The other vow: affirmative Denial in Kafka, Shakespeare and Kol Nidrei.

In this paper, I discuss what I call ‘the other vow’, a vow that undoes all others. Interweaving an aphorism from Kafka, Juliet’s speech from Romeo & Juliet, and the Jewish liturgical passage Kol Nidrei, I argue that we might find ways to inhabit language differently in the other vow – not the God of the name, or the God of the father, but rather a relation to the other to be otherwise. Instead, we might practice an affirmative denial and collectively attempt to undo the oaths and names that bind us, legally, socially, economically, in order to live in a different way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]