April 11th-13th, 2013 Paper on Ethics of Performativity at “What is Performance Philosophy?”, University of Surrey.
Programme and info here:
http://performancephilosophy.ning.com/page/cfp-2013-conference
Abstract:
Can there be an “ethics of the neutral”? (And if so, what does it have to do with performance?)
Reflection on the ethics of performativity draws attention to a particular notion of ‘suspended action’, allowing one to conceptualise a realm in-between the dimensions of simple ‘positivity’ (action) and ‘negativity’ (inaction). My paper will attempt to consider this phenomenon of the ‘in-between’ by focusing on the notion of the ‘neutral’.
The figure of the neutral can be found in various forms in the writings of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot, Emmanuel Lévinas and Roland Barthes (amongst others). It is used, in different ways and with differing significance according to the respective context, to describe a) the impersonal, self-giving materiality of the world, b) an anonymous dimension of language and in particular of writing, and c) the facticity of Dasein. It serves, moreover, as a kind of projection surface for the essentially human yet no less perplexing and philosophically challenging experience of ‘neither this, nor that’. With regard to the affects that it provokes, nothing could be less neutral than the neutral. Whilst some authors yearn for it (e.g. Barthes), others react to it in horror and disgust (e.g. Lévinas). In all cases, it seems to play a significant role in respective conceptions of what constitutes personhood and being. It is thus of central ethical significance. In investigating the status of the neutral in some of the named contexts, this paper will explore the question of whether there can truly be an ethics of the neutral, and, if so, what such an ethics might have to do with ‘performance’.