ABSTRACT
Catherine Malabou has pursued her philosophy of plasticity across a number of recent works, published over several decades. In books such as The Future of Hegel, The New Wounded, Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing, Before Tomorrow, and Morphing Intelligence, she has explored the intimate connections between brain plasticity and temporality as pertaining to key figures in the modern philosophical tradition. Her work has important implications for literary studies. This essay shall discuss implications and possible styles of practical application by bringing Malabou together with the contemporary poet Anne Carson. Carson is best known for her innovative negotiations with Classical literature. In its temporal, discursive, and generic traversals of what she calls the ‘difficult interval’ of literary history between the ancient Greeks and the Modernists, Carson’s work fuses recapitulation with invention, repetition with exploration, in a perpetual effort to grasp the very conditions of mental spontaneity. In this essay, Malabou’s and Carson’s writings will be juxtaposed for the sake of achieving a mutual critical and aesthetic illumination.
