Books by Eran Dorfman
Routledge, 2020
The double, doppelgänger, is mostly understood as a peculiar figure that emerged in nineteenth-ce... more The double, doppelgänger, is mostly understood as a peculiar figure that emerged in nineteenth-century Romantic and gothic literature. Far from being a merely esoteric entity, however, this book argues that the double, although it mostly goes unnoticed, is a widespread phenomenon that has significant influence on our lives. It is an inherent key element of human subjectivity whose functions, forms, and effects have not yet gained the serious consideration they merit.
Drawing on literature, philosophy, and psychoanalysis, and combining a personal story with theoretical interventions, Double Trouble develops a novel understanding of the double and human subjectivity in the last two centuries. It begins with the singular and narcissistic double of Romanticism and gradually moves to the multiple doubles implicated by Postmodernism. The double is what defies unicity and opens up the subject to multiplicity. Consequently, it gradually emerges as a bridge between the I and the Other, identity and difference, philosophy and literature, theory and praxis.
https://www.routledge.com/Double-Trouble-The-Doppelganger-from-Romanticism-to-Postmodernism/Dorfman/p/book/9780367441449
Rowman & Littlefield International , Jun 16, 2014
We are used to seeing the everyday as an ordinary aspect of life, something that we need to 'over... more We are used to seeing the everyday as an ordinary aspect of life, something that we need to 'overcome', whereas it actually plays a crucial role in any event of our lives. This highly original book engages with a range of thinkers and texts from across the fields of phenomenology, psychoanalysis and critical theory, including Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Freud and Benjamin, together with innovative analysis of French literature and the visual arts, to demonstrate that the role of repetition and deferral in modernity has changed dramatically. Rather than allowing the everyday gradually to integrate singular events into its repetitive texture, events are experienced now as self-enclosed entities, allegedly disconnected from the everyday, leading to its impoverishment. The book thus offers a novel understanding of being, body, trauma and shock, but within the framework of the everyday as a concept that deserves a theory of its very own.
Phaenomenologica 179, Springer, 2007
C’est en interrogeant la Phénoménologie de la perception de Maurice Merleau-Ponty que cette étude... more C’est en interrogeant la Phénoménologie de la perception de Maurice Merleau-Ponty que cette étude tâche d’élaborer une conception de la philosophie comme un apprentissage perceptif qui dépasserait l’opposition entre théorie et praxis. Le sujet empirique et son « attitude naturelle » sont appelés à retrouver la couche pré-objective qui fonde le monde objectif, à retrouver le corps vivant qui fonde le corps constitué et figé. Mais la vie empirique semble résister à cet appel, de telle sorte que la phénoménologie, pour désavouer l’attitude naturelle sans la critiquer explicitement, se tourne vers un cas extrême, excessif, de cette même attitude: la pathologie.
Dans un deuxième temps, la théorie psychanalytique de Jacques Lacan est introduite pour montrer qu’il n’y a pas de vie pré-objective sans objectivité, de même qu’il n’y a pas de vie normale sans pathologie. Les rapports réciproques, ambigus, entre monde objectif et monde pré-objectif, entre normalité et pathologie, sont ici analysés pour permettre de voir que seul le mouvement perpétuel de l’un de ces pôles à l’autre peut constituer à la fois la vraie phénoménologie perceptive et l’existence enfin libre.
Edited Books by Eran Dorfman
Figures of the Unconscious, Leuven University Press, 2010
Papers by Eran Dorfman
Philosophy and Literature , 2025
This paper proposes that romantic love is shaped by a complex
temporal structure in which past, p... more This paper proposes that romantic love is shaped by a complex
temporal structure in which past, present, and future are interconnected
through a nonlinear narrative flow. Love is a continuous process in which
lovers collaboratively construct and narrate a mythologized memory
of the past, imbuing their relationship with meaning and projecting it
forward as an ideal state to be regained. To elaborate on this propo-
sal, I draw on Plato’s theory of love as recollection and examine two
twentieth-century works: Marcel Proust’s Swann in Love and Marguerite
Duras’s Blue Eyes, Black Hair.
Continental Philosophy Review , 2022
This paper aims to clarify the role the double plays in the constitution of identity, focusing on... more This paper aims to clarify the role the double plays in the constitution of identity, focusing on the movement between the individual and the collective level. Notably, the latter today is often considered through the lens of identity politics. The double, I argue, poses an alternative to this type of politics, by showing the interdependence of groups. As a case study, this paper focuses on the complex relationship between the anti-Semite and the Jew as depicted by Sartre. I begin with a psychoanalytical examination of the figure of the double,follow on with an analysis of Sartre's work in the light of the double, and conclude with Girard's theory of mimetic desire.
Routledge, 2020
One of the oldest examples of sexuality's political potential appears in Aristophanes's comedy Ly... more One of the oldest examples of sexuality's political potential appears in Aristophanes's comedy Lysistrata, in which the women of Greece are tired of the ongoing war between their cities. Under the unifying leadership of Lysistrata, they declare that they will refuse to have sex with their husbands until the war is over, and miraculously enough, a peace treaty is signed much sooner than expected. The different peoples reconcile with each other, and so do the different sexes. Indeed, sexuality expresses much more than an intimate interaction between two bodies. It also involves various elements such as power, dominance, control, pleasure, and pain-elements that are inherent parts of any human interaction, from relationships between two people to complex social structures. These elements, however, are not static and take diverse shapes and forms according to the time and the place of their emergence. Sexuality changes accordingly in both its praxis and its discourse, interacting with different norms and codes that define what 'legitimate' sexuality is. The interesting question for our purposes, however, is not so much how sexuality is shaped by history-a question that has been studied extensively-but rather how sexuality may in turn shape history. What is the political potential of sexuality, and how can we realize it? In this respect, psychoanalysis may serve as a powerful tool of investigation. Indeed, sexual-ity has occupied a central place in psychoanalysis from the outset, and this place, moreover, has been the focal point of many criticisms and attacks against psychoanalysis. It is as if the way that psychoanalysis conceived of sexuality profoundly disturbed and threatened to reveal something hidden in society. The introduction of infantile sexuality, for instance, provoked outrage and disgust among conservative circles, which accused psychoanalysis of decadence and nihilism and of seeking to destabilize family and sexual norms. Later on, however, a contrary type of criticism was raised, one that considers psychoanalysis to be too conservative and oppressive. Psychoanalysis is actually both revolutionary and conservative, not because of Freud's own personality or other external factors but because of the very nature of what psychoanalysis investigates. On the one hand, it introduces blind forces, which are the drives: Libido (or Eros, the life drive) and Thanatos (the death drive). On the other hand, it focuses on the ways these forces are restricted by social norms and the various symptoms that are caused by these restrictions. Neither wishing to undo these norms nor aspiring to conserve them, psychoanalysis is content with describing the norms. Its aim is to find a cure for the symptoms within existing restrictions rather than to create a society with no symptoms at all.
SubStance , 2017
This paper investigates the Platonic myth of Epimetheus and Prometheus in the light of the Derrid... more This paper investigates the Platonic myth of Epimetheus and Prometheus in the light of the Derridean notion of différance, claiming that each of the mythical brothers relates only to one element of the term; Epimetheus locating differences in space and Prometheus being imprisoned in temporal deferral. To better understand the various modes of différance I suggest turning to Freud’s theory of deferred action (Nachträglichkeit) through which one repeats the past while acknowledging both its difference from the present and the inevitable deferral the process involves. I claim that psychoanalysis enacts the encounter between Epimetheus and Prometheus, thus uniting the two elements of différance.
In this paper I examine two limit cases in which the body is threatened: the experience of emerge... more In this paper I examine two limit cases in which the body is threatened: the experience of emergency as described by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Flight to Arras, and the experience of illness as described by Jean-Luc Nancy in his autobiographical essay The Intruder. In the first case, the everyday relationship to the body is revealed to be illusionary; the body becomes a powerful yet obedient machine. In the second case, the everyday relationship to the body is also suspended, but this time in favor of a weak and objectified body. I argue that these apparently opposite experiences actually presuppose a similar notion of the everyday body, which I further conceptualize, through Merleau-Ponty and his analysis of the body, as deficient and therefore inherently repressed. The paper concludes with the suggestion that writing about one’s own body may be seen as a way to fight the everyday tendency towards repression, and I propose overwriting as a term that can capture this process.
in "Double Exposure" (Tel Aviv: SIPP, 2014)
Tout au long de son oeuvre, Michel de Certeau a tenté l'impossible : développer une écriture qui ... more Tout au long de son oeuvre, Michel de Certeau a tenté l'impossible : développer une écriture qui s'adapterait à la fois à la théorie qu'elle affirme et à l'objet qu'elle décrit. L'écriture, d'après Certeau, est ainsi censée exemplifier, incarner et articuler la recherche en même temps que ce sur quoi cette recherche porte. De nombreux interprètes l'ont noté à propos de L'écriture de l'histoire 1 : l'histoire est ce qui se trouve derrière nous, ce qui par définition est absent 2 , et c'est « cette absence qui constitue le discours historique » 3 . L'écriture de l'histoire, telle que la pratique Certeau, s'efforce donc d'exposer et de dévoiler sa propre absence pour répondre à son objet, qui est l'histoire, mais aussi en réponse à la recherche même, à savoir la théorie de l'histoire, ou, comme le dit Certeau, de la « fabrication de l'histoire ». Dès lors, l'écriture doit perdre son statut utilitaire et apparemment transparent, pour devenir l'un des acteurs principaux de la recherche. Plus encore, elle doit devenir une pratique qui s'adapte à la théorie tout en la complétant et la transgressant à cause de sa fidélité à son objet. L'écriture est le « valet de deux maîtres », un médiateur entre le champ théorique et le champ empirique, une pratique unique dont la méthodologie doit encore être développée.
Ils sont en face de moi, l'oeil rond, et je me vois soudain dans ce regard d'effroi : leur épouva... more Ils sont en face de moi, l'oeil rond, et je me vois soudain dans ce regard d'effroi : leur épouvante 2 . » C'est ainsi que commence L'Ecriture ou la Vie, le roman que Jorge Semprun a tiré de son expérience de prisonnier politique à Buchenwald. Pendant deux ans, raconte-t-il, il ne s'est pas vu. Pas de glace, ni de miroir à Buchenwald. Semprun a, certes, vu son corps, mais son visage, ses yeux, son propre regard, jamais. Jusqu'au jour de la Libération, lequel a apporté avec lui non pas des miroirs réels -pas tout de suite en tout casmais des miroirs humains : le regard de l'autre, épouvanté.
In this paper I analyse the role of naturalism and objectivism in everyday life according to Huss... more In this paper I analyse the role of naturalism and objectivism in everyday life according to Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. Whereas Husserl attributes the naturalistic attitude mainly to science, he defines the objectivist attitude as a naiveté which equally applies to the natural attitude of everyday life. I analyse the relationship between the natural attitude and lived experience and show Husserl's hesitation regarding the task of phenomenology in describing the lived experience of everyday life, since he considers this experience to be too objectivistic. I use Merleau-Ponty's work to argue that objectivism is an essential characteristic of lived experience and that phenomenology should therefore find ways to integrate it into its descriptions while simultaneously suggesting ways to overcome its rigidity in order to renew perception. I finally propose that the project of the naturalisation of phenomenology could be one of the ways to connect lived experience to the objectivism of everyday life.
"Nem a matéria, nem o espaço, nem o tempo são, desde há vinte anos, o que eles eram desde sempre"... more "Nem a matéria, nem o espaço, nem o tempo são, desde há vinte anos, o que eles eram desde sempre". É esta frase de Valéry, redigida em 1934, que Walter Benjamin escolhe como epígrafe para seu famoso texto A obra de arte na época de sua reprodutibilidade técnica. Todos os escritos tardios de Benjamin são consagrados à descrição dessas mudanças no espaço e no tempo, cuja raiz deve ser situada já no Segundo Império e em particular em Charles Baudelaire como precursor da modernidade.
In Vinciguerra L. et Bourlez F. (ed.). L'oeil et l'esprit: Merleau-Ponty entre art et philosophie, Reims: Epure, 2010, pp. 61-69
Sexuality and Psychoanalysis: Philosophical …, Jan 1, 2011
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Books by Eran Dorfman
Drawing on literature, philosophy, and psychoanalysis, and combining a personal story with theoretical interventions, Double Trouble develops a novel understanding of the double and human subjectivity in the last two centuries. It begins with the singular and narcissistic double of Romanticism and gradually moves to the multiple doubles implicated by Postmodernism. The double is what defies unicity and opens up the subject to multiplicity. Consequently, it gradually emerges as a bridge between the I and the Other, identity and difference, philosophy and literature, theory and praxis.
https://www.routledge.com/Double-Trouble-The-Doppelganger-from-Romanticism-to-Postmodernism/Dorfman/p/book/9780367441449
Dans un deuxième temps, la théorie psychanalytique de Jacques Lacan est introduite pour montrer qu’il n’y a pas de vie pré-objective sans objectivité, de même qu’il n’y a pas de vie normale sans pathologie. Les rapports réciproques, ambigus, entre monde objectif et monde pré-objectif, entre normalité et pathologie, sont ici analysés pour permettre de voir que seul le mouvement perpétuel de l’un de ces pôles à l’autre peut constituer à la fois la vraie phénoménologie perceptive et l’existence enfin libre.
Edited Books by Eran Dorfman
Papers by Eran Dorfman
temporal structure in which past, present, and future are interconnected
through a nonlinear narrative flow. Love is a continuous process in which
lovers collaboratively construct and narrate a mythologized memory
of the past, imbuing their relationship with meaning and projecting it
forward as an ideal state to be regained. To elaborate on this propo-
sal, I draw on Plato’s theory of love as recollection and examine two
twentieth-century works: Marcel Proust’s Swann in Love and Marguerite
Duras’s Blue Eyes, Black Hair.