Avital Ronell is a Professor of German, comparative literature, and English at New York University, where she co-directs the Research in Trauma and Violence project. Professor Ronell is much influenced by Martin Heidegger’s later writings and was a student of Jacques Derrida.
A Walk in the Park: What is meaning?
Professor Ronell is very much engaged with the later writings of Martin Heidegger— ‘Heidegger ditched philosophy for thinking’ she reminds us. In a certain respect, professor Ronell could be said to follow in the existentialist line: she believes that we must address ‘the wound of non-meaning’ in an appropriate manner. Ronell is skeptical of meaning, in the sense of ready-made meaning, as I shall call it (Ronell's "emergency supplies of meanings" )—something happens and we appear to have an explanation or answer for it already and take it in uncritically. Ronell, like West is concerned with politics. She is critical both of Bush and certain consumer tendencies in contemporary America. She expressed her weariness of the fast development of society and our ability to ‘box up meaning and put it away’. Likewise, professor Ronell distrusts the need for absolutes and guarantees ("The promise of meanings"): she believes in the need for dialogue, negotiation and ‘openness’, and not making the relation with ‘the other’ one of antagonism. Ethics for Ronell is about addressing ‘the wound of non-meaning’, doubting ready-made meanings and in this respect anxiety is prescribed. Philosophy for professor Ronell is discursive and in a way, about the trajectory.
[Based on views expressed in the film The Examined Life (2008)]
--MW
A Walk in the Park: What is meaning?
Professor Ronell is very much engaged with the later writings of Martin Heidegger— ‘Heidegger ditched philosophy for thinking’ she reminds us. In a certain respect, professor Ronell could be said to follow in the existentialist line: she believes that we must address ‘the wound of non-meaning’ in an appropriate manner. Ronell is skeptical of meaning, in the sense of ready-made meaning, as I shall call it (Ronell's "emergency supplies of meanings" )—something happens and we appear to have an explanation or answer for it already and take it in uncritically. Ronell, like West is concerned with politics. She is critical both of Bush and certain consumer tendencies in contemporary America. She expressed her weariness of the fast development of society and our ability to ‘box up meaning and put it away’. Likewise, professor Ronell distrusts the need for absolutes and guarantees ("The promise of meanings"): she believes in the need for dialogue, negotiation and ‘openness’, and not making the relation with ‘the other’ one of antagonism. Ethics for Ronell is about addressing ‘the wound of non-meaning’, doubting ready-made meanings and in this respect anxiety is prescribed. Philosophy for professor Ronell is discursive and in a way, about the trajectory.
[Based on views expressed in the film The Examined Life (2008)]
--MW