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The specter and the face

I'm very much into specters these days. Reading and teaching Ludueña, discussing Derrida's Specters of Marx in a group, admiring the work of Saidyia Hartman, listening to spectral music. Thought of the face in Levinas as spectral. The face is what assigns me with an infinite responsibility - a responsibility that extends beyond my death. It survives me. Further, it brings about the dimension of the posthumous to my freedom and my decisions. The face ushers in a realm of a future that is not made complete by a submission of time to eternity. It inaugurates a different time where diachrony precedes the passing of present instants. The face is what connects me to the past I cannot recall and to the future I cannot project. It is because of the face of the Other that I my freedom is spectral.

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