Atlas, or The anxious gay science

379 Pages·2018·6.134 MB·English

by  Didi-Huberman, Georges;Lillis, Shane Brendan

Atlas, or
the
Anxious
Gay
Science
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Didi-Huberman_9780226439471 ii 7/15/2018 01:36:40 PM
Atlas, or
the
Anxious
Gay
Science
Georges
Didi- Huberman
Translated by Shane Lillis
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Didi-Huberman_9780226439471 iii 7/15/2018 01:36:40 PM
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2018 by Shane Lillis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical
articles and reviews. For more information, contact the
University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL
60637.
Published 2018
Printed in the United States of America
Originally published as Atlas ou le gai savoir inquiet.
© Les Éditions de Minuit, 2011
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 43947- 1 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 43950- 1 (e- book)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/
chicago/9780226439501.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Didi-Huberman, Georges, author. | Lillis, Shane B.
(Shane Brendan), translator.
Title: Atlas, or, The anxious gay science /
Georges Didi-Huberman ; translated by Shane Lillis.
Other titles: Atlas. English | Atlas | Anxious gay science
Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press,
2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017056081 | ISBN 9780226439471
(cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226439501 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Warburg, Aby, 1866–1929. Mnemosyne. |
Atlases. | Atlas (Greek deity)—Art. | Image (Philosophy) |
Imagination (Philosophy) | Visual communication in
art. | Visual communication in science.
Classification: LCC B105.I47 D5313 2018 | DDC 709—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017056081
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO
Z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Didi-Huberman_9780226439471 iv 7/15/2018 01:36:40 PM
It always happens,
Bitter presence,
It is a hard moment to pass!
And there is no remedy.
Why?
You cannot know why.
You cannot look at it.
Barbarians!
Everything is askew,
I saw it!
That too,
And that too.
Cruel misfortune!
What madness!
There is no use in crying out,
That is the worst of all!
Truth is dead.
And if it came back to life?
F. Goya, Los Desastres de la guerra (1810–20)
What is the Universal?
The single case.
What is the Particular?
Millions of cases.
J. W. Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, oder Die
Entsagenden (2nd version, 1829), in Sämtliche Werke, vol. 10,
ed. G. Neumann and H.- G. Dewitz (Frankfurt- am- Main:
Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1989), 576
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We, open- handed and rich in spirit, standing by the road
like open wells with no intention to fend off anyone who
feels like drawing from us—we unfortunately do not
know how to defend ourselves where we want to; we have
no way of preventing people from darkening us: the time
in which we live throws into us what is most time- bound;
its dirty birds drop their filth into us; boys their gewgaws;
and exhausted wanderers who come to us for rest, their
little and large miseries. But we shall do what we have
always done: whatever one casts into us, we take down
into our depths—for we are deep, we do not forget—and
become bright again.
F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. W. Kaufmann
(New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 340
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Contents
List oF FiGures ix
I. Disparates
“readiNG What Was Never WritteN”
The Inexhaustible, or Knowledge through Imagination 3
Heritage of Our Time: The Mnemosyne Atlas 8
Visceral, Sidereal, or How to Read the Liver of a Sheep 13
Madness and Truths of the Incommensurable 22
Tables for Collecting the Parceling- Out of the World 34
Heterotopias, or the Cartographies of Defamiliarization 46
Leopard, Starry Sky, Smallpox, Spatter 56
II. Atlas
“carryiNG the WhoLe WorLd oF suFFeriNGs”
A Titan Bent under the Burden of the World 67
Gods in Exile and Knowledge in Suffering 79
Survivals of Tragedy, Aurora of the Anxious Gay Science 90
“El sueño de la razón produce monstruos” 96
An Anthropology from the Point of View of the Image 105
Samples of Chaos, or the Poetics of Phenomena 116
Points of Origin and Links of Affinity 125
Atlas and the Wandering Jew, or the Age of Poverty 139
Didi-Huberman_9780226439471 vii 7/15/2018 01:36:40 PM
III. Disasters
“the disLocatioN oF the WorLd:
that is the subJect oF art”
Tragedy of Culture and Modern “Psychomachias” 153
Explosions of Positivism, or the “Crisis of European Sciences” 166
Warburg Facing the War: Notizkästen 115–18 182
The Seismograph Explodes 199
Panoramic Tables to Return from the Disaster 213
The Atlas of Images and the Surveying Gaze (Übersicht) 220
The Inexhaustible, or Knowledge through Re- montage 235
bibLioGraphicaL Note 257
Notes 259
bibLioGraphy 287
iNdex 353
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Figures
1. Aby Warburg, Bilderatlas Mnemosyne (1927–29), pl. A 10
2. Aby Warburg, Bilderatlas Mnemosyne (1927–29), pl. B 14
3. Aby Warburg, Bilderatlas Mnemosyne (1927–29), pl. 1 15
4. Aby Warburg, Bilderatlas Mnemosyne (1927–29), pl. 1 (detail) 16
5. Anonymous Babylonian, “Divinatory Liver” (c. 1700 BCE) 19
6. Anonymous Babylonian, “Anomalies of the Liver Drawn on
Hepatoscopic Tablets” 23
7–9. Anonymous Etruscan, “Piacenza Liver” (second–fi rst
century BCE) 29
10. Sacrifice in ancient Greece, from C. Daremberg and E. Saglio, eds.,
Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, vol. 1 (1873) 36
11. Prehistoric technique of broken stones, from A. Leroi- Gourhan, (1964)
1974 38
12. Polynesian statuette (Tubuai, nineteenth century) and “Zodiac Man”
(France, sixteenth century) 39
13–14. Shamanic altar from Puyuma (Taiwan, twentieth century) 41
15. Altar table of Agia Irini (Greece, 700–475 BCE), surrounded by
terracotta statuettes 43
16. Anonymous Roman, “The Unswept Room,” detail (second
century CE) 45
17. Aby Warburg, Bilderatlas Mnemosyne (1927–29), pls. 50–51 49
18. Katsushika Hokusai, Manga (1814) 52
19. Francisco Goya, Disparate femenino (c. 1815–24) 53
20. Fernand Deligny, Calque de Monoblet (1976) 57
21. Aby Warburg, Outline for a Personal Geography (1928) 58
22. “The Dagger of Pehuajó,” from J. L. Borges, (1984) 1999 63
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