The Soul Might Well Have Been Dreamed by Cicadas: Inger Christensen’s Speculative Realism
Abstract
In this paper, I reconstruct Inger Christensen’s poetical thinking in a dialogue with the speculative turn in contemporary continental philosophy. Christensen’s poetry has been philosophically interpreted in line with the Romantic tradition. However, I argue that by reframing the context to present day debates in continental metaphysics, Christensen’s position can provide the building blocks for a new hybrid model —an object-oriented philosophy of nature. First, the relation between language as a transcendental semiotic system and reality as a mind-independent realm is addressed not as a correlation between humans and world but as a companionship between two aspects of nature itself. Second, Christensen advocates a generic model of becoming where the engine is fueled by the irreducible “state of secrecy” that generates beings, forces, events on a flat ontological and political plane without ever itself being revealed.
References
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Wolff, Francis (1997) Dire le monde [Saying the World]. Paris: PUF.
Zeruneith, Keld (1983) “Alfabetisk entropi —alfabet. Digt, 1981” [Alphabetic entropy —Alphabet. Poem, 1981]. In Tegnverden —En bog om Inger Christensens for- fatterskab [A world of signs: A book on Inger Christensen’s authorship], ed. Iben Holk, 179–92. Aarhus: Centrum.
Bennett, Jane (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Bogost, Ian (2012). Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Bryant, Levi, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman (2011). “Towards a Speculative Phi- losophy.” In The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism, eds. Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman, 1–18. Melbourne: re.press.
Carson, Anne (2006). “Introduction.” In it, by Inger Christensen, trans. Susanna Nied. New York: New Directions Books.
Christensen, Inger (2001). Alphabet. Trans. Susanna Nied. New York: New Directions Book.
Christensen, Inger (2006). it. Trans. Susanna Nied. New York: New Directions Book.
Christensen, Inger (2009). Hemmelighedstilstanden [The state of secrecy]. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
Christensen, Inger (2011). Light, Grass, and Letter in April. Trans Susanna Nied. New York: New Directions Book.
Christensen, Inger (2018). Verden ønsker at se sig selv. Digte, prosa, udkast [The World Wishes to See Itself. Poems, Prose, Drafts]. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
DeLanda, Manuel (2013). Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy, London: Bloomsbury.
Grant, Iain Hamilton (2006). Philosophies of Nature after Schelling. London: Continuum.
Grant, Iain Hamilton (2011). “Mining Conditions: A Response to Harman” in The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism, eds. Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman, 41–46. Melbourne: re.press.
Harman, Graham (2005). Guerrilla Metaphysics — Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things. Chicago: Open Court.
Harman, Graham (2017). “Global Finitude” in The Kantian Catastrophe — Conversations on Finitude and the Limits of Philosophy, ed. Anthony Morgan, 253–70. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bigg Books.
Harman, Graham (2018). Object-Oriented Ontology — A New Theory of Everything. Lon- don: Pelican Books.
Haugland, Anne Gry (2012). Naturen i ånden: Naturfilosofien i Inger Christensens forfatterskab [Nature in spirit: The philosophy of nature in Inger Christensen’s authorship]. PhD diss., Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen.
Holk, Iben (1983). “Det egentlige/Det usigelige —det. Digt, 1969” [The proper / the inexpressible —it. Poem, 1969]. In Tegnverden: En bog om Inger Christensens for- fatterskab [A world of signs: A book on Inger Christensen’s authorship], ed. Iben Holk, 79–110. Aarhus: Centrum.
Kant, Immanuel (1998) Critique of Pure Reason. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel (2000) Critique of the Power of Judgement. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Knausgaard, Karl Ove (2014). My Struggle. Book II: A Man in Love. Trans. Don Bartlett. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Ilachinski, Andrew (2002). Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe. New Jersey: World Scientific.
Malabou, Catherine (2016) Before Tomorrow — Epigenesis and Rationality. Trans. Carolyn Shread. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Malabou, Catherine (2017). “Transcendental Epigenesis.” In The Kantian Catastrophe? Conversations on Finitude and the Limits of Philosophy, ed. Anthony Morgan,
239–52. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bigg Books.
Meillassoux, Quentin (2009). After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. Trans. Ray Brassier. London: Continuum.
Morton, Timothy (2007). Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rubenstein, Mary-Jane (2016). Worlds without End: The Many Lives of the Multiverse. New York: Columbia University Press.
Stougaard-Nielsen, JaKob (2020). “Nordic Nature: From Romantic Nationalism to the Anthropocene.” In Introduction to Nordic Cultures, ed. Annika Lindskog and Jakob
Stougaard-Nielsen, 165–80. London: UCL Press.
Svare, Silje Ingeborg Harr, Anne Gry Haugland, and Klaus Müller-Wille (2016) “Inger Christensen / Novalis / Philosophy of Nature.” Romantik: Journal for the Study of
Romanticisms 3.1: 79–109.
Weisman, Alan (2008) The World Without Us. London: Virgin Books Ltd.
Wolff, Francis (1997) Dire le monde [Saying the World]. Paris: PUF.
Zeruneith, Keld (1983) “Alfabetisk entropi —alfabet. Digt, 1981” [Alphabetic entropy —Alphabet. Poem, 1981]. In Tegnverden —En bog om Inger Christensens for- fatterskab [A world of signs: A book on Inger Christensen’s authorship], ed. Iben Holk, 179–92. Aarhus: Centrum.
Published
2021-07-29
How to Cite
Wilde, N. (2021). The Soul Might Well Have Been Dreamed by Cicadas: Inger Christensen’s Speculative Realism. Stasis, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.33280/2310-3817-21-11-1-112-130
Section
Thematic Articles
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