Temporality, Exile, and Freedom: Reconstructing Rachel Bespaloff’s Political Philosophy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36253/rifp-3499Keywords:
Rachel Bespaloff, Exile, Political Philosophy, Tragic Humanism, FreedomAbstract
This article reconstructs Rachel Bespaloff’s political philosophy through the intersecting themes of exile, corporeality and temporality. Focusing on “Twofold Relationship” and “On the Iliad,” it examines her concepts of the instant and embodied freedom. In dialogue with Hannah Arendt’s philosophy of action and her notion of natality, it reconstructs Bespaloff’s ethics forged under violence and war. It finally contrasts their respective political visions, arguing that statelessness reveals the limits of the nation-state while enabling new forms of beginning.
Downloads
References
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.
Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951.
Arendt, Hannah. “We Refugees.” In The Jewish Writings. Eds. Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldman. New York City, NY: Schocken Books, 2007 [1943].
Arendt, Hannah. “Franz Kafka: A Revaluation.” Partisan Review, XI (Autumn 1944): 412-422.
Arendt, Hannah. “The Concept of History: Ancient and Modern,” in Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, 41-90. New York: Penguin, 1993.
Argirò, Anna. “Hannah Arendt and Exile.” The Philosopher, Spring 2025: 50-55. https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/post/hannah-arendt-and-exile
Benfey, Christopher and Remmler, Karen (eds). Artists, Intellectuals and World War II. The Pontigny Encounters at Mount Holyoke College, 1942-1944. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.
Benfey, Christopher (ed.), War and the Iliad, New York: New York Review of Books, 2005.
Benfey, Christopher. “Introduction: A Tale of Two Iliads.” In War and the Iliad, VII–XXIII, New York: New York Review of Books, 2005.
Berkowitz, Roger. “Impartiality and Objectivity,” Amor Mundi, 09- 22- 2024 https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/impartiality-and-objectivity
Bespaloff, Rachel. Cheminements et Carrefours. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2004 [1938].
Bespaloff, Rachel. Lettre à M. Daniel Halévy. “Revue Juive de Genève.” June 1938; reprinted (Sur la question juive) in “Conférence” n. 13, Autumn 2001.
Bespaloff, Rachel.“Twofold Relationship.” Contemporary Jewish Record, 6 June 1943: 244-253.
Bespaloff, Rachel. “The Humanism of Péguy.” The Review of Politics, vol. 9, no. 1: 92-106. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1404304 (Accessed 14 May 2025).
Bespaloff, Rachel. On the Iliad. Translated by Mary McCarthy. New York: Pantheon Books, 1947.
Bespaloff, Rachel. “Le Monde du Condamné à Mort.” Esprit, Nouvelle Série 163 (January 1950): 1-26. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24251818 (Accessed 4 May 2025).
Bespaloff, Rachel. “L’instant et la liberté chez Montaigne.” Deucalion. Éditions de la Baconnière-Neuchâtel, n. 3, October 1950: 65-107, 1950.
Bespaloff, Rachel. Lettres à Jean Wahl: 1937–1947. Sur le fond le plus déchiqueté de l’histoire. Edited by Monique Jutrin. Paris: Éditions Claire Paulhan, 2003.
Bespaloff, Rachel. “Lettres à Gabriel Marcel (1935–1946).” Conférence 18: 547–612. Paris, 2004.
Bespaloff, Rachel. “On the Iliad.” In War and the Iliad. 39-100. New York: New York Review of Books, 2005.
Bespaloff, Rachel. “Sur Heidegger (Lettre à Daniel Halévy).” Paris: Éditions de la revue Conference, 2009.
Bespaloff, Rachel. La vérité que nous sommes. Correspondance avec Léon Chestov et Benjamin Fondane. Edited by Olivier Salazar-Ferrer. Paris: Non Lieu, 2021.
Bespaloff, Rachel. De la compréhension musicale à la métaphysique de l’instant: Écrits sur la musique et la danse. Edited by Olivier Salazar-Ferrer. Paris: Non Lieu, 2022.
Bespaloff, Rachel. L’eternità nell’istante. Gli anni francesi (1932-1942). Edited by C. Guarnieri and L. Sanò. Rome: Castelvecchi, 2022.
Bespaloff, Rachel. La sfida della libertà. Gli anni americani (1943-1949). Edited by C. Guarnieri and L. Sanò. Rome: Castelvecchi, 2024.
Bespaloff, Rachel and Paul-Henri Tisseau.“Notes sur la Répétition de Kierkegaard.” Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger 117: 5/6 (1934), 335-63. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41084084 (Accessed 4 May 2025).
Borsari, Michelina. “Bespaloff, un sionismo ostile a che Israele rinasca.” il manifesto, 14 April 2024 https://ilmanifesto.it/bespaloff-un-sionismo-ostile-a-che-israele-rinasca.
Fusini, Nadia. Hannah e le altre. Turin: Einaudi, 2013.
Jacobs, Isabel. “Dancing and time.” Aeon (December 2023) https://aeon.co/essays/for-rachel-bespaloff-philosophy-was-a-sensual-activity.
Jutrin, Monique. “Rachel Bespaloff: liberté et pensée éthique.” Europe, vol. 88, n. 272. Paris, April 2010: 198-208.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs. Translated by M.G. Piety. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Lombard, Cécilia Andrée Monique. “Albert Camus and Rachel Bespaloff: Happiness in a Challenging World.” Open Philosophy 7 (2024): 1-13.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Homer und die klassische Philologie: Ein Vortrag. Werke in drei Bänden. München 1954, Band 3: 154-174. Erstdruck: Basel (Privatdruck), 1869. http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Nietzsche,+Friedrich/Homer+und+die+klassische+Philologie (Accessed 14 May 2025).
Salazar-Ferrer, Olivier. “Rachel Bespaloff et la nostalgie de l’instant.” Cahiers Léon Chestov, n. 3, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, 2002: 759-761.
Sanò, Laura. Un pensiero in esilio: La filosofia di Rachel Bespaloff. Napoli: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 2007.
Sharvit, Gilat. Dynamic Repetition: History and Messianism in Modern Jewish Thought. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2022.
Weil, Simone. The Need for Roots. Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind (1949). Translated by Arthur Wills. New York: Routledge, 1952.
Weil, Simone. The Iliad, or the Poem of Force. Translated by Mary McCarthy. New York: Pendle Hill, 1956.
Weil, Simone. “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force.” in An Anthology. Edited by Sian Miles. London: Penguin, 2005.
Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth. Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Anna Argirò, Isabel Jacobs
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
