Abstract:
This essay is a theologico-philosophical meditation on Bruno Schulz, focusing on his “love for the marginal”: a special attention paid to tandeta, in other words all things trashy, located on the eponymous edges of the world, far away from the center. Contrary to the assumed mode of interpretation, which reads Schulz’s fascination with the “dark forces of life” in terms of the depth subversive toward the surface, I propose a different scheme: an opposition of center and edges/margins, deriving from the Kabbalistic metaphysics of Isaac Luria, which constituted the primary matrix of the Hasidic Kabbalah, known to Schulz as the member of the pre-war Drohobycz Jewry. I then juxtapose Schulz’s intuition of a life thriving on the cosmological margins with Freud’s early theory of the drives, especially his concept of perversion as a “libido on the edge.” In both writers we find a similar echo of the spatial Kabbalistic imagining of the relation between the emptied center and the rich diaspora of life, dispersing and multiplying on the fringes of the “cosmic exile.”
Keywords:
Bruno Schulz, Sigmund Freud, Siegfried Kracauer, life, messianic vitalism, kabbalah, perversion, marginality, decenteration
How to cite:
Bielik-Robson, Agata. “The Edges of the World: Diasporic Metaphysics of Bruno Schulz.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 6, no. 1 (2022): 49-64. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2022.0005.
Author:
Agata Bielik-Robson
Theology & Religious Studies, University of Nottingham
University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK;
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences
72 Nowy Świat Street, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9638-6758
abielik@ifispan.edu.pl
References:
Bakan, David. Sigmund Freud and The Jewish Mystical Tradition. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958. https://doi.org/10.1037/11509-000.
Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 2007.
Bishirjian, Richard J. “Carlyle’s Political Religion.” The Journal of Politics 38, no. 1 (1976): 95-113. https://doi.org/10.2307/2128963.
Błoński, Jan. “On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz.” Cross Currents 12, (1993): 54-68.
Derrida, Jacques, Archive Fever. A Freudian Impression. Translated by Eric Prenowitz. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996. https://doi.org/10.2307/465144.
Drob, Sanford L. “This is Gold”: Freud, Psychotherapy, and the Lurianic Kabbalah. Published and copyrighted by Sanford L. Drob, 1998-2006. www.newkabbalah.com.
Ficowski, Jerzy. Regiony wielkiej herezji i okolice. Bruno Schulz i jego mitologia. Sejny: Fundacja Pogranicze, 2002.
Freud, Sigmund. Psychopathology of Everyday Life. In vol. 6 of The Complete Psychological Works. Translated by James Strachey. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1957.
Freud, Sigmund. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Translated by James Strachey. New York: Basic Books, 1975.
Gay, Peter. A Godless Jew: Freud, Atheism and the Making of Psychoanalysis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
Goldfarb, David. “A Living Schulz: ‘Noc wielkiego sezonu’ (‘The Night of the Great Season’).” Prooftexts 14, (1994): 25-47.
Gondowicz, Jan. “Miejsca wspólne, miejsca własne. O twórczości Leśmiana, Schulza i Kantora rozmawiają Włodzimierz Bolecki, Jan Gondowicz, Piotr Kłoczowski, Wojciech Owczarski i Piotr Paziński.” Midrasz, no. 11, (2009): 38-42.
Klein, Dennis. Jewish Origins of the Psychoanalytic Movement. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Kracauer, Siegfried. The Mass Ornament. Weimar Essays. Translated by Thimas Y. Levin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
Levinas, Emmanuel. Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981.
Lindenbaum, Shalom. “Wizja Mesjanistyczna Schulza i jej podłoże mistyczne.” In Czytanie Schulza: Materiały międzynarodowej sesji naukowej Bruno Schulz – w stulecie urodzin i w pięćdziesięciolecie śmierci, edited by Jerzy Jarzębski. Kraków: TIC, Nakładem Instytutu Filolgii Polskiej UJ, 1994.
Lipszyc, Adam. Czerwone listy. Eseje frankistowskie o literaturze polskiej. Kraków: Austeria, 2017.
Markowski, Michał Paweł. Powszechna rozwiązłość: Schulz, egzystencja, literatura. Kraków: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2012.
Marquard, Odo. Transzendentaler Idealismus, Romantische Naturphilosophie, Psychoanalyse. Cologne: Dincer, 1987.
Mezo, R. E. “Bruno Schulz, ‘The Street of Crocodiles’.” The International Fiction Review 5, no. 2 (1978): 165–67.
Panas, Władysław. Bruno od Mesjasza. Rzecz o dwóch ekslibrisach oraz jednym obrazie i kilkudziesięciu rysunkach Brunona Schulza. Lublin: Wydawnictwo FIS, 2001.
Panas, Władysław. Księga blasku. Traktat o kabale w prozie Brunona Schulza. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, 1997.
Panas, Władysław. “‘Mesjasz rośnie pomału…’ O pewnym wątku kabalistycznym w prozie Brunona Schulza.” In Bruno Schulz. In memoriam 1892-1992. Edited by Małgorzata Kitowska-Łysiak. Lublin: Wydawnictwo FIS, 1992.
Panas, Władysław. “Przyjście Mesjasza. O ikonologii mesjańskiej Brunona Schulza.” Kresy, no. 14 (1993): 33-36.
Panas, Władysław. “Żeński Mesjasz, czyli o Wiośnie Brunona Schulza.” Midrasz, no. 3 (2003).
Rice, Emmanuel. Freud and Moses: The Long Journey Home. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.
Santner, Eric L. On Psychotheology of Everydaylife. Reflections on Rosenzweig and Freud. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226734897.001.0001.
Scholem, Gershom. Judaica 4. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1974.
Scholem, Gershom. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken Books, 1991.
Scholem, Gershom. The Messianic Idea in Judaism. New York: Schocken Books, 1995.
Schulz, Bruno. The Fictions of Bruno Schulz: The Street of Crocodiles & Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. Translated by Celina Wieniewska. London: Picador, 1988.
Schulz, Bruno. Opowiadania, wybór esejów i listów. Wrocław: Biblioteka Narodowa im. Ossolińskich, 1989.
Schulz, Bruno. Proza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1964.
Underhill, Karen. Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity. Unpublished doctoral dissertation defended at the University of Chicago (June 2011). Available at http://gradworks.umi.com/3460247.pdf.
Wolfson, Elliot R. Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. Freud’s Moses. Judaism Terminable and Interminable. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
Open Access Statement:
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Submitting a text to Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture means that the author agrees with the general conditions of this license. The author does and will maintain copyrights and publishing rights for his/her article without any restrictions.