Sense of Things

This essay thinks through the centrality of the concept of "the World" to theorizations of affect and the presumed correlation between feeling and world—that is, the notion that affective experience is necessarily generative of world(s)—that operates as an uninterrogated maxim in both contemporary and classical theories of affect. Focusing on the figure and question of the World and its grammars of relation(ality) and becoming, this essay considers the implications of an insistence on worlding in the context of anti-Blackness. It argues that the sustenance of the very concept of theWorld necessitates a foreclosure of Black affect's destructive drive. Black affect is therefore an impossibility within theWorld, as that unbearable negativity which drives us toward its necessary destruction. In light of this, the essay argues further that the tendency toward an uncritical embrace of affect as a mode of world-forming within strains of Black critical theory—represented by turns to "the otherwise"—performs a sublimation of Black affect's radical negativity, as encapsulated in the desire for the End of the World.

Taking up the work of Fred Moten, this article explores the power of dissolution when methodological forms converge within the context of black studies. It seeks to understand how the methods of poststructuralism can simultaneously elucidate and erode the structural problem of anti-blackness.

Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2007

Abstract: The ‘black hole’ is a signifier that pervades contemporary experience, conveying the ‘gaps’ and ‘voids’ in Western culture and psyche. Depth psychology stemmed from the growing uncanniness of city and psychic spaces during the 19th century. There was an emerging fascination with the ‘dark Thing’—the ‘It’ of many names.Like a pandemic, depictions of the ‘black hole’ experience have continually emerged in the tragic events and cultural malaise of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Art, philosophy, science, psychoanalysis, literature, and cultural studies have variously articulated this frighteningly potent, yet endlessly elusive signifier. A many-sided, dialogical process best provides acquaintance with such a complex phenomenon. Multiple examples and perspectives, as well a detailed case study, will delineate some of its dimensions. They will show that such ‘black hole’ encounters are not merely negative, but are often the enigmatic source of new awareness and creation.L'expérience du ‘trou noir’ envahit l'expérience contemporaine et véhicule les « brèches » et les « vides » de la culture et de la psyché occidentales. La psychologie des profondeurs émergea de l'étrangeté croissante des espaces urbains et psychiques au cours du 19è siècle, en même temps qu'une fascination grandissante pour l' «obscur», «entité» aux nombreuses dénominations.A l'égal d'une pandémie, l'expérience du « trou noir » n'a cessé de se représenter à travers les événements tragiques et le malaise culturel des vingtième et vingt-et-unième siècles. L'art, la philosophie, la science, la psychanalyse, la littérature et les études culturelles ont articulé sous des formes diverses ce signifiant d'une puissance effrayante et pourtant éternellement insaisissable. Un processus dialogique aux perspectives multiples permet une meilleure connaissance de ce phénomène complexe. Des exemples et des angles d'approche divers, de même qu'une étude de cas détaillée, permettront d'en tracer certains contours. Nous verrons également que de telles rencontres avec le « trou noir » ne sont pas seulement négatives mais qu'elles sont souvent la source énigmatique d'une conscience et d'une créativité nouvelles.Die Erfahrung des ‘Schwarzen Lochs’ durchdringt die zeitgenössische Erfahrung und vermittelt die ‘Lücken’ und ‘Leeren’ in der westlichen Kultur und Psyche. Die Tiefenpsychologie entstammte aus der wachsenden Unheimlichkeit der städtischen und psychischen Räume des 19. Jahrhunderts. Damals gab es eine aufkeimende Faszination für das ‘dunkle Ding’—das ‘Es’ mit den vielen Namen.Wie in einer Pandemie entstanden immer wieder Beschreibungen der Erfahrung des ‘Schwarzen Lochs’ in den tragischen Ereignissen und dem kulturellen Unwohlsein des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts. Kunst, Philosophie, Wissenschaft, Psychoanalyse, Literatur und Kulturwissenschaften haben dieses Furcht erregend mächtige, aber immer schwer fassbare Zeichen unterschiedlich zum Ausdruck gebracht. Ein vielfältiger dialogischer Prozess ist am hilfreichsten, sich mit so einem komplexen Phänomen vertraut zu machen. Mit vielen Beispielen aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln und einer genauen Fallbeschreibung werden einige seiner Dimensionen geschildert. Es wird auch gezeigt, dass Begegnungen mit diesen ‘Schwarzen Löchern’ nicht nur negativ sind, sondern oft die rätselhafte Quelle einer neuen Bewusstheit und Schöpfung.L'esperienza del ‘buco nero’ pervade l'esperienza attuale e colma le ‘lacune’ e i ‘vuoti’nella psiche e nella cultura occidentale. La psicologia del profondo scaturisce dal crescere della misteriosità della città e degli spazi psichici durante il 19th secolo. C'era l'emergere di una fascinazione per ‘la Cosa nera’–l''Esso’ di molti nomi.Come una pandemia le rappresentazioni dell'esperienza del ‘buco nero sono continuamente emerse negli eventi tragici e nel malessere del Ventesimo e Ventunesimo secolo. L'arte, la filosofia, la scienza, la psicoanalisi, la letteratura e gli studi culturali hanno in vari modi declinato tale significante, spaventosamente potente eppure infinitamente elusivo. Un processi dialogico dai molti aspetti rappresenta il metodo migliore per conoscere tale complesso fenomeno. Alcune delle sue dimensioni verranno delineate attraverso vari esempi e prospettive e con un dettagliato caso clinico. Essi mostreranno anche che gli incontri con tali ‘buchi neri’ nno sono solo negativi, ma sono spesso l'enigmatica sorgente di nuova consapevolezza e creatività.La experiencia del ‘agujero negro’ invade la experiencia contemporánea y trasciende las ‘brechas’ y ‘vacíos’ de la cultura y la psique occidental. La psicología profunda brota del creciente de los secretos espacios psíquicos y citadinos durante el siglo XIX. Entonces existía una fascinación emergente con la “Cosa Oscura''—el ‘Eso’ con muchos nombres. Como una pandemia, descripciones de la experiencia del ‘agujero negro’ han surgido constantemente en los trágicos acontecimientos y males culturales de os siglos XX y XXI. Los estudios sobre arte, la filosofía, ciencia, psicoanálisis, literatura y cultura, han articulado en diferentes formas a este potente, atemorizante y sin embrago interminablemente elusivo significante. Un proceso dialógico, con muchos lados, es lo que r provee mejores conocimientos de tan complejo fenómeno.Múltiples ejemplos y perspectivas, así como el estudio detallado de casos, delinearán algunas de estas dimensiones. Ellas también mostrarán que estos encuentros con ‘agujeros negros’ no son solamente negativos, sino que con frecuencia son una fuente enigmática de nuevas concienciaciones y creatividad.

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in …, 2001

Continental Philosophy Review, 2024

This article critiques Husserl's notion of grounding through an exploration of the lifeworld. The first section sketches Husserl's account of the lifeworld in the Crisis. The lifeworld is meant to serve as an ultimate ground for sense-formation, yet to do so Husserl must abstract from its concrete-historical dimension. The lifeworld is determined one-sidedly as the world of perception, whose correlate is universal nature. The second section critiques this one-sided determination, arguing that Husserl's notion of nature is rooted in contingent historical circumstances-in particular a Cartesian metaphysics of space and time. Thus, perception is never simply of nature, but always involves cultural interpretations. To the extent that the lifeworld is concrete-historical, it cannot be a universal foundation, and to the extent that it is a universal foundation, it cannot be concrete-historical. The final section explores alternatives that move beyond this deadlock. Rather than determining the lifeworld from the top-down (teleology) or from the bottomup (archeology), we should be attentive to the way that different patterns and structures of experience emerge within concrete life. Instead of a single, unified world or a plurality of relative worlds, experience takes place in an intermediate zone in which new ways of seeing and knowing constantly emerge. No single perspective can claim a total view. This new understanding of the lifeworld has implications for the relation between science and phenomenology. Rather than viewing the latter as the basis for the former, we can see how phenomenology and science intertwine and mutually enrich one another. Ultimately, a phenomenology of the lifeworld must embrace the groundlessness of sense and the possibility of different ways of organizing experience.

Speculations: a Journal of Speculative Realism, 2013

Emmanuel Levinas is often thought of as a philosopher of ethics, above all else. Indeed, his notions of the face, the Other, and alterity have all earned him a distinguished place in the history of phenomenology as a fundamental thinker of ethics as a first philosophy. But what has been overlooked in this attention on ethics is the early work of Levinas, which reveals him less a philosopher of the Other and more as a philosopher of elemental and anonymous being, a speculative metaphysician whose ethical voice was still in the process of forming. In this paper, I explore the early Levinas, specifically with an aim of assessing what he can tell us about phenomenology in its relation to the non-human world. I make two claims. One, Levinas’s idea of the “il y a” (the there is) offers us a novel way of rethinking the relation between the body and the world. This idea can be approached by phrasing Levinas as a materialist. Two, the experience of horror, which Levinas will place great onus on, provides us with a phenomenology at the threshold of experience. As I argue, it is precisely through what Levinas terms “the horror of the night,” that phenomenology begins to exceed its methodological constraints in accounting for a plane of elemental existence beyond experience.

Issue inspired by Arthur Jafa's Dreams are Colder than Death (2013). Editorial Board: Lauren Cramer Daren Fowler Jenny Gunn Shady Patterson Brooke Sonenreich Charleen Wilcox