Hearing voices: Paul Celan with Bernhard Waldenfels

In: Filozofija i društvo, Band 29, Heft 3, S. 387-398

Abstract

The paper discusses voice as a medium of human communication through the
indirect approach of listening. After designating the multifaceted nature of
the voice, the author dedicates attention to Bernhard Waldenfels? theory of
the voice as developed on the basis of the phenomenology of the alien.
According to Waldenfels, the polyphony of the vocal, in which the own and
the alien re-sound in mutual permeation, calls for the possibility of
responsive listening. In the concluding portion of the article, the author
takes into consideration one of the poems from the cycle ?Stimmen?
(?Voices?) that Paul Celan published in the collection Sprachgitter. With
regard also to Celan?s auto-poetological writings, the ensuing
interpretation attempts to briefly sketch the contours of the anti-politics
of voice.