Wednesday, November 16, 2005
(10:04 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Carl Schmitt
Not only is the translation of Schmitt into English woefully incomplete, but there seems to be no standard edition of his complete works in German. (I base this conclusion on the fact that I've never seen anyone cite his untranslated works in a Gesammelte Ausgabe [or any of the other dozen or so terms German seems to have to refer to this same thing -- I prefer the apparently more standardized French œuvres complètes, or to refer to yesterday's post on wine, the O. C.]). Does anyone know whether I am correct in this assumption? Failing such a standardized collection, I am not sure how much work would be involved in just reading the complete Schmitt -- is it more akin to reading the complete Rimbaud, or the complete von Balthasar?I've considered taking a leave of absense from CTS in order to read the complete works of Benjamin, after which I would return as some kind of mutant. (Am I alone in instinctively thinking that to do really heavy-duty reading, one needs to take time off school?) This is probably due to the fact that Agamben gives one the distinct impression that Benjamin holds the keys to the secrets of the universe -- somewhere in one of his drafts, for instance, there must be an enigmatic phrasing that actually reveals how to construct a unified field theory. Reading Nancy, I got the distinct impression that one must read the O. C. of Bataille, but that plan fell through for two reasons:
- It's twelve volumes, presumably those thick volumes with the Bible-style pages. (Valéry is in two volumes, by contrast, but each of those volumes is over a thousand pages.)
- Both Nancy and Agamben give one the impression that Bataille finally isn't very useful in theorizing our current political situation.
This has been a faux-erudite shit and garbage post.
UPDATE: It would have been awesome during the reading group over The Open if someone (for example, "me") could have connected the animal-headed figures in the first chapter with the werewolf chapter of Homo Sacer. But no, I hadn't yet reread Homo Sacer. And now it's just too late.
