Drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy’s later thought (mainly in texts such as Sexistence, The Deconstruction of Sex, and “Touche-touche”), this chapter suggests a programmatic approach to the notion of “critical intimacy.” It places special emphasis on representations of queer corporeal, and often sexual, intimacies, echoing Nancy’s position that “sexual liberation brings out into the open as much misery as jubilation.” It focuses on three main aspects of critical intimacy, illustrating them with brief references to theoretically informed art and literature. Firstly, the chapter tackles what one might term “trouble in/of intimacy,” which is to be seen less as an aporia, and more as an incitement to explore as yet uncharted, and therefore potentially troubling, intimacies. Secondly, it explores what caring for the sex of others might mean, and by that it addresses the limits of politicized intimacies. Thirdly, it formulates some positions for thinking an ethics of withdrawal based on Nancy’s expeausition, not in order to set up a new being-together following a separation, but mostly, as seems appropriate after Nancy’s death, as a way of maintaining a with within a living-apart.

With this book, we would like to resume the passionate conversation that Jean-Luc Nancy was engaged in throughout his life, with philosophers and artists from all over the world. Now that he has passed away, it is not enough for us to simply reflect on his work: we would like to stay true to the stance to which his thought invites us, in a pluralistic and communal way. Jean-Luc Nancy takes up the old philosophical question of truth as a praxis of a with — understanding truth without any given measure or comparison as an articulation of a with. It is a thinking responsible for the world from within the world, a language that seeks to respond to the ongoing mutation of our civilization.

With contributions by Jean-Christophe Bailly, Rodolphe Burger, Marcia Sá Calvacante Schuback, Marcus Coelen, Alexander García Düttmann, Juan-Manuel Garrido, Martta Heikkilä, Erich Hörl, Valentin Husson, Sandrine Israel-Jost, Ian James, Apostolos Lampropoulos, Nidesh Lawtoo, Jérôme Lèbre, Susanna Lindberg, Michael Marder, Artemy Magun, Boyan Manchev, Dieter Mersch, Hélène Nancy, Jean-Luc Nancy, Aïcha Liviana Messina, Ginette Michaud, Helen Petrovsky, Jacob Rogozinski, Philipp Stoellger, Peter Szendy, Georgios Tsagdis, Marita Tatari, Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Aukje van Rooden.