An influential thinker on the concept of singularity and its
implications on politics, theology, economics, psychoanalysis, and
literature For readers versed in critical theory, German and
comparative literature, or media studies, a new book by Samuel
Weber is essential reading. Singularity is no exception. Bringing
together two decades of his essays, it hones in on the surprising
implications of the singular and its historical relation to the
individual in politics, theology, economics, psychoanalysis, and
literature. Although singularity has long been a keyword in
literary studies and philosophy, never has it been explored as in
this book, which distinguishes singularity as an "aporetic" notion
from individuality, with which it remains historically closely
tied. To speak or write of the singular is problematic, Weber
argues, since once it is spoken of it is no longer strictly
singular. Walter Benjamin observed that singularity and repetition
imply each other. This approach informs the essays in Singularity.
Weber notes that what distinguishes the singular from the
individual is that it cannot be perceived directly, but rather
experienced through feelings that depend on but also exceed
cognition. This interdependence of cognition and affect plays
itself out in politics, economics, and theology as well as in
poetics. Political practice as well as its theory have been
dominated by the attempt to domesticate singularity by
subordinating it to the notion of individuality. Weber suggests
that this political tendency draws support from what he calls "the
monotheological identity paradigm" deriving from the idea of a
unique and exclusive Creator-God. Despite the "secular" tendencies
usually associated with Western modernity, this paradigm continues
today to inform and influence political and economic practices,
often displaying self-destructive tendencies. By contrast, Weber
reads the literary writings of Hoelderlin, Nietzsche, and Kafka as
exemplary practices that put singularity into play, not as fiction
but as friction, exposing the self-evidence of established
conventions to be responses to challenges and problems that they
often prefer to obscure or ignore.
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