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Merleau-Ponty, literature, and literary language
Chiasmi International. Trilingual Studies Concerning the Thought of Merleau-Ponty – 21st issue
Published on Tuesday, December 18, 2018 by Anastasia Giardinelli
Summary
In the thought of Merleau-Ponty, the relation between philosophy and literature is more original, as well as more radical, than referring to literary works as philosophical illustrations or objects of study, and offers an implicit conception of literature that makes the literary writer a partner of the phenomenologist. Merleau-Ponty deepens the dimensions of this partnership along many lines: in an empathetic reading of certain writers; in a conception of language searching for a delicate articulation of relationships and reality; and also by strategies of original expression that endeavor to respond to the requirements posed by the concepts of the flesh, being, and of philosophy itself. To mention only the most prominent examples, in relation to Proust, the philosopher developed his conception of “sensible ideas;” in relation to Claudel, his conjoining of birth and knowledge as “co-naissance;” from Valéry came “chiasm” and the “chiasma of two destinies;” from Claude Simon came “the flesh of the world.” Chiasmi Volume 21 invites submissions written in French, English or Italian on any of these themes, figures, the overall stamp of literature and literary language on the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, as well as correlations and crossings between Merleau-Ponty and the literary theories of other prominent contemporaries such as Nancy and Blanchot.
Announcement
Presentation
The 21st issue of Chiasmi International: Trilingual Studies concerning Merleau-Ponty’s Thought (2019) will be devoted to the theme of “Merleau-Ponty, Literature, and Literary Language.”
Near the end of the Preface to Phenomenology of Perception, philosophy is joined precisely with both modern literature and modern painting: “Phenomenology is as painstaking as the works of Balzac, Proust, Valéry, or Cézanne – through the same kind of attention and wonder, the same demand for awareness, the same will to grasp the sense of the world or of history in its nascent state” (PP, xvi/lxxxv). A Working Note for The Visible and Invisible from June, 1959 states: “Being is what requires creation of us for us to experience it. Make an analysis of literature in this sense: as inscription of Being” (VI, 251/197). We also have Merleau-Ponty’s essay on “The Novel and Metaphysics” (1945) and we have his discussion of Saussure’s diacritical theory of signs and critique of Sartre’s What is Literature? in “Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence.” The lecture “Man and Adversity” is essential and equally so the manuscript of The Prose of the World. Thus, throughout all his œuvre, Merleau-Ponty’s profound engagement with literary writers is readily apparent: Proust and Valéry already mentioned, also Stendhal, Paul Claudel, Claude Simon, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Breton, Balzac, Mallarmé, Francis Ponge, and Simone de Beauvoir, to give an incomplete list.
We also have recent publication of complete French transcriptions of Merleau-Ponty’s first two courses given at the Collège de France in 1953, both on questions of perception, expression, and literary language: Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression (Genève, MetisPresses, 2011) and Recherches sur l’usage littéraire du language (Genève, MetisPresses, 2013). Publication of the French transcription of Merleau-Ponty’s Thursday course of 1953-1954, Le problème de la parole, continuing these themes, is announced as imminent by the same publishing house.
In the thought of Merleau-Ponty, the relation between philosophy and literature is more original, as well as more radical, than referring to literary works as philosophical illustrations or objects of study, and offers an implicit conception of literature that makes the literary writer a partner of the phenomenologist. Merleau-Ponty deepens the dimensions of this partnership along many lines: in an empathetic reading of certain writers; in a conception of language searching for a delicate articulation of relationships and reality; and also by strategies of original expression that endeavor to respond to the requirements posed by the concepts of the flesh, being, and of philosophy itself. To mention only the most prominent examples, in relation to Proust, the philosopher developed his conception of “sensible ideas;” in relation to Claudel, his conjoining of birth and knowledge as “co-naissance;” from Valéry came “chiasm” and the “chiasma of two destinies;” from Claude Simon came “the flesh of the world.”
Chiasmi Volume 21 invites submissions written in French, English or Italian on any of these themes, figures, the overall stamp of literature and literary language on the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, as well as correlations and crossings between Merleau-Ponty and the literary theories of other prominent contemporaries such as Nancy and Blanchot.
Submit contributions to:
- Galen Johnson (Issue coordinator, Codirector): gjohnson@uri.edu
- Anna Caterina Dalmasso (Editorial Coordinator): annacate.dalmasso@gmail.com
or
- Submissions in French: Mauro Carbone (Codirector): Email: mauro.carbone@univ-lyon3.fr
- Submissions in English: Ted Toadvine (Codirector): Email: tat30@psu.edu
- Submissions in Italian: Federico Leoni (Codirector): Email: federico.leoni@univr.it
Deadline: January 20th, 2019.
Submission guidelines
The contributions submitted to Chiasmi International must be original, with no simultaneous submission to other periodicals. All submissions are subject to blind peer-review and, if accepted, authors may be required to make revisions, based on feedback from the reviewers.
Only submissions complying with the following indications will be accepted for peer review:
- Articles and reviews must be in French, English or Italian;
- Extension limits:
articles: 40.000 characters, spaces included;
reviews: 10.000-20.000 characters, spaces included.
- Articles and reviews must include an abstract (80 to 150 words) in the language of the submission (In case the author has native-like competence in one of the other languages of the review and is willing to edit themselves the translation of the abstract, this would be very welcome.)
Please follow the article template below for the correct layout and format, or instead observe the following indications for the setting of the different parts of the article:
Layout
- Name of author
- Title (in capitals, centered);
- Body of the article;
- Name of author (as signature; in italics, aligned right)
- Email of author (aligned right)
- Notes (must be end notes, not footnotes).
- Abstract from 80 to 150
- Separate cover page
Format:
- Font: Times New Roman, size 12; size 11 for block quotes (that means any quote longer than four lines; please insert a blank line before and after the block quote);
- Double space between lines;
- Page format: A4;
- Pages must be numbered;
- Margins: 3 cm; 1 cm indentation in the beginning of paragraphs;
- Paragraph alignment: Justified;
- File type: Word for Windows (extension doc or docx) or Rich Text Format (extension rtf);
- Use italics to highlight words, not underlining or capitals;
- Please do not use numbered lists or automatic points in Word, but insert them manually
Cover page:
Please note that all submissions will have separate a cover page with the following information:
- Author’s name, title, and academic affiliation
- Brief 5-10 lines sentence biographical description
- Author’s contact details with email
- Title of the article or of the book review submitted
- Signs count (spaces and endnotes included)
Bibliography styles and notes:
We keep it simple, please stick to the few indications below:
Because of its multilingual and International framework, Chiasmi International does not impose upon authors any particular editing style for bibliography and references, as long as the authors follow a reasonable and uniform notation and respect its consistency for the whole article.
Please note that all references to Merleau-Ponty's works must include references to the original French editions, rather than only to English or Italian editions.
For instance, authors can use:
Endnotes
- with full citations, such as :
- Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l’invisible, texte établi par C. Lefort, Gallimard, collection « Tel », Paris 2001 [1979, 1964], p. 177.
- Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l’invisible, op. cit., p. 56.
Ibid., p. 14. (French) / Ivi, p. 14 (Italian)
- with current abbreviations for Merleau-Ponty’s works, referring to the French editions (such as: VI 177, PhP 245, MSME 91, HomAdv, etc.) or to their tranlations, as long as they indicate the abbreviation in the first occurrence of the cited work and provide a list of abbreviations, making the abbreviations consistent within the whole
Citations in the body of the text, followed by a bibliography:
- According to Chicago style or similar: like (Lefort 1978) for: C. Lefort, Sur une colonne absente. Autour de Merleau-Ponty, Gallimard, Paris, 1978, and followed by a bibliography;
- Or using current abbreviations for Merleau-Ponty’s works, referring to the French editions (such as: VI 177, PhP 245, MSME 91, HomAdv, etc.) or to their tranlations, as long as they provide a list of abbreviations or indicate them in the bibliography, and make it consistent within the whole
Articles which will not follow these guidelines will not be accepted for peer review.
Subjects
- Language (Main subject)
- Mind and language > Thought > Philosophy
- Mind and language > Language > Literature
Date(s)
- Sunday, January 20, 2019
Attached files
Keywords
- Merleau-Ponty, literature, literary language,
Contact(s)
- Anna Caterina Dalmasso
courriel : anna-caterina [dot] dalmasso [at] usaintlouis [dot] be
Information source
- Anna Caterina Dalmasso
courriel : anna-caterina [dot] dalmasso [at] usaintlouis [dot] be
To cite this announcement
« Merleau-Ponty, literature, and literary language », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, December 18, 2018, https://calenda.org/522233