Maurice Blanchot

Maladies of the Book, Symposium III

Gathering #4 - 2 Feb 2018

Starting from his late reflections on passivity in The Writing of the Disaster, this Maladies of the Book Symposium turned to the work of Maurice Blanchot to develop the ongoing exploration of writing as impossibility and madness, and extend it to a consideration of the image.

Beginning with a workshop on passages from Writing the Disaster, and Blanchot’s texts ‘Reading’ and ‘The Narrative Voice’, we explored ideas of a radical passivity, reading situated before comprehension, the neutral, and the image as cadaver, with guests including:

Paul Davies (University of Sussex) who guided the reading on passivity and reading.

John Stezaker (artist) who talked on the image, for which the reading was be ‘Two Versions of the Imaginary’.

Beth Guilding (Goldsmiths, University of London) who presented a paper ‘”We do not come to the end with age”: Blanchot’s last word’, for which the reading will be Blanchot’s text ‘Who?’ from Who Comes After the Subject. 

The Maladies of the Book series is organised and run by Josh Cohen and Professor Michael Newman as a joint initiative between the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought and the Art Research Programme at Goldsmiths.  Sessions were held at the ICA.