Nikolaj Lubecker

Throughout the twentieth century a significant tradition in French thought promoted a highly dramatized reading of the Hegelian struggle for recognition. In this tradition a violent struggle was regarded as an indispensable means to the realization of both individual and social ideals. The following article considers Claire Denis's film I Can't Sleep as an oblique challenge to this tradition. I Can't Sleep performs a careful dedramatization of an extremely violent story and thereby points to the possibility of an alternative form of co-existence outside a logic of conflict.

The last ten to fifteen years have seen the publication of numerous books and articles considering the relation between images and politics. The reasons for this development are obvious: footage of the World Trade Center attacks and photos from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo (to give just a few examples) have clearly demonstrated that images not only respond to political events, but also play an important part in shaping them. Images have therefore been blamed for their complicity in these events (in ways that literature and music, for instance, have not), and these accusations have prompted artists, philosophers and theoreticians to investigate how images can also be used to think critically about political events. This text examines two quite different, though not opposed, explorations of this last question: Georges Didi-Huberman’s 'Quand les images prennent position' (2009) — the first volume in a book series entitled 'L’Œil de l’histoire' — and Judith Butler’s 'Frames of War' (2009). In addition to these, a number of Jacques Rancière’s recent writings will be included in the discussion.

This paper examines Sartre's conception of (Hegelian) recognition. This conception is often described as 'dialogical', likened to a conversation. However, if we consider Sartre's analysis of the relation between writer and reader in Why Write?, it becomes apparent that three elements are involved: the writer, the reader, and a 'silence' which precedes (and follows) the interaction between writer and reader. The paper probes the meaning and function of this silence, examining what Sartre's idea of recognition owes to the aesthetic experience.