Borrowed Light: Vico, Hegel, and the Colonies

by Timothy Brennan

Overview

A critical revaluation of the humanist tradition, Borrowed Light makes the case that the 20th century is the "anticolonial century." The sparks of concerted resistance to colonial oppression were ignited in the gathering of intellectual malcontents from all over the world in interwar Europe. Many of this era's principal figures were formed by the experience of revolution on Europe's semi-developed Eastern periphery, making their ideas especially pertinent to current ideas about autonomy and sovereignty. Moreover, the debates most prominent then—human vs. inhuman, religions of the book vs. oral cultures, the authoritarian state vs. the representative state and, above all, scientific rationality vs. humanist reason—remain central today.

Timothy Brennan returns to the scientific Enlightenment of the 17th century and its legacies. In readings of the showdown between Spinoza and Vico, Hegel's critique of liberalism, and Nietzsche's antipathy towards the colonies and social democracy, Brennan identifies the divergent lines of the first anticolonial theory—a literary and philosophical project with strong ties to what we now call Marxism. Along the way, he assesses prospects for a renewal of the study of imperial culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804790543
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	04/09/2014
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Timothy Brennan is Professor of comparative literature, cultural studies, and English at the University of Minnesota. He is the author most recently of Secular Devotion: Afro-Latin Music and Imperial Jazz (Verso, 2008) and Wars of Position: The Cultural Politics of Left and Right (Columbia, 2006).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

List of Abbreviations xv

Introduction 1

The Interwar Moment 1

Arguments and Lineages 4

Why Philology 7

Rupture/Continuity 11

Overview of Chapters 14

1 Vico, Spinoza, and the Imperial Past 17

Vico's Untimeliness 17

Anticolonial Imagination 21

Vico as a Contemporary 36

Spinoza and the Purity of Mind 45

"Spinoza" for the Moment 52

Vico's Cadre 63

2 Hegel and the Critique of Colonialism 73

Vico's Hegel 73

At the Court of Liberal Thought 80

An Other State 89

The Tale of Hegel, Africa, and Slavery 98

Dialectical Oblivion 108

Polemical Intelligence 119

Marx, Hegel, and Backwardness 124

3 Nietzsche and the Colonies 133

Classics and Class War: Vico and Nietzsche 133

Nietzsche in Colonial Discourse 139

The War on Philology 147

Odyssean Imperialism 154

Untimeliness in Real Time 159

The Interwar Fear Genre 175

What Nietzsche Means by Genealogy 184

4 Borrowed Light 197

Bataille and the Party of de Sade 197

Signifying on Hegel 207

Prophetic Suicide: Reading 218

Posthumanism as Imperialism 224

Appendix: Preview of Borrowed Light, Volume II 235

Notes 237

Index 271

Editorial Reviews

"Timothy Brennan's Borrowed Light: Vico, Hegel and the Colonies, Volume I is a powerful and provocative work of intellectual history and critical theory. Brennan challenges us to rethink many of our contemporary theories in light of the historical relationship between philosophy and colonialism. He is particularly invested in a tradition of philological thought that begins with Vico and passes through Hegel and Marx on its way to the anticolonial movements of the twentieth century. And he is especially concerned to combat an anti-humanist and 'counterphilological' trend that he traces from Spinoza and Nietzsche into Bataille and a variety of contemporary theorists."—Avram Alpert, Journal of Modern Literature

"This is a work of vast ambition, dazzling erudition and lapidary brilliance. Centering on Vico, the 'Vichian tradition', and philology-as-method, the book's agenda is to give us a different version of the past of anti-colonial thought."—Neil Lazarus, University of Warwick

"Borrowed Light is a significant contribution to postcolonial studies by a scholar widely acknowledged as a leading figure in the field. Written in the polemical spirit of the author's teacher, Edward Said, and drawing on a genuinely impressive command of the field, it outlines how an important strand in the history of European philosophy was connected to imperialism, whether affirmatively or critically."—Simon During, University of Queensland

"This surprising, provoking book re-charts the intellectual map by reassembling lineages of anticolonial thought, and rescuing with new readings old texts that were supposedly behind us. Vigorously engaged on the battlefield of contemporary theoretical debates, the book's argument and its execution are classic Brennan."—Susan Buck-Morss, Distinguished Professor, CUNY Graduate Center and Professor Emeritus, Cornell University

From the Publisher

"This surprising, provoking book re-charts the intellectual map by reassembling lineages of anticolonial thought, and rescuing with new readings old texts that were supposedly behind us. Vigorously engaged on the battlefield of contemporary theoretical debates, the book's argument and its execution are classic Brennan."

Cornell University - Susan Buck-Morss

"Borrowed Light is a significant contribution to postcolonial studies by a scholar widely acknowledged as a leading figure in the field. Written in the polemical spirit of the author's teacher, Edward Said, and drawing on a genuinely impressive command of the field, it outlines how an important strand in the history of European philosophy was connected to imperialism, whether affirmatively or critically."

Simon During

"This is a work of vast ambition, dazzling erudition and lapidary brilliance. Centering on Vico, the 'Vichian tradition', and philology-as-method, the book's agenda is to give us a different version of the past of anti-colonial thought."

Neil Lazarus

"Timothy Brennan's Borrowed Light: Vico, Hegel and the Colonies, Volume I is a powerful and provocative work of intellectual history and critical theory. Brennan challenges us to rethink many of our contemporary theories in light of the historical relationship between philosophy and colonialism. He is particularly invested in a tradition of philological thought that begins with Vico and passes through Hegel and Marx on its way to the anticolonial movements of the twentieth century. And he is especially concerned to combat an anti-humanist and 'counterphilological' trend that he traces from Spinoza and Nietzsche into Bataille and a variety of contemporary theorists."

Journal of Modern Literature - Avram Alpert