Abstract

This paper explores the notion of infancy in the work of Jean-François Lyotard as a state of unadorned openness and receptiveness to sensorial affect. It identifies debt and reparation as the conceptual thread running throughout his exploration. The purpose of the paper is to explore the dimensions of the “debt” infancy demands of a body that is open to the touch of sensorial affect, and the concomitant requirement to pay in some way for this openness and affectivity. The first section considers debt in terms of an obligation to honor the infant state. The second section considers the violent price a body must pay for harboring its own infancy, and the final section considers the payment of affect as the cost the infant body must bear.

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