
by carrying out the phenomenological reduction established by Edmund
Husserl, and by elucidating the phenomenon of immanence in the literary
text by means of a theory of auto-affection rooted in - but not reducible
to - such methodological reduction.

The study proposes that the thematization of anomaly in _Mason&Dixon_
may be unconstructed by means of phenomenological moves that uncover
strata of phenomenalization that are not apparent on a thematic or merely
playful level. These strata, with their promotion of immanence at the
expense of transcendence, are found to be complexly affective in nature.
The affectivity governing the withholding of transcendence in these strata
is discovered to be instrumental in the work's critique of colonial modes
of spatialization,of logocentric modes of transcendence, and of
post-Nietzschean modes ofaffective mastery.

_Mason&Dixon_ discloses a tension between a mode of anomaly that is part
of a normal/anomalous dichotomy and a mode of anomaly that is doubly
anomalous.Manifested as a nonspatial zone,the doubly anomalous becomes
manifested on the hither side of oppositional structures in the novel,
such as truth/untruth.The doubly anomalous in _Mason&Dixon_ is identified
as an 'acosmic' zone of affectivity in which mastering intellectualizations
fall short of their telos. Insofar as the 'acosmic' occurs within
logocentric cartography,it implies an unsettling of every horizonal
subject, of nature as the property of man, and of freeplay as the medium
of will to power.

© Joakim Sigvardson 2002
ISBN 91-22-01962-6
ISSN 0346-6272
Printed in Sweden 2002
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