Bartleby

This essay explores the problem of the ‘‘unaccountable’’ in Herman Melville’s ‘‘Bar- tleby, the Scrivener’’ (1856) in light of the Kantian idea of freedom. The lawyer- narrator declares his own inability to tell a story of Bartleby, but by doing so he also emphasizes the scrivener’s accountableness, by which Bartleby is presented as a char- acter of exceptional originality. Bartleby might thus appear free in the Kantian sense, because his unaccountableness suggests that the determining ground of his will is not determined by inclinations in nature but is independent from it. But, pointing out that this construction of Bartleby is based on unaccountableness that ends up in nothing but the modern notion of individualism or subjectivity, which is not freedom as such but a fantasy of freedom, I argue that Bartleby destroys precisely such subjectivity by his thing-like immobility. The lawyer cannot decide at last whether Bartleby is a human subject or a piece of furniture fixed in his office.

Segni, affetti, incontri. Sono le coordinate, tratte dalla riflessione filosofica di Gilles Deleuze e dalla sua interpretazione di Spinoza in particolare, su cui si muove il presente lavoro, in un percorso che attraverso l'opera di Deleuze e Guattari e lasciandosi trasportare dai mille rivoli filosofici che scorrono nel pensiero di questi autori ... può condurre anche ad interessarsi di filosofie orientali. Ma qual'è, allora, l'Oriente evocato da Deleuze e Guattari? Si tratta in ogni caso di un incontro che obbliga a mettere in movimento il pensiero, l'incontro con l'Altro da cui nasce sempre l'impulso alla ricerca: forse anche a quella ricerca un po' eccentrica di un "divenire spontaneo", come ultimo divenire deleuziano.

'Macbeth' is Shakespeare’s most explicitly Jacobean play; and because of that, it is often treated as evidence of the playwright’s unreserved dedication to the monarchy. However, the authorial mode of this play is far less determined than is sometimes suggested. The fact that 'Macbeth' can be read both as a legitimation and a criticism of King James’ regime suggests that the “author’s drift” resists univocal categorisation. This article examines the characteristic undecidability of Shakespeare’s authorship in 'Macbeth'. By informing each other, references to Baroque art and contemporary theory shed a new light on the play. Thus, Velázquez’s painting, Las Meninas, illustrates Michel Foucault’s suggestion that “visibility is a trap.” In turn, this cross-fertilisation helps us conceptualise the regime of authorial paranoia that characterises 'Macbeth' and introduces the possibility that Shakespeare maintained his freedom of expression by remaining invisible. Because the reasons for such a vanishing act and the dramatic strategies used by the playwright to achieve it remain unclear, the article sets out to investigate these issues.

A língua não somente categoriza o mundo como nos obriga a dizer algo acerca desse mundo. Não é para menos que, já na Grécia Antiga, os pirrônicos encontravam-se em dificuldades em seu discurso: uma vez que postulavam a (momentânea) suspensão do juízo como postura filosófica, como não predicar ao falar? Segundo Montaigne, para evitar a armadilha de recorrer constantemente à modalizações no estilo “afirmo que não afirmo”, os pirrônicos teriam de se valer de uma linguagem outra, uma imaginária língua, negativa. Entretanto, se pensarmos essa problemática na perspectiva da Análise de Discurso, poderíamos propor o silenciar, enquanto prática/ apraxia, como forma mais eficaz de suspensão do juízo?

Bartleby is not about Bartleby. The predominant fascination with the character, his philosophical potential as a powerful figure of not-doing or non-doing have obstructed the access to formal and stylistic aspects of the short novel. The perspectival shift I present in this reading consists of a closer look at the lawyer/narrator and his relationship with the scrivener. I will first provide an analysis of his quasi-ideological claims (his 'doctrine of assumptions') and elaborate it as his ambition towards a closed narrative universe. This emphasis will allow an understanding of the 'rub' that Bartleby causes in the narrator's language. Tracing the discourse of the offices ('queer', 'strange') in reaction to the copyist's appearance, I focus on the effects on the narrator's language. The development of the relationship between the narrator and the scrivener will prove to be constantly interrupted by what I call 'impeded speech'. 'Astonishment' and an insufficient closure provide the context to elaborate on the way the story presents a language that is incapable of being in control of the subject of its narration. I argue that by dealing with 'being about something' rather than being concerned with Bartleby, it introduces passive narration.

In questo articolo l'autore compie una ricognizione testuale dell'opera di Agamben, mettendone a critica l'abuso di un linguaggio metaforico nonché l'inadeguatezza di alcuni concetti e categorie che hanno decretato la fortuna del suo pensiero negli ultimi decenni, a partire da quelli di campo e nuda vita. Soprattutto il saggio intende criticare l'abuso che spesso si fa, in "Homo Sacer" di Agamben e in altri testi filosofici, dei campi di concentramento come metafora utile per comprendere le dinamiche della contemporaneità. Esso critica infine una certa mania tipicamente filosofica e post-heideggeriana per le spiegazioni "totali" del mondo.

RESUMO

O objetivo do presente estudo é discutir o tema da “servidão voluntária” sob a perspectiva de três autores, Étienne de La Boétie, Herman Melville e Sigmundo Freud. Inicialmente, parte-se das questões colocadas por La Boétie em seu “Discurso da servidão voluntária” sobre a origem e a natureza do “desejo de servir”, a responsabilidade do tiranizado na manutenção da tirania, o papel da linguagem na manutenção da servidão e sobre a possibilidade de sua superação. Na sequência, analisa-se o comportamento do personagem principal do conto “Bartleby, o escrevente” de Herman Melville, que pelo uso de sua fórmula linguística “preferiria não” consegue superar a servidão e anular os efeitos dos discursos e da própria da linguagem sobre sua vontade e sua corporeidade, no alcance de uma potência máxima, segundo uma leitura de Agamben e Deleuze. A partir das considerações de Freud, em especial as contidas em “Psicologia das massas e análise do Eu”, faz-se um paralelo as observações de La Boétie e as descobertas da psicanálise sobre a psicologia das massas e do indivíduo. Destaca-se, nesse contexto, o papel das identificações na dinâmica do estabelecimento dos laços libidinais entre os membros da massa e a massa e seu líder e, por fim, avança-se na teoria da representação de Freud para recuperar uma relação entre linguagem, vontade e corpo. Conclui-se com a proposta de aplicação das ideias debatidas na leitura de fenômenos políticos atuais.

Palavras-chave: Servidão. Voluntária. Linguagem. Identificação. Corporeidade.

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to discuss the topic of "voluntary servitude" from the perspective of three authors, Étienne de La Boétie, Herman Melville and Sigmund Freud. It begins with the questions raised by La Boetie in his "Discourse on Voluntary Servitude" about the origin and nature of the "desire to serve", the responsibility of those who are tyrannized in the maintenance of tyranny, the role of language in the perpetutation of servitude and the possibility of overcoming it. Next, we analyze the behavior of the main character of Herman Melville´s short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener", which, through the use of the linguistic formula, "I would prefer not to", he is able to overcome servitude and nullifies the effects of discourse and of language itself over his will and his corporeality; attaining maximum power according to Agamben and Deleuze. Based on Freud´s considerations, especially in "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego", this study proposes a parallel between the observations of La Boétie and the findings of psychoanalysis on the psychology of the masses and the individual.  This research emphasizes the role of identifications in the dynamic of the establishment of libidinal ties among members of the mass and between the mass and its leader. Furthermore, Freud's theory of representation is discussed in order to retrieve a connection among language, the will and the body, concluding with the proposal of the application of these ideas in the interpretation of current political phenomena.

Key-words. Voluntary. Servitude. Language. Identification. Corporeality.

This essay argues that important critical and political perspective can be gained on Deleuze’s famous essay, ‘Bartleby; or, The Formula’ by viewing it as an attempt to move beyond the Sartrean framework of ‘bad faith’. The argument comprises four sections. In section one, I contextualise Deleuze’s essay in terms of contrasting readings of Bartleby, from a prior account by Georges Perec, to contemporary accounts indebted to Deleuze, from Hardt and Negri’s Empire to Gisèle Berkman’s recent L’Effet Bartleby. The argument of this section is that a problematically reductive image of Bartleby has emerged in the wake of Deleuze’s essay, but that this can be challenged in favour of a more nuanced and politically significant reading by contextualising the essay as an attempt to overcome bad faith. In section two, I develop this by drawing out the nature and relevance of the threat posed by bad faith through a focus on Sartre, Deleuze, and Badiou’s contemporary critique of Bartleby, before arguing, in section three, that attention to the concept of a ‘logic of presuppositions’ developed in Deleuze’s essay shows how bad faith can be overcome. These sections all build towards the fourth and longest section, which draws out the wider political significance of what it means to overcome bad faith. To do so, I pay attention to how logics of presupposition function in Bartleby’s story, and consider Deleuze’s essay in relation to his work on ‘control societies’ and ‘collective assemblages of enunciation’.

Come afferma “il critico venuto apposta da Roma” riferendosi a Ladri di Biciclette di De Sica, il primo passo nell'Italia post-bellica era stato effettivamente compiuto. Le narrazioni, cinematografiche e non di stampo neo-realista portavano il lavoratore, il proletario al centro dell'espressione artistica, motore e protagonista della resistenza, della contestazione e della critica sociale e politica. Progressivamente, però, con la concretizzazione del cosiddetto “boom” economico, del miracolo italiano, le strade del benessere si aprivano ad un ceto medio che, allargandosi, paradossalmente assorbiva i sentimenti eterogenei di lavoratori, studenti ed intellettuali in un serbatoio contestatorio pronto ad esondare durante gli anni '60 e '70. Quindi, dopo circa dieci anni dall'uscita del capolavoro di De Sica, l'ironia con cui Bianciardi accompagna le parole e la figura del critico venuto da Roma mira evidentemente alla destabilizzazione della stagnante culturale italiana che nel decennio post-bellico si radicò in un'estetica apologetica del lavoro che, per quanto giustificata, sembrava radicalizzare l'intento resistente  nella componente proletaria e nella sua attivazione come re-azione al sistema economico-sociale capitalista. In questo senso, Luciano Bianciardi sembra essere una figura divergente nella scrittura di resistenza1, non solo della letteratura italiana del periodo, ma anche rispetto a quella contemporanea. Infatti, la recente crisi economica e la conseguente precarizzazione del sistema lavorativo italiano hanno di nuovo spostato il baricentro delle narrazioni resistenti sulla tematica del “lavoro”. Inoltre, similmente al movimento neo-realista del dopoguerra, queste “narrazioni della precarietà”, come sono state definite da Monica Jansen, rientrano nella nebulosa del New Italian Epic parzialmente caratterizzata da un ritorno al realismo come reazione alle poetiche post-moderne2. Quindi, presentando la forma divergente di Luciano Bianciardi e specialmente quella del suo romanzo più celebre La Vita Agra, si vuole analizzare una modalità resistente che non si fa re-azione rispetto alla dinamica capitalista, ma che, invece, decide di inceppare il meccanismo della produzione facendosi in-azione. Attraverso l'introduzione di questa modalità resistente tramite l'esempio del protagonista del celebre racconto  di Herman Mellville “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” e le analisi di quest'opera fornite da Gilles Deleuze e Giorgio Agamben, si intende concepire la potenzialità contestatoria di Bianciardi in quanto possibilità alternativa rispetto alle scritture di resistenza contemporanee. Per questo, nell'ultima sezione di questo testo si offrirà un'analisi comparativa tra il romanzo di Bianciardi e Amianto di Alberto Prunetti, che costituisce uno degli esempi recenti più riusciti di scritture di resistenza contemporanea.

Von der Wahlenthaltung über den Konsumboykott bis hin zur Schweigeminute: Oft ist es nicht das Handeln, sondern gerade sein Fehlen, durch das Konflikte ausgetragen und Wandel hervorgerufen werden. Dieser Band setzt sich erstmals systematisch mit diesem Phänomen auseinander, in dem sich Aktivität und Inaktivität überschneiden. Anhand von Fallstudien aus dem 19. und 20. Jahrhundert untersuchen die Beiträge die besondere Eigenlogik und Bedeutung von Unterlassungspraktiken in Europa. Ihre Thematisierung verspricht neue Einsichten in die Konstitution und Dynamik moderner Gesellschaften. Denn gerade im Umgang mit dem Nichthandeln - ob aus Lethargie, zur Vermeidung oder als Widerstand - treten die Ambivalenzen der Partizipationschancen und -erwartungen hervor, durch die sich die Moderne auszeichnet.

The epistemic friction that is generated when privileged subjects are confronted by different social perspectives is important for democratic politics since it can interrupt their active ignorance about oppressive social relations from which they benefit. However, members of oppressed groups might sometimes prefer not to accept the burden of educating the dominant. In circumstances of structural inequality, withdrawing from privileged subjects' ignorance can be a form of self-preservation. But such withdrawal also has the potential to induce epistemic friction insofar as it depletes the opportunities for active ignorance to reproduce itself. Herman Melville's tragicomic short story of Bartleby-the legal copyist who 'would prefer not to'-has been celebrated by philosophers as emblematic of such resistant withdrawal. Interpreting the story as a dramatisation of the epistemic friction encountered by its narrator makes vivid how such withdrawal can be political.

Scopo di questo lavoro è mostrare come il personaggio di Bartleby, il protagonista del racconto di Melville, sia una figura paradigmatica del pensiero di Giorgio Agamben in quanto racchiude e disvela temi e concetti fondamentali della sua riflessione. A tal proposito, sosterremo che Bartleby è, da un lato, la chiave di volta del pensiero di Agamben in quanto permette una lettura dei concetti di potenza, contingenza e irreparabile, e che, dall'altro lato, l'interpretazione che Agamben fornisce di Bartleby è in grado di spiegare il fascino e il mistero che avvolge la figura dello scrivano. Parole chiave: Agamben; Bartleby; potenza; contingenza; irreparabile This essay aims to show how the character of Bartleby, the protagonist of Melville's novel, is a paradigmatic figure in Giorgio Agamben's thought, as it contains and unveils fundamental themes and concepts of his reflection. In this regard, we will argue that Bartleby is, on the one hand, the keystone of Agamben's thought, as it allows a reading of the concepts of potentiality, contingency and irreparable, and on the other hand, that the interpretation that Agamben provides of Bartleby can explain the charm and the mystery surrounding the figure of the scribe. Tutto è per, per così dire, solubile nell'etere del mondo; non vi sono durezze. L. Wittgenstein, Pensieri diversi 1. Osservazioni preliminari Il mistero di Bartleby ha affascinato generazioni di lettori, di critici letterari e di filosofi 1. Ogni tentativo di chiarire la natura, la storia e le origini di questo scrivano 1 Una rassegna critica delle esegesi del personaggio di Melville è offerta da G. Celati, Interpretazioni di Bartleby (1928-1990), in H. Melville, Bartleby lo scrivano, Feltrinelli, Milano 1991, pp. 85-110.

Analizamos en este artículo la ontología y la prospectiva del sujeto ético en la obra de Giorgio Agamben, centrándonos particularmente en su concepción del humano como resto o escisión constitutiva, y su apropiación de la figura de Bartleby el escribiente como figura paradigmática de una ética posible. Frente al sujeto ético así delineado, que nuestro análisis comprende como deudor de una noción no foucaultiana de los dispositivos, ofrecemos una lectura de autores como José Luis Villacañas, Georges Canguilhem o Jean-Luc Nancy en torno a un cuerpo biológico que no puede o no debe ser pensado como pasividad inoperante.

In this article I analyse the primary rejections depicted in Herman Melville’s Urtext on the withdrawal of complicity, Bartleby (1853), and Hito Steyerl’s video installation How Not to be Seen (2013), which experiments with a Bartleby-like withdrawal from surveillance through becoming illegible to machine vision. My focus is on the potential of primary rejection to reveal the disavowed content of racist violence foundational to the regimes (financial, sociotechnical) rejected in these texts. Adopting a hermeneutic of hauntology, my reading of Bartleby emphasises its publication context amid the slow struggles over the abolition of slavery in the US, to explore the connections between Bartleby’s strike and the history of racist violence lingering in Melville’s depiction of an oddly vacant Wall Street. Turning to Steyerl’s video installation, I evaluate the techniques it proposes for becoming Bartlebys of the digital age, emphasising the complexity of Steyerl’s mobilisation of mixed-footage montage to explore the dangers of legibility and invisibility in a racist internet era. Throughout, I set these two works in dialogue with leading interpretations of Bartleby, with Adorno and Horkheimer’s interpretation of Hegel’s ‘determinate negation’, hauntological analyses of German and other texts, and current theories of race and surveillance to pose the question: for whom is primary rejection affordable and who, like Bartleby, will perish if they try to exit dominant schemes of legibility?

Wiele już napisano na temat stworzonej przez Hermana Melville'a postaci Bartleby'ego - najczęściej interpretując słynne "wolałbym nie" jako różnie pojmowaną formę politycznego lub pre-politycznego oporu. Tę lawinę tekstów zapoczątkował, o czym się czasem zapomina, esej Gilles'a Deleuze'a "Bartleby albo formuła", którego centralnym motywem jest nie opór, ale stawanie-się-innym: proces oddalania się od dominującego, większościowego wzorca męskiej, europejskiej, kapitalistycznej i edypalnej tożsamości. Procesowi temu może jednak podlegać tylko wspomniany większościowy podmiot: inny, dzięki któremu możliwe jest stawanie się, pełni wyłącznie funkcję pomocniczą czy instrumentalną: w przypadku tekstu Melville'a, to bezimienny narrator, a nie Bartleby, jest jego prawdziwym bohaterem.

Stawanie się jest więc przygodą zarezerwowaną dla podmiotu większościowego. Deleuze wydaje się jednak nie zdawać sobie sprawy z tego ograniczenia. Tekst Coetzee'ego ukazuje natomiast, na przykładzie skazanej na porażkę relacji między tytułowym bohaterem a próbującym go "zrozumieć" lekarzem, asymetrię dwóch terminów stawania się i podporządkowanie innego, a tym samym dekonstruuje hierarchię zawartą w pojęciu stawania się.

Poema selecionado em concurso organizado pelo Diretório Acadêmico Carlos Drummond de Andrade, da Faculdade de Letras da UFMG. Dialoga, em primeiro lugar, com o Bartleby de Herman Melville, mas também com a poesia de Manuel Bandeira, o diário de notas de rodapé de Enrique Vila-Matas - bem como seu "texto invisível" - e os ensaios de Agamben e Deleuze dedicados ao escrivão que, a partir de certo dia, "preferiu não".

Wiele już napisano na temat stworzonej przez Hermana Melville'a postaci Bartleby'ego – najczęściej inter-pre¬tu¬jąc słynne „wolałbym nie” jako różnie pojmowaną formę politycznego lub pre-politycznego oporu. Tę lawinę tekstów zapoczątkował, o czym się czasem zapomina, esej Gilles'a Deleuze'a „Bartleby albo formuła”, którego centralnym motywem jest nie opór, ale stawanie-się-innym: proces oddalania się od dominującego, więk¬szoś¬ciowego wzorca męskiej, europejskiej, kapitalistycznej i edypalnej tożsamości. Procesowi temu może jednak pod¬¬legać tylko wspomniany większościowy podmiot: inny, dzięki któremu możliwe jest stawanie się, pełni wy¬łącznie funkcję pomocniczą czy instrumentalną: w przypadku tekstu Melville'a, to bezimienny narrator, a nie Bartleby, jest jego prawdziwym bohaterem. Stawanie się jest więc przygodą zarezerwowaną dla podmio¬tu większościowego. Deleuze wydaje się jednak nie zdawać sobie sprawy z tego ograniczenia. Tekst Coetzee'ego ukazuje nato...

»Man hat bemerkt, dass die Formel – I prefer not to – weder eine Affirmation noch eine Negation ist. Bartleby ›verweigert nicht, akzeptiert aber auch nicht, er tritt hervor und zieht sich in diesem Hervortreten zurück, er exponiert sich ein wenig in einem leichten Zurückweichen des Sprechens.‹ […] Die Formel wirkt verheerend, weil sie unnachsichtig ebenso das, was vorzuziehen wäre, wie egal welches Nicht-Gemochte ausmerzt. Sie hebt den Term auf, auf dem sie beruht und den sie zurückweist, aber auch den anderen Term, den sie zu bewahren schien und der unmöglich wird. Tatsächlich macht sie beide ununterscheidbar: Sie hebt eine Ununterscheidbarkeitszone, eine Zone der Unbestimmtheit aus, die unaufhörlich zwischen den nichtgemochten Tätigkeiten und einer bevorzugbaren Tätigkeit wächst. Jede Besonderheit, jede Referenz wird abgeschafft.« Kein trotziges ‚Nein!‘ also vom Anwaltsgehilfen Bartleby – zumindest Deleuze zufolge.

Allzu schnell sind wir geneigt, die Abwesenheit von Handeln als bloßes
Nichts aufzufassen. Doch in vielen Situationen hinterlässt eine solche Absenz keine konturlose Leere, sondern vielmehr eine scharf umrissene Leerstelle. Im Modus der Unterlassung kann Passivität selbst der Charakter eines Handlungsmodus zukommen. An der Schnittstelle zwischen Aktivität und Inaktivität begegnet uns somit ein Phänomen mit paradoxen Zügen: ein Handeln, das zugleich keines ist, und eine Form der Negativität, die nicht nichts ist. Um die schillernde Gestalt dieses Gegenstandes auf den Begriff zu bringen, soll im Folgenden auf eine typografische Neuprägung zurückgegriffen werden: Nicht/Handeln.

Resumen El artículo presenta un análisis del cuento de Herman Melville: " Bartleby, el escribiente ". Este análisis parte de un acercamiento a la literatura desde una noción de política inspirada en autores como Jacques Derrida y Jacques Rancière, pero que se aparta de esta filosofía cuando, por encima del propio texto y sus posibi-lidades, se pretende encontrar en él heterotopías, esperanzas y comunidades por venir. Esta noción de política acerca a la litera-tura al mundo efectivo, transfigurando los modos de ser y no ser. Así, el personaje de Bartleby se presenta en medio del mundo de la representación como un agente del caos. En esto consiste la política del escribiente: su incursión devela las farsas del mundo construido y soñado por los hombres; pero esta destrucción que causa es inútil: el mundo de la representación ha sentido su ab-surdo, no sabe qué hacer con dicho agente del caos, pero no es suficiente para arruinarlo. Bartleby, quien se ha indeterminado y ha abandonado las dualidades de ser y no ser, tampoco puede seguir viviendo: ya no hay espacio para la vida sin referencias en un mundo humano y ficticio.

O presente ensaio discute o “efeito Bartleby” nas suas dimensões literária, filosófica e política, tomando em consideração as leituras da novela de Melville propostas por Blanchot, Deleuze, Agamben, Hardt, Negri, Zizek, entre outros autores. Distingue-se dois procedimentos – um mais centrado na “fórmula”, outro na “alegoria” – e mostra-se como eles podem convergir ou divergir naquelas leituras. A “reticência” final expressa uma preocupação crítica a respeito da relação entre literatura e política. À custa de verificar quer as dificuldades na articulação entre “fórmula” e “alegoria” quer a prevalência de um sentido “messiânico” quando aquela articulação parece bem sucedida, sugerir-se-á que o reconhecimento de uma “política da literatura” não se confunde com – e não admite – a transformação de uma qualquer personagem ou fórmula literárias num emblema do político.

The present essay discusses the so-called “Bartleby effect” in its literary, philosophical and political dimensions, while bringing into account the readings of Melville’s novel offered by Blanchot, Deleuze, Agamben, Hardt, Negri, Zizek, among others. I distinguish two procedures – following the thread of the “formula” or exploring the “allegory” – and show how they may either converge or diverge in the above-mentioned readings. The final “reticence” expresses a critical concern about the relationship between literature and politics. After realizing both the difficulty in articulating the “formulaic” and the “allegorical” procedures and the prevalence of a certain messianism, whenever this articulation seems to succeed, I suggest that recognizing the “politics of literature” cannot – and should not – be equated with the transformation of any literary character and/or formula into an emblem of the political.

This paper brings together Žižek’s bartleby politics with the praxis of organic intellectuals emerging out of the “bougainville crisis”, in order to generate a new van- tage point for theorizing anti-colonial resistance to state violence. bartleby politics, it is argued, conceptualizes how socio-symbolic orders naturalize their existence, and the strategies required to disrupt this completeness of power, so we can begin again. applying this approach, it is argued during colonization metropolitan powers shatter the permanency of indigenous socio-symbolic orders, by situating them within a wider (con- trived) teleological historical sequence. However, the metropolitan power’s capacity to manage this risky enterprise—where the possibility of possibility emerges—is shaped by anti-colonial resistance. This resistance can shift a teleological moment to a contingent moment, where multiple vectors of history are opened up by the colonized “subjects,” that go beyond the set sequence offered by the colonial power. One of the most radical forms of violence colonized “subjects” can inflict on the colonial powers during this open historical moment, it is argued, is refusal. Refusal, that is to negotiate the terms and con- ditions of incorporation into Empire, and instead unilaterally setting a different historical course. The violence refusal inflicts on Empire, and the greater violence Empire inflicts back, will be examined through the case study of the bougainville war.

Herman Melville, 1853’te, günümüzde kendisinin en tanınmış kurgu eseri hâline gelen ve bir buçuk yüzyıl sonra bile vicdani retin aydınlatıcı bir canlandırması olarak okunabilecek Kâtip Bartleby’yi yayımladı.[1] Elbette, Melville’in reddetme yaklaşımı ile bunun tıbbi etikte nasıl tartışıldığı arasında önemli farklılıklar vardır. Öyküdeki olay, örneğin, bir klinikte geçmez; temel çatışma ise bir hukuk bürosu başkanı ile kendisine verilen görevleri kibarca ama ısrarla reddeden bir çalışan arasındadır.  Talep edilen görevlerin özellikleri ise tıptaki görevler kadar açık ve acil değildir. Ancak Melville bu kurguda, kariyerinde kendisinden beklenen türden kurgular yazmamaya ve mesleğinin gereği olan görevleri yerine getirmemeye karar verdiği bir anda, mecazlı bir dil kullanmaktaydı.[2-5] Onun yerine, edebiyatı dönemin daha çetin felsefi sorularını keşfetme biçimi olarak görmek gerektiğine yönelik iddiasını temellendirmeyi sürdürdü. Ve onun bu edebi itiraz şekli hem kendi zamanının okuyucuları hem de bizim zamanımızın okuyucuları için reddin yapısını anlama ve ahlaki boyutlarını anlatının resmi ortamında inceleme fırsatı üretti