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Iróniáról és terrorizmusról 1977 körül

Absztrakt

A Distant View of Close Reading: On Irony and Terrorism around 1977

In his article György Fogarasi evaluates the contemporary critical potential of close reading in the light of recent advances in computer assisted analysis. While rhetorical reading may appear outdated in a ‘digital’ era with plenty of tools for largescale archival analysis (and thus an era that prefers ‘distant’ to ‘close’ reading), Paul de Man’s insights concerning irony might prove useful as we attempt to account for the difficulties we face in a world increasingly permeated with hidden forms of coercion and violence. The article draws on three major texts from 1977: de Man’s draft on ‘Literature Z,’ his lecture on ‘The Concept of Irony,’ and the first and second Geneva Protocols. The reading of these texts seeks to demonstrate the relevance of de Man’s theory of irony regarding the epistemology of ‘terrorism,’ but it also serves as an occasion to reflect upon questions of distance, speed, range, scale, or frequency, and the odds of Lefebvrian ‘rhythmanalysis.’