![]() My focus is on Agamben's development of the idea of pure potentiality as the source of creativity, where from the new potential community could emerge, embodied in the figure of the scrivener, a man without vocation and without purpose. The essay evolves around Melville's story Bartleby the Scrivener that was object of interpretation of many contemporary philosophers. ![]() I submitted this paper as my master thesis at Goldmiths, University of London. ![]() On this topic, we pass a not altogether optimistic commentary, itself informed by the excessive demand of adequately interpreting Bartleby. This particular discussion of Bartleby is connected to a more general discussion of a management and organization studies that has become increasingly reliant upon literary texts. On the basis of these interpretations we derive a concept of excess as the residual surplus of any categorical interpretation, the yet to be accounted for, the not yet explained, the un-interpretable, the indeterminate, the always yet to arrive, precisely that which cannot be captured, held onto nor put in place. Our discussion focuses upon three of the most prominent contemporary Bartlebys: ‘The Politicized Bartleby’ of Slavoj Zizek, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri ‘The Originary Bartleby’ of Gilles Deleuze and ‘The Whatever Bartleby’ of Giorgio Agamben. This paper engages with Herman Melville’s short story Bartleby the Scrivener, as well as contemporary discussions thereof, so as to consider a peculiar concept of excess suggested to us by its main character. ![]()
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