The Spectrality of Responsibility: the Posthumous in Nietzsche, Sartre and Derri

Event Name
The Spectrality of Responsibility: the Posthumous in Nietzsche, Sartre and Derri
Date
29 August 2012
Time
02:00 pm - 04:00 pm
Location
Bankstown Campus

Address (Room): Building 3, Room 3.G.55

Description
ABSTRACT: This paper offers a comparative reading of the notions of the posthumous in Nietzsche, Sartre and Derrida. I argue that in all three authors, the idea of the posthumous is inherently linked up with a new conception of responsibility exemplified by the figures of the engaged writer and the philosopher (of the future). While in the tradition of western philosophy responsibility is primarily turned to a past because it is understood in terms of a responsibility towards Being as given or present, here responsibility becomes “spectral” because tied to something which cannot be present, but is “to come,” futural. Responsibility here is towards a Becoming of life, irreducible to Being as present. 

BIO: Professor of Philosophy. Head of School of Humanities (UNSW). PhD in Philosophy (New School for Social Research). Vanessa Lemm is the author of Nietzsche’s Animal Philosophy: Culture, Politics and the Animality of the Human Being (New York: Fordham 2009, Spanish trans. with Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile, 2011; German trans. with Diaphanes, Berlin/Zuerich, 2012). She has published a great number of articles on Nietzsche and contemporary political thought. She is currently working on the notion of justice in Nietzsche and Heidegger as well as the relation between life and community in Nietzsche and Esposito. 

Speakers: Vanessa Lemm,Professor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales

Web page: http://www.uws.edu.au/philosophy/philosophy@uws/events/research_seminars_2012

Contact
Name: Silvia Martinez

s.martinez@uws.edu.au

School / Department: Writing and Society Research Centre