Book Section
Michael Eng

Philosophy’s Mother Envy

Has There Yet Been a Deconstruction of the Mother Tongue?
In: Untying the Mother Tongue, ed. by Antonio Castore and Federico Dal Bo, Cultural Inquiry, 26 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2023), pp. 25–43
Open Access
This essay approaches the problem of untying the mother tongue using Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s critique of onto-typology, along with the concept of the outre-mère (the ‘beyond-mother’), a limit-figure he and Jean-Luc Nancy devised in their critical assessments of psychoanalysis and its relationship to politics and the problem of mimesis. The essay argues that it will not be possible to deconstruct the figure of the mother tongue, or to untie ourselves from it, as long as we leave unquestioned both the theoretical dependence on figuration and our affective tie ( Gefühlsbindung) to theory.
Keywords: Lacoue-Labarthe; Nancy; language; mimesis; affect; theory; figuration
Rights: © by the author(s). Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Part of Untying the Mother Tongue Containing:
Introduction / Antonio Castore, Federico Dal Bo
But You Don’t Get Used to Anything / Deborah Achtenberg
Philosophy’s Mother Envy
‘My Mother Tongue Is a Foreign Language’ / Federico Dal Bo
The Mother Tongue at School / Jakob Norberg
Scarspeak / Juliane Prade-Weiss
The Shuffling of Feet on the Pavement / Teresa Prudente
‘I know you can cant’ / Jeffrey Champlin
The Mother Tongue of Love and Loss / Caroline Sauter
The Staircase Wit / Antonio Castore
Wandering Words / Libera Pisano
Title
Philosophy’s Mother Envy
Subtitle
Has There Yet Been a Deconstruction of the Mother Tongue?
Author(s)
Michael Eng
Identifier
https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-26_2
Description
This essay approaches the problem of untying the mother tongue using Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s critique of onto-typology, along with the concept of the outre-mère (the ‘beyond-mother’), a limit-figure he and Jean-Luc Nancy devised in their critical assessments of psychoanalysis and its relationship to politics and the problem of mimesis. The essay argues that it will not be possible to deconstruct the figure of the mother tongue, or to untie ourselves from it, as long as we leave unquestioned both the theoretical dependence on figuration and our affective tie ( Gefühlsbindung) to theory.
Is Part Of
Untying the Mother Tongue
Place
Berlin
Publisher
ICI Berlin Press
Date
4 September 2023
Subject
Lacoue-Labarthe
Nancy
language
mimesis
affect
theory
figuration
Rights
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Language
en-GB
page start
25
page end
43
Source
Untying the Mother Tongue, ed. by Antonio Castore and Federico Dal Bo, Cultural Inquiry, 26 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2023), pp. 25–43

References

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Cite as: Michael Eng, ‘Philosophy’s Mother Envy: Has There Yet Been a Deconstruction of the Mother Tongue?’, in Untying the Mother Tongue, ed. by Antonio Castore and Federico Dal Bo, Cultural Inquiry, 26 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2023), pp. 25-43 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-26_2>