부정과 중단의 미학—아감벤의 바틀비론

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to examine the concept of Bartleby’s negative potentiality, which characterizes Bartleby’s formula, “I’d prefer not to∼” and to explore how this concept is closely related to Agamben’s main concepts such as pure means or means without end; divine violence, which he borrowed from Walter Benjamin; state of exception; and profanation. This paper also aims at how the aesthetics of interruption is working behind all of these concepts. Agamben mentions that Bartleby’s formula of negative potentiality opens a zone of indistinction between yes and no. Bartleby’s formula, he says, works as a redemptive means to fight against the principle of the sovereign power, which creates bare life. First, we will focus on the concept of the aesthetics of interruption. Then, on how Bartleby’s formula works against producing Homo Sacer and bare life. Then we will discuss how Bartleby’s formula works with Benjamin’s concept of messianic history and how it develops into the concept of decreation. Lastly, we will focus on how the aesthetics of interruption is working on Agamben’s idea of pure means and profanation.