Sunday, February 18, 2007

(10:08 AM) | Adam Kotsko:

Knowing Best

Obviously obtaining a PhD requires a certain degree of what Walter Kaufman calls "galloping consumption," and in an interdisciplinary program such as mine, that consumption can sometimes seem especially indiscriminate. For instance, yesterday I read H. Richard Niebuhr's The Meaning of Revelation, Derrida's essay on Celan's "Meridian" speech, and part of Judith Butler's Gender Trouble. Today I hope to combine some more Butler with some Karl Rahner. It's all very exciting.

In the course of this galloping consumption, however, I sometimes like to step back and ask myself what I feel like I really know, which texts I know backwards and forwards. My list is as follows:
  1. Derrida, The Gift of Death
  2. Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals (especially the first two essays)
  3. Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History
  4. Paul, "The Epistle to the Romans"
I'm hesitant to put Romans down because I haven't been able to read the text in its original language, but on the other hand, I'd be surprised if I'd read it fewer than 100 times. (Seriously -- I've had a strange life.)

And so, the obvious question you've all been waiting for: what texts do you know best?

UPDATE: Looking back over this post, I feel as though Butler and Rahner are as different as it is possible for two authors to be. I keep trying to come up with counter-examples, but they all sound contrived and arbitrary.

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(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)