Of eyes and men: Diffracted violence, embodied vision, and dis/continuous objectivity

Abstract

According to Donna Haraway, a certain disembodied scientific method relies on parables about objectivity (Haraway, 1988, p. 575f.). The latter is framed as the mandatory principle that can visualize a representative knowledge that is accessed by tools of empiricism – most prominently, the phallic eye. This article (re-)turns to a famous parable about objectivity – The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffmann – entangling it with Donna Haraway’s situated knowledges and Karen Barad’s conception of adis/continuity. It focuses on the violence that is always displayed in knowledge production and offers an alternative: another kind of objectivity that neither neglects nor unconditionally affirms this violence, but rather transforms it by sensing the fact that a violent act always hits back.