On the essay as a paroxismal form of the utopian thinking: present living pasts

Abstract

This paper explores the role of the essay in the expression of knowledge and argues that this discursive style, in contrast with the academic paper as a form to disseminate knowledge, allows us to consider possible utopias, since it provides a link between past and present, between memory and oblivion, between the archaic and the prospective. This paper argues that the essay is a paroxismal narrative which rightly expresses the convergence of both past and present collective emotions in opposition to the scientificist rationality which is characteristic of the academic paper. This paper aims to reclaim the role of this discursive formula in the production of collective knowledge as well as to place it in its right context: that of the occurring pre-texts, particularly in the debate on the objectivity and subjectivity of knowledge-related procedures that takes place between the dynamics of the essay and the logic of the “scientific” paper. The link between the essay and the awareness of the collectively lived present, the connection of present utopian archaisms, will be shown by comparing the Medieval Universitates against the enlighted universities and the initiatory rites against the evidence of the sacred data. The goal of this comparison is to highlight knowledge-related writings that integrate emotions as knowledge entities.