Thread by @TheLitCritGuy

So, #TheoryTime?

You voted for it, so let's talk about Sara Ahmed's brilliant book, Queer Phenomenology.

Specifically, I'm going to talk about Chapter One as it provides a good introduction to Ahmed's thought and phenomenology more generally.

Firstly then, phenomenology is often characterized as a 'turn towards objects' which appear in their perceptual "thereness" as objects given to consciousness.

Furthermore, consciousness is seen as not being directed towards itself, but rather possesses "intentionality" - it is always directed towards something.

It is this direction, (perhaps we might say orientation) is what gives consciousness its worldly dimension.

Or, as Ahmed puts it, if consciousness is about how we perceive the world around us, then consciousness is 'also embodied, sensitive and situated.'

As Ahmed goes onto say, 'the object is an effect of towardness...'

Ahmed takes the classic phenomenological point further - consciousness IS directed toward objects but the subject also takes directions towards objects too.

"We move towards and away from objects depending on how we are moved by them" #SaraAhmed #Quotes

In Hussurl's terms the interpretation of the object as having a certain property is a 'secondary act' involving what he calls 'twofold directedness.'

Or, in other words, first I am directed toward an object and then I take a direction towards it (I love it, I hate it, etc)

Again, to quote Ahmed, 'turning towards an object turns "me" in this way or that, even if that "turn" doesn't involve a conscious act of interpretation or judgement.'

Ahmed then applies this point back to Hussurl:

"The familiar room begins with the writing table...Hussurl begins with the writing table and then turns to other parts of the room, those that are, as it were, behind him."

In short, an awareness to the issue of direction reminds us that what we can see depends upon which way we are facing.

The things which are behind Hussurl at his writing table become the background to where his writing begin from...

Ahmed wonders that a queer phenomenology 'might be one that faces the back, which looks behind phenomenology.'

And so, with Hussurl at his desk, what is happening behind HIS back? what does his direction tell us about his work?

Being orientated toward the writing table not only relegates other rooms in the house to the background but 'also might depend upon the work done to keep the desk clear'

After all, just think of the domestic labour necessary to that desk clear, to keep that place open for Hussurl to write..

As Ahmed goes on to explain...

Certain things, Ahmed points out, are produced AS background though 'acts of relegation.' These acts of relegation are essential for preserving and maintaining a certain direction.

As Ahmed asks, 'who faces the writing table? does the writing table have a face which points it toward some bodies rather than others?'

Here Ahmed reads Hussurl alongside women writers such as Adrienne Rich:

'The objects that we direct our attention toward reveal the direction we have taken in life.' #SaraAhmed #Quotes

Ahmed, on the turn toward objects within phenomenology and what it means:

That domestic world that surrounds the philosopher must be bracketed in his turn towards objects as objects of perception but what does it mean to say bracketing can get beyond the familiar world?

As Ahmed writes, 'what is put aside, we might say, is the very space of the familiar, which is also what clears the philosophers table and allows him to do his work.'

Ahmed draws out the implications of this in greater detail:

So, back to the table:

For Husserl turns to the table as an object by looking at it, rather than over it. IN a sense he loses sight of the table's function...

Furthermore, he moves around the table observing it from different positions - consciousness flows to observe it...

A little more detail on tables, perception and consciousness:

Given all of this, the story of the sameness of the object involves 'the spectre of absence and non-presence.'

Why? Despite the self-sameness of the object it cannot be perceived as such - what it is cannot be apprehended as I cannot view the table from all poins of view at once...

Or, in phenomenological terms, the necessity of moving around the object to capture more than its profile shows that the object is unavailable to me, which is why it must be intended.

Yet, Ahmed notes that Husserl makes an extra ordinary claim - that the table does not change, 'it is the only thing that keeps its place in the flow of perception.'

what we "miss" when we miss the table is connected to what is "behind" the table - what must already have taken place for the table to arrive.

(One more section of this chapter I think...)

So, after establishing the need to attend to the background, Ahmed moves on to consider another question:

If phenomenology takes us back to the things themselves, Ahmed realises we have to follow these things around - 'how did we arrive at the point where it is possible to witness the arrival of the object?'

And here Ahmed turns to Derrida (who else was expecting Derrida to arrive on the scene?)

(I mean, this section is very Derridean...)

Interestingly though, when considering the question of the making and arriving of objects we can't ignore time or history either..

Ahmed points out that an arrival takes time and time inevitably shapes what it is that arrives.

Marxism provides a philosophy for rethinking the object as not only in history, but as an effect of history:

As Ahmed puts it, 'what Marxism lets us do is reformulate the historicity of furniture, among other things.'

If Idealism takes the object as given, then it fails to account for its conditions of arrival which are not given. There's an interesting link to Marx's idea of commodity fetishism here too:

Derrida reads this passage and comments that 'the table is familiar, all too familiar' as he suggests that that 'the table in use' is as metaphysical as 'the table as commodity.'

Ahmed then extends Marx's analysis of the commodity to the very matter of the table as well as it's form:

To return to the table, we should remember that there is a history to its arrival. It's changed hands & changed location. There's a story behind it...

Yet of course, these histories are not available on the surface of objects - there's a spectrality to history after all:

I'll stop there. Hope you've enjoyed this thread on phenomenology, tables, history and objects!

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