In Motion, At Rest: The Event of the Athletic Body

188 Pages·2014·1.198 MB·English

by  Grant Farred

IN MOTION AT REST
,
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IN MOTION AT REST
,
THE EVENT OF THE ATHLETIC BODY
GRANT FARRED
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS
Minneapolis · London
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges financial
support from the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University for
the publication of this book.
An earlier version of chapter 1 was published in “The Event of the Black
Body at Rest: Mêlée in Motown,” Cultural Critique 66 (Spring 2007):
58–77. An earlier version of chapter 3 was published in “Zinedine Zidane
and the Event of the Secret,” Chimurenga 10 (December 2006): 224–30.
Copyright 2014 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Farred, Grant.
In motion, at rest : the event of the athletic body / Grant Farred.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8166-5023-1 (hc : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8166-5024-8 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Sports—Philosophy. 2. Events (Philosophy). 3. Human body
(Philosophy). 4. World Peace, Metta, 1979– . 5. Cantona, Éric, 1966– .
6. Zidane, Zinédine, 1972– . 7. Badiou, Alain. 8. Deleuze, Gilles, 1925–
1995. 9. Derrida, Jacques. I. Title.
gv706.f37 2014
796.01—dc23
2013028362
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator
and employer.
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to my grandparents,
Winnifred and Thomas Fisher.
You gave so much.
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CONTENTS
Introduction: Sport and the Event 1
1. Ron Artest: The Black Body at Rest (Alain Badiou) 25
2. Eric Cantona: The Body in Motion (Gilles Deleuze) 69
3. Zinedine Zidane: Coup de Boule (Jacques Derrida) 107
Epilogue: Being, Event, and the Philosophy of Sport 145
Acknowledgments 151
Notes 155
Index 169
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INTRODUCTION
SPORT AND THE EVENT
Both invent and bring up to date, inaugurate
andreveal, cause to come about and to bring
up to the light at the same time, there where
they were already there without being there.
JACQUES DERRIDA, SPECTERS OF MARX
Invention not of the event but through the event.
JACQUES DERRIDA, ROGUES: TWO ESSAYS ON REASON
The event is sui generis. It stands alone and it exists on its own
terms. We know the event because, in our thinking, in our mem-
ory of what happened, it stands as that moment. The event is that
precise and unexpected instant that we did not—could not—see
coming; the event transforms entirely a humdrum, or even a cru-
cial, encounter into an historic occurrence. It is only the event
that can, through disrupting the routine, make what is everyday
and unremarkable, be that the annual political rally, the run-of-
the-mill sports contest, the regular social gathering, memorable.
The force of the event resides in its ability to mark itself off
from all the other moments that came before and after. Because of
the event, every moment before and after it must be thought again.
Nonetheless, the event can render all other moments insignifi cant
or incidental, however much the event sometimes depends on the
incidental to bring it into itself; that is because the event alone
has the power to unexpectedly transform the insignifi cant into
something of consequence.
And yet, as In Motion, At Rest: The Event of the Athletic Body
shows, the event is insuffi cient in itself. In Motion, which traces
1