This paper examines the place of the human and the animal in Hélène Cixous' work. It takes the figure of Fips, the dog of the Cixous family that she writes about in her autobiographical narratives, as a starting point. By thinking through this figure, I argue, Cixous analyses the dehumanizing logic of colonialism and anti-Semitism in Algeria and develops her own response to it, arguing for human relationality and animal corporeality. The paper shows that Cixous’ primal encounter with Fips produces a stigma that, belatedly, ruptures the barrier between herself and this specific dog; its dehiscence reveals a profound animal humanity generated by suffering, finitude, and compassion. The lesson Cixous learns from the memory of the Dog is how to become ‘more human’. This becoming is also an assault on the false humanism of the colonial project, on the closed gates as markers of colonial dehumanization and racialized social exclusion.
Despite the continual displacement of nearly every established conception of the human, the figure of the human remains a powerful idea for political and ethical theorizing. In the era of human rights, the language of dehumanization has become a dominant frame for accounting for and criticizing a wide range of abuses and social harms. Likewise, the human has come to mark a status that promises protection from the dehumanizing effects of violence, discrimination and other modes of injustice. Cixous’ recent work on the concept have contributed to this discussion by providing an analysis of the borders between what we call human and inhuman and by pointing to the precarious conditions of hospitality towards other beings (human and nonhuman). This paper examines the place of the human and animals in Cixous’ work. It takes the figure of Fips, the dog of the Cixous family in Algiers, as a starting point. By thinking through this figure, Cixous analyses the dehumanizing logic of colonialism and anti-Semitism in Algeria and develops her own response to it, arguing for human relationality and animal corporeality. The paper shows that Cixous’ relationship with Fips produces a stigma that, belatedly, disrupt the barrier between herself and this specific dog. The lesson Cixous learns from revivifying the memory of the Dog is how to become ‘more human’. This becoming is also an assault on the false humanism of the colonial project, on the closed Gates as markers of colonial dehumanization and racialized social exclusion. The lesson of hospitality Cixous learns by another primal event: the resurrection of Fips in the form of another animal – the unexpected arrival of a cat (Thea) that puts conditional hospitality into question simply by demanding (and giving) an unconditional hospitality.
This paper examines the complex, paradoxical and tortuous relationship between human, nonhuman and inhuman in the fiction of Franz Kafka and the philosophy of Hannah Arendt in connection with the issues of the ethical importance of being human and the political processes that produces the ideological concept of “the human.” Whereas Arendt, as a philosopher, is especially concerned with the legal or quasi-legal norms that should entitle every subject, even a stateless refugee, to appear as a member in a political community, Kafka, as a literary writer, analyzes the social norms of “imagination” that determine whether a human being appears to fellow human beings as a member of the human community at all.
This article examines the place of human and animal subjectivityin two autobiographically informed texts by Hélène Cixous. It takesher view on the word ‘human’ and the figure of Fips, the dog ofthe Cixous family, as a point of departure. By thinking through thisfigure, I argue, Cixous analyses the dehumanizing logic of colonialismand anti-Semitism in Algeria and develops her own responseto such kinds of political evils, arguing for human relationality andanimal corporeality. The article shows that Cixous’ meeting withFips creates a stigma that, belatedly, breaks through the barrierbetween herself and the dog; the reopening of the wound takesplace in a poetical writing that reveals an intense ‘animal humanity’formed by communal suffering, finiteness, and love. The lessonCixous learns from the memory of Fips the dog is how to become‘better human’. This becoming is also an assault on the falsehumanism of the colonial project and on racialized social exlusion.
Ours is a time of global institutional change. It would perhaps be premature to refer to this situation as a condition of statelessness, but there is a sense in which the modern state has lost its privileged position in the exercise of democratic politics. Partly through its own act of outsourcing and outlawing, partly through pressure from global actors and economic structures, it has assisted in creating a growing call of ‘precarious’ people around the world: migrants, refugees, stateless persons. The number of people without rights or work in Europe is growing. In political life, this group is the subject of increasingly hostile discourse on ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘international terrorism’. This paper explores how a rereading of the work Hannah Arendt can contribute to the analytical and political task of giving an alternative meaning to the presence of this group in our societies. She shows us the stateless person as a victim subjected to a very specific form of domination; as an emblematic figure whose status exposes the contradiction of state-centered citizenship and the discourse of human rights; and as an important political actor whose protests can become visible sites of active citizenship.
Hélène Cixous’ engagement with animals is a significant but neglected aspect of her work. In this article I trace one specific character among her animals, Fips, a dog she had when she was living in Algiers during the late 1940s. By reflecting on this figure, I outline the way the dehumanising logic of colonialism and anti-Semitism are critiqued by Cixous. I lift up her themes of relationality and corporeality as constructive for animal studies. Taking the work of Jacques Derrida as a starting point, the article shows how Cixous’ primal encounter with Fips produces a wound that, belatedly, ruptures the barriers between herself and this dog; its dehiscence reveals Fips’ ‘profound animal humanity’ generated by shared suffering, finitude, and love. The lesson Cixous learns from revivifying the memory of this dog is, I suggest, how to become more human. The ‘humanity’ of the dog is the capacity to see and indeed love outside preconceived ideas: ‘Perhaps the irony is that we are never more human than when we are dogs.’ Becoming more human is an assault on the borders of racialised exclusion and a challenge to the false humanism of the colonial project.