Marcel Hénaff

Naked Terror: Political Violence, Libertine Violence

might first evoke figures of libertine executioners, the cruel despots of the Marquiss tales (Saint-Fond, Noirceuil, Blangis, Brisa-Testa) or figures of massacring courtesans (Juliette, Clairwil, Olympe, Mme Durand). Such a conjunction might also evoke the extraordinary meeting between a man and a historic moment, between a writing and an event: Sade left the Bastille on 4 July 1789 because of the riot, later became an active militant of the Revolution, was imprisoned during the Terror for being a moderate, and barely escaped being guillotined himself. Hence the following question: between libertine terror, such as that described by the writer of 120 Days of Sodom, and the revolutionary Terror, is there something upon which to reflect, is there a conjunction that would not be accidental but indeed essential?1 This relation has often been evoked. But most of the time it has been

Global Terror, Global Vengeance?

It seems generally accepted that the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington mark the beginning of an era of a new kind of violence. We are supposedly dealing with a form of terrorism so exceptional that it makes traditional concepts of war obsolete. Classical warfare between nations or alliances always involved States, and remained within the armature of recognized international law. It is said that the current struggle against terrorism no longer fits into this conceptual and juridical framework. Thus September 11, 2001 presumably made us cross a new threshold in that it manifested a type of violence that radically changed the nature of modern conflict. Such a conclusion is seductive and can seem well-founded.

The Anecdotal : Truth in Detail

Different historical dictionaries note that the term “anecdote” was established in literature during the 7 th century by the Byzantine writer Procopius of Caesarea, but did not gain full acceptance as a term and as a genre until the 17 th century. The word literally designates what is new: a fact or detail that was unknown to the public and had not been disclosed by official history (this was the meaning given by the Dictionnaire de l’Academie Francaise in its 1762 version). The term anecdote soon became synonymous with little story. Hence the question: is there a place for small stories within the larger and more noble or tragic narrative of history itself, which is presumed to be full of meaning? But doesn’t history not only as social reality—actual becoming— but also as discipline necessarily imply the great narrative as a form? We will have to consider this question. It has been said that great narratives belong to an outdated form of representation. 1 Why? To be able to answer this question will also amount to being able to consider the question of the anecdote from an entirely different perspective. But before coming to these crucial questions, we must reconsider the question of the narrative genres involved. Great narratives may belong to different types, for instance the epic, novel, or historical narrative. From this perspective the anecdote belongs among the very short narrative genres, which include little stories, fabliaux, riddles, and jokes, even though it cannot be identified with any of these. They are even shorter than tales or short stories. In fact, the anecdote seems to belong to a truly minor genre. It involves what is circumstantial, trivial, unimportant, and even—if one can say so—what is left to the scrapheap of history. However, the anecdote is set apart by a remarkable feature: the short narrative of which it is composed has to do with real-world events. This is what takes it out of the realm of fiction (unlike the fable or parable) into that of history. It therefore belongs to the category of what is verifiable. An anecdote is always given as reporting something that actually happened. Therefore, while it does not have the solemn status of history,

La Grèce avant la raison

L’archaique n’est pas simplement un antecedent, qui annoncerait l’avenement du classique. Pour mieux comprendre ce qu’est la Grece archaique, il faut renoncer a la nostalgie du classique, comme le dit Ricœur, mais aussi se demander, avec les anthropologues, ce qu’est une culture « archaique ».

Adieu à la structure

Assimilee au structuralisme, l’œuvre de Claude Levi-Strauss accorde pourtant progressivement moins d’importance a la notion de structure qu’a celle de « transformation ». A partir des Mythologiques, dans l’etude des mythes, il s’agit d’observer des variantes, une dynamique des changements de forme. Dans cette ambition de comprendre par les variations, la musique tient un role de reference.