SKC Workshop Spring 2024

Carsten Pallesen

(University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

"Libidinalization of Existence"

In his treatise on Mozart’s Don Giovanni (SKS2 55-136) Kierkegaard claims that “Sensuality was first posited as a principle, as a power, as an independent system by Christianity […] Sensuality was placed under the qualification of spirit first by Christianity” (EOI, 61). This claim will be discussed in the light of what in Saint Augustine’s theology of sin and sensuality Michel Foucault has described as a new experience of an “erectile libidinal will” (S. Raffnsøe).