“She kissed not a mouth, but the corpse of language.”

The Salomé Project is a constellation of critical essays orbiting a central philosophical thesis on ethics, voice, and symbolic resistance. Through the figure of Salomé, the project investigates the intersection of silence, truth, femininity, and non-verbal ethics across cultural, political, and mythic terrains. Each paper offers a focused reflection on symbolic embodiment, discursive exclusion, and the radical gestures that emerge when language fails.

Title: 

Salomé and the Refusal of Truth: Ethics of Recognition Beyond Language

Core Arguments:

• Salomé’s kiss is not seduction—it is a non-verbal ethical act.

• She represents not the temptress, but a silenced humanity attempting to relate to truth.

• John (Truth) rejects the human, submitting instead to divine authority—thus abandoning ethical responsibility.

• Even when Truth is dead, humanity kisses, mourns, and marks its departure.

Chapter Outline:

1. Introduction: Truth, Language, and the Triangle of Ethics

2. Methodology: Critical Performative Hermeneutics + Feminist Theory

3. Kiss as Act: How the kiss emerges as ethical praxis

4. The Refusal of Truth: John’s submission and ethical failure

5. The Ethics of the Dying Body: Language's death and Salomé’s final gesture

6. Conclusion: What remains after the kiss?

1. To Behead and Remember: The Political Management of Truth in the Salomé Myth