{"id":1249,"date":"2010-04-23T11:52:28","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T16:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/04\/23\/cataclysmic-eventology\/"},"modified":"2010-04-23T11:52:28","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T16:52:28","slug":"cataclysmic-eventology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/04\/23\/cataclysmic-eventology\/","title":{"rendered":"cataclysmic eventology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hiroshima mon amour (dir. Alain Resnais, 1959)<\/em><\/p>\n

In my reply to kvond’s and Meg’s comments on the Event<\/strike><\/a>, I alluded to a quote from Derrida’s Cinders<\/a>, which I thought would be worth posting, especially since I can’t find any reference to it online and I don’t have the book handy to check it.<\/p>\n

“At what temperature do words burst into flame? <\/em><\/p>\n

Is language itself what remains of a burning? <\/em><\/p>\n

Are cinders all that’s left from the ringing at the origin of words?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Derrida’s reference point is the Holocaust, but it’s also the entry into language, which resonates with Lacan’s notion of a gap between the Real and the Symbolic. Following up on Meg’s suggestion of petrification and Pompeii as western civilization’s perhaps archetypal reference point for volcanic\/traumatic cataclysmic events, what’s left behind, and what Herzog dwells on in the films I mentioned, is the signature of the Event (though, in the case of La Soufriere, it’s a non-Event). Rather like a nuclear explosion that leaves its radioactive shadow splayed across everything, the traumatic event leaves everything askew, haunted by a spectre, or ringing with an inaudible sound, the meaning of which we can’t make out. The vacated city, the empty landscape, the city frozen in time, with its illegible ciphers, the Event we can never come back to, yet which we perpetually circle around. If the human disappearance from this planet is genuinely thinkable, Herzog is one of its most evocative thinkers.<\/p>\n

But sometimes reading these fragments can only be done in still shots, not in movement images. Unlike Deleuze’s time-image, which is always an image of movement, these might be something more like a geological frozen-time-image, which is always an image of movement stilled, of time passed, and, as Barthes put it in Camera Lucida<\/em>, ultimately an image of (one’s own) death<\/a>.<\/p>\n

La Jet\u00e9e (dir. Chris Marker, 1962)<\/em><\/p>\n

For all that I value the vibrant materiality of process-relational and vibrant-materialist ontologies, I still turn to Derrida (and Buddhism) to remind us of the resonant emptiness at the heart of things. Derrida and his followers (Caputo, Mark Taylor) groped toward an ethic, a call, a claim on us from within that emptiness; but for a pretty reliable method<\/a> for hearing that call, we could do worse than to turn to Nagarjuna<\/a> and the Buddhists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hiroshima mon amour (dir. Alain Resnais, 1959) In my reply to kvond’s and Meg’s comments on the Event, I alluded to a quote from Derrida’s Cinders, which I thought would be worth posting, especially since I can’t find any reference to it online and I don’t have the book handy to check it. “At what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[688745,691847],"tags":[4417,374,16812,16891,16829,16893,16894],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cinema_zone","category-religion-spirituality","tag-buddhism","tag-derrida","tag-ecoapocalypse","tag-eventology","tag-nagarjuna","tag-resnais","tag-trauma"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-k9","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1318,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/08\/07\/conversions\/","url_meta":{"origin":1249,"position":0},"title":"conversions","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"What a lovely, touching post Tim Morton has written about his conversion to object-oriented ontology. Since my days of doing religious-studies fieldwork, I've always gotten ripples of that nameless mixture of joy, pleasure, and sad melancholy -- that feeling of being existentially touched, even pierced -- whenever I've been around\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"helix_nebula.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/08\/helix_nebula.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1322,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/08\/18\/almost-a-real-paris\/","url_meta":{"origin":1249,"position":1},"title":"almost a real Paris","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't wanted to tread into the recent Speculative Realist debates over Derrida, in part because I haven't had time for them (and my internet access has been a little unreliable), but in part also because I think they're mostly reiterating themes that have already been well covered. OOO makes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2892,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/03\/07\/open-movie-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":1249,"position":2},"title":"Open movie culture","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Among the freely watchable films Open Culture includes in their 340 Free Movies Online list are films by Tarkovsky (all of them!), Godard (Breathless, King Lear), Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove), Jarman (Caravaggio), Hawks (His Girl Friday), Bunuel (L'Age d'Or), Resnais (Hiroshima mon amour, Nuit et brouillard\/Night and Fog), Kurosawa (Rashomon, Throne\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Media ecology"","block_context":{"text":"Media ecology","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/media_ecology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6858,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2013\/08\/06\/let-the-hobbits-live\/","url_meta":{"origin":1249,"position":3},"title":"Let the hobbits live","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Glandwr councillors, don't do it. It's a beautiful, sustainably designed home. Let them live there. See Couple lose fight to save 'hobbit house' eco-home from demolition. And Charley and Meg's Facebook page for updates. Then sign the petition. More pictures here. \u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"roundhouse-5395088","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2013\/08\/roundhouse-5395088-300x199.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1264,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/05\/16\/philosopher-shoot-out-at-the-times-corral\/","url_meta":{"origin":1249,"position":4},"title":"philosopher shoot-out at the Times Corral","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times launches a philosophy blog and asks Simon Critchley to moderate it. Brian Leiter goes apoplectic. For some background on the Leiter-Critchley conflict, which turns out to be as much about the analytic-Continental divide as it is about Leiter and Critchley, see Leiter's account of their brawl\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1275,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/05\/28\/offshore-toxic-event\/","url_meta":{"origin":1249,"position":5},"title":"offshore toxic event","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The OTE keeps unfolding... http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ULLHYmz98P0&hl=en_US&fs=1& Does that thing (between 0:11 and 0:27) know what it is swimming through?? Here's a good collection of some of the most memorable images (but what's that awful music?): http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DRkPzUx0pSQ&hl=en_US&fs=1& Does Sarah McLaughlin improve things a little? http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ik43Hgax4Kw&hl=en_US&fs=1& Or a little light Bach? http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rip7kbZRv18&hl=en_US&fs=1& It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/ULLHYmz98P0\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}