Retroactive Temporality. The Logic of Jazz Improvisation read through Žižek’s Hegel

Daniel Martin Feige

Retroactive Temporality. The Logic of Jazz Improvisation read through Žižek’s Hegel

Daniel Martin Feige

Abstract

The paper offers a reconstruction of the logics of jazz improvisation that is drawing on Žižek’s Work on Hegel. A basic concept of Žižek’s reading of Hegel consists in the concept of Retroactivity as the temporality that is characteristic of what Hegel understands as the development of history. The logic of retroactivity cannot be understood in terms of a classical teleological account but rather draws upon the idea of incommensurable events: Each historical situation is presupposing its own preconditions in a way that the contingent is transformed into necessity. The paper discusses the structure of the temporality of jazz in such a way that it can be informed by Žižek’s thoughts on the temporal logic of history.

Keywords

Hegel; Retroactivity; Jazz; Improvisation; Time

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