Adam R Rosenthal
Biographic Data
| ID | 1200315 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adam R Rosenthal |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adam R |
| FAMILY NAME | Rosenthal |
| SIGNATURE | ROSENTHAL A R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas A&M University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0246-5560 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Context, Constraint, and Life
Encoding Codability and the Possibility of Life
Information-first approaches to life focus on the complexity of living systems and the necessary co-evolution of information and organic molecules. By equating these developments (or rather: by demonstrating how the one seems to necessitate the other and, thus, how the two in fact constitute a single development), such approaches inaugurate a radical reconfiguration of each. They also have a strange but satisfying symmetry with certain deconstruc…
Special Issue Introduction
From Metabolism to (Gift) Exchange
In this paper I explore how the limitations of sociological and economic approaches to the gift can be exposed not only through deconstructive analysis, such as Jacques Derrida pursues in Given Time, vols. I & II, but also through the philological resources and biological conceptuality of ‘metabolism’. By bridging Derrida’s textual conception of survival with neurobiological and phenomenological approaches to life, I argue that what ‘gift’ names …
Roundtable
Artificial Life, Feeling Machines, and the Text of Deconstruction
Recent efforts in soft robotics and Artificial Life are attempting to construct homeostatically functioning machines with ‘feeling’ analogues. Such robots are designed to be ‘vulnerable’ and, thus, depart from traditional approaches to machine design and construction. In this paper, I explore a representative proposal by Antonio Damasio and Kingson Man, and ask how we can understand the deconstruction of ‘life’ in Derrida, Stiegler, Malabou and W…
Poetics and the Gift
Poetics and the Gift
Conclusion
The Conclusion examines the myth of lyric’s origin in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes . It shows how the problems that later come to trouble Romantic and post-Romantic poets, in the relationship between poetic gift and poetic commodity, can already be found in seed in the Hymn . The relationship between poem and gift, it concludes, is one therefore that is constitutive for poetry.
Symbolic Economies of Poet and Patron
Chapter Two turns from figures of inspiration and genius, to the relays that constitute patronage structures for Classical and European authors. The institutions of patronage allow for the circulation of the poem, all while maintaining the poem’s distance from the commercial realm, and preventing its designation as a mere commodity. Though, in point of fact, the gap between the market and relays of patronage has never been absolute, as Bourdieu a…
Baudelaire and the Gift of Pleasing
This chapter looks at the interconnection of poetry and giving in the nineteenth-century French poet, Charles Baudelaire, by examining the prose poem ‘The Fairies’ Gifts.’ Published in the Flowers of Evil , ‘The Fairies’ Gifts’ offers a parable of poetry and explores the difficulty of separating aesthetic objects from economic ones. As with Emerson and Kant, for Baudelaire, the question as to the place of poetry comes down to the nature of the pl…
On Derrida’s Donner le temps, Volumes I & II
This essay explores the importance of Donner le temps II within the context of Derrida’s writings on Heidegger and the gift. In the first section of the essay, I situate the publication of the latter half of Derrida’s 1978–79 seminar against his writings on the gift generally, beginning in 1968 and ending in 2000. In the second section, I explain how the second volume of Donner le temps relates to the first. In the final three sections of the pap…
Restarting The Prelude
Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsAdam R. RosenthalAdam R. Rosenthal is Assistant Professor of Global Languages and Cultures at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Poetics and the Gift: Reading Poetry from Homer to Derrida (2022), and editor of ‘Derrida’s Classroom’, a special issue of the journal Poetics Today 42.1 (2021). His essays have appeared …
Aporias of Translation in Derrida's Geschlecht III
The problem of translation confronts every English, or French-language reader of Geschlecht III, from its title page on, by way of Derrida's decision not to translate the German noun Geschlecht. In this paper, I explore the stakes of Derrida's refusal to translate, by situating it within the context of the 1984-5 seminar, 'Philosophical Nationality and Nationalism', from which the text of Geschlecht III was taken. I show that the question of tran…
The Seminar in Deconstruction
In this article the author explores how the problem of the seminar enters into the work of Jacques Derrida. He shows how it emerges not only within the context of the teaching institution but also as a conceptual thematic with a history far in excess of the educational institutions of France. As early as 1968 and as late as 2003, the word, concept, figure, and institution of "the seminar" was one that Derrida worked to define and problematize. Th…
Deconstruction, Birth and the Child to Come
This essay examines Derrida's discussion, alongside Elisabeth Roudinesco, of the stability of the family unit in For What Tomorrow... By following Derrida's serial revisions of Roudinesco's claim that ‘the family is eternal’, it shows how the questions of the child and child-birth come front and centre for Derrida in theorizing the family unit. As Derrida points out, to be a ‘mother’ or a ‘father’ is ultimately less a question of genetic, or bloo…
Clon'd, or a Note on Propagation
In "Clon'd" I ask in what way the problem of the "clone," as it confronts us today, can be separated from modern and ancient questions concerning naming. Beginning with a philological analysis of the word "clone," I then turn to the conceptual parallels between vegetative reproduction and linguistic reproduction. Through a comparison between the clone and the double, I argue, by way of conclusion, that the fear of the clone corresponds to a relat…
Love of Life
Derrida's concept of survival, born out of Benjamin's work on translation in The Task of the Translator, has become a fixed element of readings of his work in recent years. Of particular interest in his final seminars on The Beast and the Sovereign and The Death Penalty, survival might be said to do to the concept of life what writing had done to that of speech. In this essay, I explore how the Derridean concept of survival, far from excluding dr…
Ruined Vitality. A review of David Wills, Inanimation
Ruined Vitality. A review of David Wills, Inanimation:Theories of Inorganic Life Adam R. Rosenthal (bio) Wills, David. Inanimation: Theories of Inorganic Life. U of Minnesota P, 2016. Inanimation is the third installment of David Wills's technological trilogy of the human, which began with Prosthesis (1995) and Dorsality: Thinking Back through Technology and Politics (2008). Like those prior works, Inanimation traces the difficult-to-sound border…
Poe’s Memory
Poe’s Memory Adam R. Rosenthal (bio) Et aux séductions d’une beauté singulière iljoignait une puissance de mémoire poétiquemerveilleuse, avec la faculté précoced’improviser des contes. “Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages” (2: 258)1 Poe, éprouvant peut-être le sinistrepressentiment d’une fin subite, avait désignéMM. Griswold et Willis pour mettre sesœuvres en ordre, écrire sa vie, et restaurer samémoire. Ce pédagogue-vampire a diffamélongueme…
Love of Life
Derrida's concept of survival, born out of Benjamin's work on translation in The Task of the Translator, has become a fixed element of readings of his work in recent years. Of particular interest in his final seminars on The Beast and the Sovereign and The Death Penalty, survival might be said to do to the concept of life what writing had done to that of speech. In this essay, I explore how the Derridean concept of survival, far from excluding dr…
Poe’s Memory
Poe’s Memory Adam R. Rosenthal (bio) Et aux séductions d’une beauté singulière iljoignait une puissance de mémoire poétiquemerveilleuse, avec la faculté précoced’improviser des contes. “Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages” (2: 258)1 Poe, éprouvant peut-être le sinistrepressentiment d’une fin subite, avait désignéMM. Griswold et Willis pour mettre sesœuvres en ordre, écrire sa vie, et restaurer samémoire. Ce pédagogue-vampire a diffamélongueme…
Ruined Vitality. A review of David Wills, Inanimation
Ruined Vitality. A review of David Wills, Inanimation:Theories of Inorganic Life Adam R. Rosenthal (bio) Wills, David. Inanimation: Theories of Inorganic Life. U of Minnesota P, 2016. Inanimation is the third installment of David Wills's technological trilogy of the human, which began with Prosthesis (1995) and Dorsality: Thinking Back through Technology and Politics (2008). Like those prior works, Inanimation traces the difficult-to-sound border…
Love of Life
Derrida's concept of survival, born out of Benjamin's work on translation in The Task of the Translator, has become a fixed element of readings of his work in recent years. Of particular interest in his final seminars on The Beast and the Sovereign and The Death Penalty, survival might be said to do to the concept of life what writing had done to that of speech. In this essay, I explore how the Derridean concept of survival, far from excluding dr…
Deconstruction, Birth and the Child to Come
This essay examines Derrida's discussion, alongside Elisabeth Roudinesco, of the stability of the family unit in For What Tomorrow... By following Derrida's serial revisions of Roudinesco's claim that ‘the family is eternal’, it shows how the questions of the child and child-birth come front and centre for Derrida in theorizing the family unit. As Derrida points out, to be a ‘mother’ or a ‘father’ is ultimately less a question of genetic, or bloo…
Clon'd, or a Note on Propagation
In "Clon'd" I ask in what way the problem of the "clone," as it confronts us today, can be separated from modern and ancient questions concerning naming. Beginning with a philological analysis of the word "clone," I then turn to the conceptual parallels between vegetative reproduction and linguistic reproduction. Through a comparison between the clone and the double, I argue, by way of conclusion, that the fear of the clone corresponds to a relat…
The Seminar in Deconstruction
In this article the author explores how the problem of the seminar enters into the work of Jacques Derrida. He shows how it emerges not only within the context of the teaching institution but also as a conceptual thematic with a history far in excess of the educational institutions of France. As early as 1968 and as late as 2003, the word, concept, figure, and institution of "the seminar" was one that Derrida worked to define and problematize. Th…
Poetics and the Gift
Poetics and the Gift
Conclusion
The Conclusion examines the myth of lyric’s origin in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes . It shows how the problems that later come to trouble Romantic and post-Romantic poets, in the relationship between poetic gift and poetic commodity, can already be found in seed in the Hymn . The relationship between poem and gift, it concludes, is one therefore that is constitutive for poetry.
Symbolic Economies of Poet and Patron
Chapter Two turns from figures of inspiration and genius, to the relays that constitute patronage structures for Classical and European authors. The institutions of patronage allow for the circulation of the poem, all while maintaining the poem’s distance from the commercial realm, and preventing its designation as a mere commodity. Though, in point of fact, the gap between the market and relays of patronage has never been absolute, as Bourdieu a…
Baudelaire and the Gift of Pleasing
This chapter looks at the interconnection of poetry and giving in the nineteenth-century French poet, Charles Baudelaire, by examining the prose poem ‘The Fairies’ Gifts.’ Published in the Flowers of Evil , ‘The Fairies’ Gifts’ offers a parable of poetry and explores the difficulty of separating aesthetic objects from economic ones. As with Emerson and Kant, for Baudelaire, the question as to the place of poetry comes down to the nature of the pl…
On Derrida’s Donner le temps, Volumes I & II
This essay explores the importance of Donner le temps II within the context of Derrida’s writings on Heidegger and the gift. In the first section of the essay, I situate the publication of the latter half of Derrida’s 1978–79 seminar against his writings on the gift generally, beginning in 1968 and ending in 2000. In the second section, I explain how the second volume of Donner le temps relates to the first. In the final three sections of the pap…
Restarting The Prelude
Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsAdam R. RosenthalAdam R. Rosenthal is Assistant Professor of Global Languages and Cultures at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Poetics and the Gift: Reading Poetry from Homer to Derrida (2022), and editor of ‘Derrida’s Classroom’, a special issue of the journal Poetics Today 42.1 (2021). His essays have appeared …
Aporias of Translation in Derrida's Geschlecht III
The problem of translation confronts every English, or French-language reader of Geschlecht III, from its title page on, by way of Derrida's decision not to translate the German noun Geschlecht. In this paper, I explore the stakes of Derrida's refusal to translate, by situating it within the context of the 1984-5 seminar, 'Philosophical Nationality and Nationalism', from which the text of Geschlecht III was taken. I show that the question of tran…
Artificial Life, Feeling Machines, and the Text of Deconstruction
Recent efforts in soft robotics and Artificial Life are attempting to construct homeostatically functioning machines with ‘feeling’ analogues. Such robots are designed to be ‘vulnerable’ and, thus, depart from traditional approaches to machine design and construction. In this paper, I explore a representative proposal by Antonio Damasio and Kingson Man, and ask how we can understand the deconstruction of ‘life’ in Derrida, Stiegler, Malabou and W…
Special Issue Introduction
From Metabolism to (Gift) Exchange
In this paper I explore how the limitations of sociological and economic approaches to the gift can be exposed not only through deconstructive analysis, such as Jacques Derrida pursues in Given Time, vols. I & II, but also through the philological resources and biological conceptuality of ‘metabolism’. By bridging Derrida’s textual conception of survival with neurobiological and phenomenological approaches to life, I argue that what ‘gift’ names …
Roundtable
Context, Constraint, and Life
Encoding Codability and the Possibility of Life
Information-first approaches to life focus on the complexity of living systems and the necessary co-evolution of information and organic molecules. By equating these developments (or rather: by demonstrating how the one seems to necessitate the other and, thus, how the two in fact constitute a single development), such approaches inaugurate a radical reconfiguration of each. They also have a strange but satisfying symmetry with certain deconstruc…
Philosophy (15 works) · Art (10 works) · Literature (9 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · History (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism (6 works) · Poetry (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Law (5 works)