91福利

Abtract: In L鈥橝nimal que je suis donc Jacques Derrida suggests that the question of what would be proper to the animal should 鈥渃hange tune.鈥� At stake is a chromatic inflection of pitch that would pivot the tonality flatwards. I read this extraordinary passage, in which Derrida calls for us to lend an ear to an 鈥渦nheard-of music鈥� that neither emancipates the non-human nor condemns it to inarticulate noise, in conjunction with the nexus of animality, telephony, and the cri de la litt茅rature that unfolds in H茅l猫ne Cixous鈥檚 writing. I explore the significant role assumed by the sonorous in these descriptions of non-human life. For Cixous, the telephonic power of near-instantaneous substitution and of prostheticity is inseparable from the sounds produced by the coterie of animals that populate the writings of these two authors: cats, dogs, wolves, lions, ants, bees, worms, swans, other birds, elephants, and even the mythical half-human, half-animal faun. What is intriguing is that this bestiary is almost always said with a certain homonymy or homophony. Hence this paper traces what I want to call a homofaunie echoing the series of puns and neologisms such as 鈥�(t)elefaun鈥� and 鈥�(t)elephantasy鈥� in Cixous鈥檚 础苍补苍办猫 which is so striking as to capture Derrida鈥檚 attention in H. C. pour la vie, c鈥檈st 脿 dire鈥�. I ask what is at stake for theorizing non-human life—not just animal but also plant and so-called inanimate life—if the mode of questioning is to be redirected by a specifically aural attunement in which listening itself is retuned under the guidance of untranslatable homophony. This has the effect of turning the multiplication and dissemination of non-human life—Derrida鈥檚 animots—towards the singularity of the idiom such that homofaunie complicates any attempt to draw boundaries between different forms of life as much as it unsettles all transferences.