Some Phenomenological Turns

A review of Rei Terada, Looking Away: Phenomenality and Dissatisfaction, Kant to Adorno (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009); and Gerhard Richter, Afterness: Figures of Following in Modern Thought and Aesthetics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). Cited in the text as la and a, respectively.

Recall for a second the investigative method of Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin. It gives a sense of what I am calling a phenomenological turn:

To look at a star by glances–to view it in a side-long way, by turning toward it the exterior portions of the retina (more susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the interior), is to behold the star distinctly–is to have the best appreciation of its luster–a luster which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision fully upon it.¹

Not so much a turn as a looking away, a sort of half-turn that hesitates the moment it is recognized and labeled. And not so much an institutional event as an assortment of very intimate, subjective realignments that suspend judging phenomena in order to better understand how one experiences these phenomena at all. What may be tempting to call the phenomenological turn is better thought of as an eclectic assortment of phenomenological turns—discrete activities that have not been, and perhaps cannot be, collated into something like a movement or a program. To do so would risk, in Dupin’s terms, letting true “analysis” degrade into rote “calculation,” a form of investigation that works by excluding eccentric particulars for the sake of neat conclusions and firm accusations. Dupin’s method of analysis is, of course, comparatively more eccentric and difficult to follow, but it has the advantage of reversing errors produced by generalization or assumption and either discovering the truth or restoring a necessary ambiguity to the case.² The allure of Poe’s detective is his paradoxical insistence on truth’s “invariably superficial” but clandestine nature: the truth is always in our field of vision, but seeing it clearly requires a “side-long” glance that is difficult to execute and physically painful to sustain for any length of time. Try it the next time the night sky is clear.

Two relatively recent books, Rei Terada’s Looking Away (2009) and Gerhard Richter’s Afterness (2011), explore perceptual ephemera and the modes of comportment necessary for appreciating them with a meticulousness that would win Dupin’s praise. Don’t worry: I will not belabor a rigorous comparison with Dupin. However, recalling the detective’s proclivity for disregarding conventional modes of investigation and for recognizing “obvious” clues that are paradoxically hidden nevertheless can provide a heuristic reference point for these very complicated arguments, which spiral out into philosophical arguments that only periodically link back to literary examples and deliberately avoid establishing a concrete perceiving subject to whom we can relate. What Dupin calls a side-long glance, Terada calls a moment of “looking away,” an activity characterized by retreat from the given world and an obsession with mere appearance. Richter has coined the term “afterness” to describe the temporal slipperiness of modern experience—he values philosophers and artists that linger with the ephemeral or marginal remainders left over by institutionalized thought and conceptual determination, and the experimental form of his book seeks to both describe and perform this lingering. This review will focus mainly on these two works. Rather than attempt to artificially construct a coherent institutional turn, my purpose here is more investigative: to treat these two works as potential clues about emergent trends in the way critics are approaching texts, apart from any sustained commentary on how they may be interpreting or using them.

What is a phenomenological turn? Phenomenology is a way of describing how we experience appearances. But what happens when we experience an appearance that seems to diverge from reality? We can discount that appearance, readjust our understanding of what counts as real, or dialectically negotiate these two options. Or, and this is where the turn comes in, we can look away from reality and value perception for itself. What I am calling a phenomenological turn is...