Selected Writings 9781503617407

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SELECTED WRITINGS

MERIDIAN

Crossing Aesthetics

Werner Hamacher

Editor

Edited by Thomas Albrecht, with Georgia Albert and Elizabeth Rottenberg Introduction by Jacques Derrida

Stanford University Press

Stanford California 2007

SELECTED WRITINGS

Sarah Kofman

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2007 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kofman, Sarah. [Selections. English. 2007] Selected writings I Sarah Kofman ; edited by Thomas Albrecht, with Georgia Albert and Elizabeth Rottenberg ; introduction by Jacques Derrida. p. cm.-(Meridian) Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 978-o-8047-3296-3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-o-8047-3297-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) I. Philosophy, French-2oth century I. Albrecht, Thomas, 1965- II. Albert, Georgia. III. Rottenberg, Elizabeth, 1969IV. Title. B243o.K642E6 2007 194--dc22

2007025702

Typeset by Westchester Book Group in 10.9lr3 Adobe Garamond

Contents

Acknowledgments

IX

Editor's Preface Thomas Albrecht

XI

Introduction jacques Derrida

I

PART I: READING (WITH) FREUD

§

I

The Double Reading

§

2

The Impossible Profession Ga cloche

§ 3

7I

PART 2: NIETZSCHE AND THE SCENE OF PHILOSOPHY

§ 4

The Evil Eye

§ 5

Scorning Jews: Nietzsche, the Jews, Anti-Semitism

PART

§ 6

3:

99 I23

WITH RESPECT TO WOMAN

From The Enigma of Woman: Woman in Freud's Writings

I

59

Contents

VIII

§ 7

PART

The Economy of Respect: Kant and Respect for Women 4:

THE TRUTH IN PAINTING

§ 8

The Melancholy of Art

205

§ 9

The Resemblance of Portraits: Imitation According to Diderot

218

Conjuring Death: Remarks on The Anatomy Lesson ofDoctor Nicolas Tulp (1632)

237

§m

PART

5= JUDAISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM I AUTOBIOGRAPHY

§II

Shoah (or Dis-grace)

245

§ 12

Autobiographical Writings

247

Damned Food 247 Tomb for a Proper Name 248 Post-scriptum-1992 249 "My Life" and Psychoanalysis 250 Nightmare: At the Margins of Medieval Studies 251 Notes

255

Contributors

297

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank Chris Lewis and Philip Leider, for the inspired idea of putting together an anthology of Sarah Kofman's writings and for their contributions to the early stages of this project; Werner Hamacher, editor of the Meridian Series at Stanford University Press; Elizabeth Constable; all the translators who prepared the translations especially commissioned for this volume (Jennifer Bajorek, Pascale-Anne Brault, Ben Elwood, Patience Moll, Michael Naas, and Ann Smock), for their attentive and thoughtful responses to Kofman's prose and for their patience and understanding during the years it took to compile this collection; Jacques Derrida, for the gift of his untitled eulogy for Sarah Kofman, which serves as the introduction; Alexandre Kyritsos, Sarah Kofman's companion and literary executor, for his stated enthusiasm about this project and for permissions; Megan Holt, M. J. Severson, and Megan M. Haissig at Tulane University, for their work as research assistants; Santhosh Daniel, former editorial assistant at Stanford University Press, for all his help and good humor; production editors Mariana Raykov at Stanford University Press and Deborah Masi; Julie Palmer-Hoffman, for her careful and conscientious copy editing; Emily-Jane Cohen, Assistant Editor at Stanford University Press; and Norris Pope, Director of Scholarly Publishing at Stanford University Press, for helping to bring this project, as Sarah Kofman might have said, to term. Finally and foremost, we thank Helen Tartar, editor during the formative stages of the project, for her guidance and her often expressed belief in the timeliness and relevance of this book. "The Impossible Profession," "