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Order as Unclosed Scene: the Alienness of Origin between Translation and Tragedy
Menga, Ferdinando G.
2007
Abstract
Every order lies on the claim or pretension to give itself as an accomplished realm, i.e. as a
closed scene which is capable to give shape, orientation and sense to the totality of
elements embraced by it. Yet, from the same operation of ordering, a paradox soon arises,
in that no order can avoid its contingent genealogy, that means: it cannot avoid the fact that,
in enclosing and including something, it must simultaneously exclude something else,
which, therefore, can always challenge and threaten its stability or total “delimitation”. In
this sense, that which is excluded can be seen as an alien element, which structurally
prevents order from a definite closure and thus keeps it in a permanent (historical and nondialectisable)
movement.
Now, what I would like to convey in my following reflections is that this dynamics of
impossible closure of order, given to a non-appropriable alienness, is exactly the one
operative in the realms of translation and tragedy, so that, once we carefully investigate
these realms, we may dare to affirm that saying that orders are unclosed scenes is as much
true as to say that they are constantly “in translation”, always “in tragedy”.
Series
Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics
IX (2007) 2
Subjects
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Order as Unclosed Scene: the Ferdinando G. Menga, "Alienness of Origin between Translation and Tragedy", in: Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, IX (2007) 2, pp. 403-422.
Languages
en
File(s)