A hermeneutics of language after Auschwitz. Speaking and understanding can both be thought of as forms of translation, and in this way every speaker is an exile in language-even in one's mother tongue. Drawing from the philosophical hermeneutics of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, the testimonies of the German Jews and their relation with the German language, Jacques Derrida's confrontation with Hannah Arendt, and the poetry of Paul Celan, Donatella Ester Di Cesare proclaims Auschwitz the Babel of the twentieth century. She argues that the globalized world is one in which there no longer remains any intimate place or stable dwelling. Understanding becomes a kind of shibboleth that grounds nothing, but opens messianically to a utopia yet to come.

Table of Contents:
Preface 1. Being and Language in Philosophical Hermeneutics Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Linguistic Turn Which "Turn"? From Heidegger to Gadamer: Language as Dwelling, Refuge, Shelter, Exile "The History of a Comma" Gadamer’s Self-Interpretation Understanding as Middle Term and Mediation Language and Linguisticality Searching for the "Right" Word "Being" Twice: The Speculative Passage from Being to Being-Language The Universal "There" of the Word Self-Overcoming: The Movement of Hermeneutics The Understanding of Being: Hermeneutics Facing Ontology The A-Metaphysical Dimension of Philosophical Hermeneutics A Philosophy of Infinite Finitude 2. The Hermeneutic Understanding of Language Heidegger and Derivativeness of Assertion Aristotle’s Lesson Hermeneutics Between Semantic Lógos and Apophantic Lógos The Logic of Linguistic Praxis As if "assertions fall from the sky…" The Analytic Artifice Assertion, Method, and the Power of Technology The Tribunal of Assertions Hermeneía: From the Said to the Un-Said Speculum: The Speculative Movement of Lanuage Beyond Hegel: The Dialectic of Finite and Infinite The Truth of the Word The Hermeneutic Listening to Language 3. Translation and Redemption "…one shall no longer understand the lip of the otherI." Babel Languages in the Diaspora "Love without Demands": Translation in the Age of Romanticism From the Original to the Originary: On Heidegger Giving Voice to the Foreign Voice: The Translation of the Torah The Dialogue of Languages: On Benjamin "Pure Language" and Messianic Silence 4. Exiled in the Mother Tongue "Exile" in the Jewish Tradition "How Much Home Does One Man Need?" Exile from the Land, Exile from the Language On the Mother Tongue In the Firmament of Rosenzweig: The Holy Language and the Language of the Guest If German is the Language of Origin "What Remains? The Mother Tongue Remains": On Hannah Arendt My Language Which is of the Other: Derrida and Monolingualism Language Forbids Ownership The Exile of Language 5. The Dialogue of Poetry Paul Celan as a Witness to Hermeneutic Dialogue The Everyday Word and the Poetic Word Poetizing and Interpreting "Your irrefutable witness" Your I and My Thou: The Universality of Poetry The Flow of Dialogue and the Crystal of Poetry The "Soul’s Refrain" 6. Understanding Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction Paris 1981: An "Improbable Debate" Hermeneutics and Deconstruction: Which Difference? Derrida and Hermeneutics: Plaidoyer for Interruption Gadamer and Deconstruction: "…at the beginning of a dialogue" On the Language of Metaphysics and on Language in General The Being-for-the-Other of Language Wanting to Say, Wanting to Understand "Comprendre c’est égaler"? On Nietzsche Understanding is Understanding Differently On Accord and Discord Heidelberg 2003: Starting from that Interruption "The world is gone…" Dialogue after Death Thinking, Carrying, Translating The Blessing of the Hand, the Blessing of the Poem Stars and Constellations 7. Utopia of Understanding U-topia, Topia, Utopia: On Gustav Landauer Celan, Poetry and the "Revolution of the Breath" Breaking the Silence: Voice and the Absolute Vocative January 20. The Date and the Circumcised Word Speaking Ever-Yet? The Language-Grille Straitening, Anguish, Anxiety: On the Limit-Situation The Other of the Limit, the Limit of the Other: The You is the Lever of the I Understanding to live, Living to Understand: Auschwitz Átopos. The Out of Place of the Stranger The Tent of Encounter "…The Language That Wandered With Us" The Time of the Promise North of the Future The Word of Conspiracy Index