Alles inclusief! Het poëtische en het kapitalisme

Oratie van Frans-Willem Korsten voor de leerstoel “Literatuur en samenleving” aan de Erasmus Universiteit te Rotterdam, Faculteit der Historische en Kunstwetenschappen,18 oktober 2007. Sinds het ontstaan van het moderne productie-kapitalisme in de negentiende eeuw bekritiseren schrijvers (en kunstenaars in het algemeen) dit systeem onophoudelijk. Zij vinden een kapitalisme dat werkt door “creative destruction” ongetwijfeld creatief, maar achten de ongekende vernietiging en vervreemding, het fetisjisme, de eenvormigheid, of de bedreiging van de menselijke leefwereld onacceptabel. Opvallend genoeg is ruim anderhalve eeuw van artistiek en intellectueel protest vrijwel vruchteloos gebleken. Korsten zoekt een verklaring voor die vruchteloosheid en vraagt zich af of er niet een structurele overeenkomst bestaat tussen het poëtische en het kapitalisme

Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679)

Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) was the most prolific poet and playwright of his age. During his long life, roughly coincinding with the Dutch Golden Age, he wrote over thirty tragedies. He was a famous figure in political and artistic circles of Amsterdam, a contemporary and acquaintance of Grotius and Rembrandt, but in general well acquainted with Latin humanists, Dutch scholars, authors and Amsterdam burgomasters. He fuelled literary, religious and political debates. His tragedy 'Gysbreght van Aemstel', which was played on the occasion of the opening of the stone city theatre in 1638, was to become the most famous play in Dutch history, and can probably boast holding the record for the longest tradition of annual performance in Europe. In general, Vondel’s texts are literary works in the full sense of the word, complex and inexhasutive; attracting attention throughout the centuries. Contributors include: Eddy Grootes, Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Mieke B. Smits-Veldt, Marijke Spies, Judith Pollmann, Bettina Noak, Louis Peter Grijp, Guillaume van Gemert, Jürgen Pieters, Nina Geerdink, Madeleine Kasten, Marco Prandoni, Peter Eversmann, Mieke Bal, Maaike Bleeker, Bennett Carpenter, James A. Parente, Jr., Stefan van der Lecq, Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen, Helmer Helmers, Kristine Steenbergh, Yasco Horsman, Jeanne Gaakeer and Wiep van Bung

Corporate personhood as inhuman: the paradigm of asbestos cases and Dracula

Partant d’un arrêt de la Cour Suprême des Pays-Bas qui fait suite à une plainte introduite par un ouvrier de l’amiante, ce texte interroge le déséquilibre originel qui sous-tend toute relation entre deux personnalités radicalement différentes, l’ouvrier et l’entreprise, dont la première est dotée d’une identité physique alors que la seconde ne l’est pas. Cet article propose d’analyser quelques tenants et aboutissants en termes de responsa­bilité, d’héritage et de subsistance, de cette inégalité qui fonde le champ de tension entre l’instance employante et celui qu’elle emploie. Plus particulièrement, la figure romanesque de Dracula, dont le succès est contem­porain de l’émergence de l’entreprise commerciale, sert ici à problématiser l’étrangeté pourtant culturellement assimilée de cette instance hybride qui s’est imposée en tant qu’absolue nécessité et monstruosité tout à la fois: une combinatoire d’anthropomorphisme et de sa plus simple négation.On the basis of a recent verdict of the Dutch Supreme Court known as the “Asbestos-arrest”, this article reflects on the original unbalance which underlies every relation and conflict between a worker and a corpora­tion, both embodying two but radically different forms of personhood. To question this fundamental inequality in terms of accountability, subsistence and identity, this text argues that the figure of Dracula, which had its first heyday simultaneously to the emergence of the business corporation, captures this inequality in such a way that the issue is both addressed as problematic and made acceptable, revealing further on a smokescreen that hides the real problem: a corporation is non-human and thus, contrary to the worker, can’t be killed

Apostrophe, witnessing and its essentially theatrical modes of address: Maria Dermôut on Pattimura and Kara Walker on the New Orleans flooding

Apostrophe is best known as a punctuation mark (') or as a key poetic figure (with a speaker addressing an imaginary or absent person or entity). In origin, however, it is a pivotal rhetorical figure that indicates a 'breaking away' or turning away of the speaker from one addressee to another, in a different mode. In this respect, apostrophe is essentially theatrical. To be sure, the turn away implies two different modes of address that may follow upon one another, as is hinted at by the two meanings of the verb 'to witness': being a witness and bearing witness. One cannot do both at the same time. My argument will be, however, that in order to make witnessing work ethically and responsibly, the two modes of address must take place simultaneously, in the coincidence of two modalities of presence: one actual and one virtual. Accordingly, I will distinguish between an address of attention and an address of expression. Whereas the witness is actually paying attention to that which she witnesses, she is virtually (and in the sense Deleuze intended, no less really) turning away in terms of expression. The two come together in what Kelly Oliver called the 'inner witness'. The simultaneous operation of two modes of address suggests that Caroline Nevejan's so-called YUTPA model would have to include two modalities of 'you'. Such a dual modality has become all the more important, in the context of the society of the spectacle. One text will help me first to explore two modes of address through apostrophe. I will focus on a story by Dutch author Maria Dermôut, written in the fifties of the twentieth century, reflecting on an uprising and the subsequent execution of its leader in the Dutch Indies in 1817. Secondly, I will move to American artist Kara Walker's response, in the shape of an installation and a visual essay, to the flooding of New Orleans in 2005. The latter will serve to illustrate a historic shift in the theatrical nature and status of 'presence' in the two modes of address. Instead of thinking of the convergence of media, of which Jenkins speaks, we might think of media swallowing up one another. For instance, the theatrical structure of apostrophe is swallowed up, and in a sense perverted, by the model of the spectacle in modern media. This endangers the very possibility of witnessing in any ethical sense of the word