The Double-Mirror Gaze, Transcoded Testimony, and Disqualified Witnesses in the Talmud
I will argue that the underlying rationale for the talmudic list of trades disqualified from legal testimony is aesthetic. These trades involved professional mimicry, which as such incapacitated what R. Neis has termed “homovisuality” or self-referential witnessing in the Talmud. Reading talmudic la...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2023
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| In: |
The journal of Jewish thought & philosophy
Year: 2023, Volume: 31, Issue: 2, Pages: 127-162 |
| Further subjects: | B
Blanchot
B Play B Gambling B Greco-Roman philosophy B Deleuze B mise en abyme B Mimesis B Gadamer B Talmud |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | I will argue that the underlying rationale for the talmudic list of trades disqualified from legal testimony is aesthetic. These trades involved professional mimicry, which as such incapacitated what R. Neis has termed “homovisuality” or self-referential witnessing in the Talmud. Reading talmudic laws of conjoined testimony and the induction of witnesses in light of Deleuze’s and Blanchot’s philosophy, I will argue that homovisuality entailed the witness’s reincarnation as the subject of the event, thus re-signifying rather than reporting the event. The judge, transformed into a witness, could capture the truth of the event at a glance, in a manner both prior to and irreducible to trial procedures. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-285X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of Jewish thought & philosophy
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/1477285x-12341348 |