Wiebe Sieds Koopal (KU Leuven, Belgium)
‘Zum-Buch-Sein’ : on Literature as Educational Space beyond Authenticity and Alterity

Departing from two curious recent findings regarding the relationship between young people, literature, and physical book-reading, my presentation explores the pedagogical potentiality of the notion of zum-Buch-sein (“being-towards-the-book”), as introduced by Belgian philosopher Rudi Visker, in his reading of the tensions between Heideggerian authenticity and Levinasian alterity. With the additional help of Maurice Blanchot’s phenomenology of literature—which sees literature as a strangely (de-)subjectifying ‘space’ where solitude and community meet—I try to develop the idea that physical book-reading constitutes a fundamentally educational, ‘depolarizing’ space where we can at once become at home in alterity and uprooted by authenticity.

Departing from two curious recent findings regarding the relationship between young people, literature, and physical book-reading, my presentation explores the pedagogical potentiality of the notion of zum-Buch-sein (“being-towards-the-book”), as introduced by Belgian philosopher Rudi Visker, in his reading of the tensions between Heideggerian authenticity and Levinasian alterity. With the additional help of Maurice Blanchot’s phenomenology of literature—which sees literature as a strangely (de-)subjectifying ‘space’ where solitude and community meet—I try to develop the idea that physical book-reading constitutes a fundamentally educational, ‘depolarizing’ space where we can at once become at home in alterity and uprooted by authenticity.

For further inquiries: Yuxin Su (yuxin.su.16@ucl.ac.uk).