Spinoza’s Dream
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13015347 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Willi Goetschel (0000-0002-1093-8081, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 39-54 |
| Publication date | 2016-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2052-2614 • E-ISSN: 2052-2622 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/pli.2015.30 |
| OpenAlex | W2604565064 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
In 1664, in a letter to a friend, Spinoza shares a dream he had of a “black, scabby Brazilian.” At the historical moment of a fierce race among Europe’s colonial powers, when the Amsterdam Jewish community’s vested interests in the Dutch colonial enterprise have reached a formidable status, Spinoza’s dream reflects an early awareness of the postcolonial predicament. The dream figures this awareness as the moment of the awakening—inseparable from the imagining—of the modern subject. Although the dream has been discussed with regard to its significance for understanding the role of the imagination for Spinoza as well as the issues of freedom, slavery, and question of race, the paper addresses the specifically postcolonial juncture that Spinoza’s dream and the letter marks. Spinoza’s dream figures the philosopher’s awakening to the precarious status of the postcolonial subject position as recognition of the constitutive significance of the postcolonial constellation for the formation of modern awareness
Aesthetics · Colonialism · Dream · Judaism · Psychoanalysis · Race (biology · Sociology · Subject (documents · Theology · Gender Studies · History · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Psychology · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |