Abstract

KIERNIEW, Janniny Gautério  and  MOSCHEN, Simone Zanon. Bartleby and the contingency: knowing-doing- with the impossible. Educação. Santa Maria [online]. 2019, vol.44, e30745.  Epub Nov 11, 2020. ISSN 1984-6444.  https://doi.org/10.5902/1984644430745.

This essay proposes a reflection based on the literary narrative Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, written in 1853 by Herman Melville. The aim is to operate with the notions of contingency and knowing- doing-with the impossible within the education field. It is based on the Freudian assumption that educating is one of the professions that operates with the impossible, and establishes a dialog with the reading of Giorgio Agamben, who locates in Melville’s classic the expression of the absolute contingency. This text proposes that Bartleby, when supporting a place of resistance where the impossibility is understood as pure potency, promotes a cut and establishes a space, so that something that was not given a priori may emerge. Thus, it is thought that the character provides clues to invent ways of a knowing-doing- with the impossible that may interest to education. By means of Herman Melville’s literary narrative, articulated around “I would rather not”, it evidences coordinates of an ethical constellation for a knowing-doing- with the impossible within the education field.

Keywords : Education; Impossible; Contingency.

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