Abstract
This article focuses on the phenomenological concept of the alien as it pertains to a literary work. We approach the alien with the help of xenology, a recent strand of phenomenology, which examines the relationship between the alien-world and the home-world, as it is presented by Paul Bowles in his 1949 novel The Sheltering Sky. Our reading focuses on the themes of the ‘Alien,’ ‘alienness’ and the ‘encounter with the alien’ as well as ‘alien affectivity.’ We argue that the experience of the alien is the experience of the extreme and its affects on the traveler in the alien-land may reach a particular form of self-alienation, namely, becoming alien.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bataille, Georges. 1962. Eroticism. London: Penguin.
Bertolucci, Bernardo. 1990. The Sheltering Sky. Film. 138 min. Italy.
Bowles, Paul. 1947. The Sheltering Sky. London: Penguin.
———. 1972. Without Stopping. An Autobiography. New York: Putnam.
Conrad, Joseph. 1994. Heart of Darkness. London: Penguin Classics.
Danto, Arthur. 1985. Narration and Knowledge. New York: Columbia University Press.
Davies, Paul. 2014. Useful Fiction. Public Lecture, University of Sussex, November 11, 2014.
Derrida, Jacques. 1979. Deconstruction and Criticism, trans. J. Hulbert. London: Continuum.
Heidegger, Martin. 1971a. The Origin of the Work of Art. In Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. A. Hofstadter, 15–86. New York: Harper Collins.
———. 1971b. The Way to Language. In On the Way to Language, trans. M. Fromt, 111–139. New York: HarperCollins.
Husserl, Edmund. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. D. Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
———. 1973. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität: Texte aus dem Nachlass, Dritter Teil, 1929–35, ed. I. Kern. The Hague, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 2005. Phantasy, Image, Consciousness, and Memory (1898–1925), trans. J. Brough. Dordrecht: Springer.
Ingarden, Roman. 1973. The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art, trans. R.A. Crowley and K.R. Olson. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Kuspit, Donald. 1968. Fiction and Phenomenology. Philosophy and Phenomenology Research 29: 16–33.
Landgrebe, Ludwig. 1981. The Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl: Six Essays. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1997. Totality and Infinity, trans. A. Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
———. 1998. Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. A. Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Plato. 1997. Complete Works, ed. J. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1985. Time and Narrative, trans. K. McLaughlin and D. Pellauer, vol. 2. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Staehler, Tanja. 2010. Plato and Levinas: The Ambiguous Out-Side of Ethics. London: Routledge.
Waldenfels, Bernhard. 1996. Order in the Twilight, trans. D. Parent. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Staehler, T., Kozin, A. (2018). Encountering the Alien: Paul Bowles on Death and Madness at the Edge of the World. In: Falcato, A., Cardiello, A. (eds) Philosophy in the Condition of Modernism . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77078-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77078-9_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77077-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77078-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)