You Unseen Cathedrals: A Study of the Conceptual Conditions of Negativity
Abstract
This dissertation addresses a gap in contemporary negativity studies by examining twentieth-century texts that engage with negativity beyond the subject. Starting with the premise that the concepts of negativity and subjectivity are intertwined, I argue that the predominant tendency in scholarship has been to conceptualize subjectivity as a circular structure that incorporates negativity as its dynamic foundation. However, when negativity is defined in subordination to the subjective circle, its radical features are diminished, resulting in “weak negativity.” In Chapter 1, I exemplify my arguments using the works of Alexandre Kojève, Jean Hyppolite, and Judith Butler. In contrast to weak negativity, radical negativity is a slippery concept that can only be treated obliquely to avoid its incorporation into subjectivity. In the works of Theodor W. Adorno, Roger Caillois, Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot, and Manolo Millares, I identify an alternative set of concepts and approaches for tracing a partial definition of radical negativity. In Chapter 2, I show how Adorno employs various techniques in pursuit of non-identity, a correlate of radical negativity, and arrives at the notion of mimesis as a means for conceptualizing radical negativity materially embedded in art. In Chapter 3, I analyze Caillois’s work on mimesis in insects, identifying the notions of worklessness and the outside, as well as the device of the double death, to further outline the conceptual conditions of radical negativity. Foucault’s and Blanchot’s works help steer the discussion of mimesis, along with worklessness, the outside, and double death, back to art and aesthetics grounded in radical negativity. To conclude, I propose that the paintings of Spanish Informalist Manolo Millares can be seen as examples of art that embodies radical negativity without subordinating it to the voracious circularity of the subject.