Bartleby: a Negativism Beyond all Negativity

This week we will explore the disturbing, disruptive, and tragic refusal of Hermann Melville's character of Bartleby, from his story "Bartleby the Scrivener".  The Melville text is here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/827051/melville-herman--bartleby-the-scrivener.pdf

We offer four optional commentaries on the text, which people can read at their will, and raise during the discussion.

-Agamben "Bartleby or On Contingency" (in: Potentialities, p. 243-271)

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Agamben_Bartleby.pdf

-Rancière "Deleuze, Bartleby and the Literary Formula" (in: The Flesh of
Words. The politics of writing, p. 146-164)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/827051/Ranciere%20-%20The%20Flesh%20of%20Words.pdf

-Deleuze "Bartleby; or 'The Formula'" (in: Essays: Critical & Clinical, S. 68-90)
 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/827051/Deleuze%20-%20Essays%20critical%20and%20clinical.pdf

-Zizek: "Notes towards a politics of Bartleby: The ignorance of chicken" (in: Comparative American Studies 4(4), p. 375-394

http://archive.totalism.org/Zizek%20-%20Notes%20Towards%20a%20Politics%20of%20Bartleby%20-%20The%20Ignorance%20of%20Chicken.pdf