Research Seminars, Colloquia and Reading Groups
CRPLA Seminar
Abtract: In L鈥橝nimal que je suis donc Jacques Derrida suggests that the question of what would be proper to the animal should 鈥渃hange tune.鈥 At stake is a chromatic inflection of pitch that would pivot the tonality flatwards. I read this extraordinary passage, in which Derrida calls for us to lend an ear to an 鈥渦nheard-of music鈥 that neither emancipates the non-human nor condemns it to inarticulate noise, in conjunction with the nexus of animality, telephony, and the cri de la litt茅rature that unfolds in H茅l猫ne Cixous鈥檚 writing. I explore the significant role assumed by the sonorous in these descriptions of non-human life. For Cixous, the telephonic power of near-instantaneous substitution and of prostheticity is inseparable from the sounds produced by the coterie of animals that populate the writings of these two authors: cats, dogs, wolves, lions, ants, bees, worms, swans, other birds, elephants, and even the mythical half-human, half-animal faun. What is intriguing is that this bestiary is almost always said with a certain homonymy or homophony. Hence this paper traces what I want to call a homofaunie echoing the series of puns and neologisms such as 鈥(t)elefaun鈥 and 鈥(t)elephantasy鈥 in Cixous鈥檚 础苍补苍办猫 which is so striking as to capture Derrida鈥檚 attention in H. C. pour la vie, c鈥檈st 脿 dire鈥. I ask what is at stake for theorizing non-human life—not just animal but also plant and so-called inanimate life—if the mode of questioning is to be redirected by a specifically aural attunement in which listening itself is retuned under the guidance of untranslatable homophony. This has the effect of turning the multiplication and dissemination of non-human life—Derrida鈥檚 animots—towards the singularity of the idiom such that homofaunie complicates any attempt to draw boundaries between different forms of life as much as it unsettles all transferences.