Ricoeur on responsibility

There are at least two themes in Paul Ricoeur’s recent essay, ‘The Concept of Responsibility: An Essay in Semantic Analysis’ (Ricoeur 2000). The first of these is in the foreground of the essay. It concerns how the concept of responsibility has evolved in recent times from a delimited juridical notion to a much broader moral concept. The second theme remains in the background of the essay and alludes to theses that Ricoeur has developed in his book, Oneself as Another (Ricoeur 1992). This theme concerns how responsibility relates to personal and moral identity and how it emerges dialectically from social formation and from an eliminable subjectivity. In this paper I will explicate Ricoeur’s first theme and also explore how the second theme might solve the problem of the unassumable scope and range of our responsibilities which the first theme might suggest.

What is a transmitter?

This article discusses the approach that Yvonne Rainer has taken to conserving her Trio A, a work made originally in 1966 and which has been performed many times since, including now by custodians or ‘transmitters’ of the dance. The discussion is contextualized within the broader frame of the question of whether and how the legacy of modern and postmodern dance might be maintained for the benefit of future dancers and their capacity to develop contemporary dance art – particularly at a time when a generation of seminal artists who also voice their desire regarding these matters is passing away. I use the question ‘What is a transmitter?’ and an alternative notion of ‘translator’, drawing on philosopher Paul Ricoeur, to highlight the complex role of dancer-performers, not only in the creation and performance of work(s) but also in maintaining a repertoire.