Bartleby and His Brothers or the Political Art of Refusal

• Authors: Herer Michał
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The article discusses the political (and potentially emancipatory) meaning of refusal. Against the dominating philosophical perspective, praising participation and sense of community, it argues that the acts of refusal may (or even must) play an important role in resistance against power. Some elements of a possible theory of refusal are to be found in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, especially in his famous essay on Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener, but also in Dialogues (with C. Parnet) and Mille Plateaux (with Félix Guattari), where he coins the crucial concept of becoming-imperceptible.

Keywords

EN

America; abnegation; becoming-imperceptible; crack; Gilles Deleuze; emancipation; flight; lines; Herman Melville; original; participation; politics; refusal; treason

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk; Fundacja Filozofia Na Rzecz Dialogu
• Journal: Dialogue and Universalism
• Year: 2016
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 129-140

Contributors

author

Herer Michał

• Institute of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście 3, 00–927 Warsaw, Poland