“All That Exists Is the Only True Luxury: Miklós Szentkuthy’s Marginalia on Casanova”, Los Angeles Review of Books (1 May 2013). An excerpt from the author’s typescript is copied below: Marginalia on Casanova is the first English translation of a Hungarian novelist’s “commentary” on the German edition of a French memoir written by a Venetian… Continue reading “A garden labyrinth” – On Miklos Szentkuthy’s Casanova (Los Angeles Review of Books 2013)
Enlightened totemism – On Marramao’s The Passage West (Radical Philosophy 2013)
“Totum and Taboo”, Radical Philosophy 179 (2013), 43–46. A review of Giacomo Marramao, The Passage West: Philosophy After the Age of the Nation State, trans. M. Mandarini (London 2012). An excerpt from the author’s typescript is copied below: ‘The totum is the totem’, writes Giacomo Marramao. And apparently he means it, since this is the… Continue reading Enlightened totemism – On Marramao’s The Passage West (Radical Philosophy 2013)
“To the fire-stars” – On Gerard O’Daly’s Prudentius (Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 2012)
[Untitled], Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 88.4 (2012), 516–518. A review of Gerard O’Daly, Days Linked by Song: Prudentius’ Cathemerinon (Oxford 2012). An excerpt from the author’s typescript is copied below: When Prudentius receives attention, it is typically on account of his monumental poems, Psychomachia and Peristephanon—that is to say, as a Christian successor to the… Continue reading “To the fire-stars” – On Gerard O’Daly’s Prudentius (Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 2012)
“Islands of language” – On Lyotard’s Kant (Radical Philosophy 2010)
“Susceptibility”, Radical Philosophy 162 (2010), 57–59. A review of Jean-François Lyotard, Enthusiasm: The Kantian Critique of History, trans. G. Van Den Abbeele (Stanford 2009). An excerpt from the author’s typescript is copied below: In this slim volume, published in English translation more than a decade after his death, Lyotard reissues Kant’s call, in his preface… Continue reading “Islands of language” – On Lyotard’s Kant (Radical Philosophy 2010)
“Graceful life” – On Georges Bataille and prehistoric imagery (Pli 2012)
A systematic analysis of Georges Bataille's lectures and essays on prehistoric imagery. For Bataille, it is prehistoric 'imagism' which first dis-identifies human / beast, and, in a subtler but highly suggestive way, male / female. And it is this set of original duplicities which "seems to have been … the basis of all representation”. David… Continue reading “Graceful life” – On Georges Bataille and prehistoric imagery (Pli 2012)
The status of the enemy – “Balthasar de Ayala,” Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Springer 2016)
David Lloyd Dusenbury, “Balthasar de Ayala”, Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Marco Sgarbi (Springer 2016). [In press.] Several excerpts from the author’s typescript are copied below: Balthasar de Ayala, shortly before his death Biography Balthasar de Ayala was born in 1548 in Antwerp. His mother, Agnès de Renialme, belonged to the Hispano-Flemish nobility. His father,… Continue reading The status of the enemy – “Balthasar de Ayala,” Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Springer 2016)
Who judges whom? – “The Judgment of Pontius Pilate” (JLR 2017)
In Pilate and Jesus, Giorgio Agamben argues that Pontius Pilate never formally condemned Jesus of Nazareth. “The traditional interpretation of Jesus’ trial … must be revised,” he urges, because “there has not been any judgment in a technical sense.” On Agamben’s telling, Pilate’s non-judgment is the original truth of Jesus’ death which has been covered… Continue reading Who judges whom? – “The Judgment of Pontius Pilate” (JLR 2017)
“A philosophy of merciless war” – Carl Schmitt on hostis and inimicus (Ratio Juris 2015)
A critical and philological analysis of hostis and inimicus - 'public enemy' and 'private enemy' - in Carl Schmitt's Weimar-period essay, The Concept of the Political: David Lloyd Dusenbury, “Carl Schmitt on Hostis and Inimicus: A Veneer for Bloody-Mindedness,” Ratio Juris. An International Journal of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law 28.3 (2015), 431–440. An excerpt from the… Continue reading “A philosophy of merciless war” – Carl Schmitt on hostis and inimicus (Ratio Juris 2015)
“Like Pilate made it into the Creed” – Pilate schemes (TLS, 25 March 2016)
The TLS ran a Commentary piece on the Roman trial of Jesus at Easter, 2016: David Lloyd Dusenbury, "Pilate schemes", TLS 5895 (25 March 2016), 15. An excerpt from the author’s typescript is copied below: I once overheard a joke in a Budapest establishment which I believe is Hungarian, or at least Middle-European: “I made it… Continue reading “Like Pilate made it into the Creed” – Pilate schemes (TLS, 25 March 2016)
“Where is the time we call ‘long’?” – The Space of Time (Brill 2014)
“A ‘post-phenomenological’ reading of Augustine on time, The Space of Time … argues through close engagement with the Latin text that, when Augustine says that time is distentio animi, he means that it is a ‘dilation’ not of the mind, but of one’s sensory experience.”
D. L. Dusenbury 