ABSTRACT
In an article on the Kantian sublime and the urge to domination that is apparent within its conceptual scheme, Thomas Huhn remarks that the sublime is associated with 'the problematics of a subjectivity, not just unable to make a presentation to itself, but unable to present itself at all' (Huhn 1995: 270). Huhn's approach is typical of many contemporary theorisations of the sublime, according to which the sublime is related to a profound crisis of human identity.1 In keeping with Lyotard's argument, as set out in the introduction, this chapter begins with the premise that theoretical discourse is motivated by this crisis, by a recognition of 'the possibility of nothing further happening [that] is often associated with a feeling of anxiety, a term with strong connotations in modern philosophies of existence and the unconscious' (Lyotard 1989: 197).
