Paul de Man's work is key to the American deconstruction movement and to the so-called political turn in critical theory. Seventeen years after his death, his works continue to arouse violent reactions among critics. This book explains why de Man is such an important voice, detailing his critical position, exploring his intellectual and historical contexts, tracing the influence of his work and enabling readers to undertake independent study of his criticism.
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. What is the relationship between theory and practice in the creative arts today? In Critical Practice, Martin McQuillan offers a critical interrogation of the idea of practice-led research. He goes beyond the recent vocabulary of research management to consider the more interesting question of the emergence of a cultural space in which philosophy, theory, history and practice are becoming indistinguishable. McQuillan considers the work of a number of writers and thinkers who cross the divide between theoretical and creative practice, including Alain Badiou and Terry Eagleton, and the longer tradition of 'theory-writing' that runs through the work of Hélène Cixous, Roland Barthes and Louis Althusser. His aim is to elucidate the contemporary ramifications of a relationship that has been contested throughout the long history of philosophy, from Plato's dialogues to Derrida's 'Envois'.
In this book Martin McQuillan brings Derrida's writing into the immediate vicinity of geo-politics today, from the Kosovan conflict to the war in Iraq. The chapters in this book follow both Derrida's writing since Specters of Marx and the present political scene through the former Yogoslavia and Afghanistan to Palestine and Baghdad. His 'textual activism' is as impatient with the universal gestures of philosophy as it is with the complacency and reductionism of policy-makers and activists alike. This work records a response to the war on thinking that has marked western discourse since 9/11.
Taking de Man's recently published manuscript Textual Allegories as a point of departure, 13 experts revisit de Man's account of Rousseau and what he calls a 'Theotropic Allegory'. The volume is framed by an introduction by leading de Man scholar, Martin
Roland Barthes was one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, but why should the reader of today, or tomorrow, be concerned with him? Martin McQuillan provides a fresh perspective on Barthes, addressing his political and institutional inheritance and considering his work as the origins of a critical cultural studies. This stimulating study: - Provides a biographical consideration of Barthes' writing - Offers an extended reading of his 1957 text Mythologies as a text for our own time, drawing Barthes' work into a historical relation to the present - Examines his connection to what we call cultural studies - Features an annotated bibliography of Barthes' published work Thought-provoking and insightful, Roland Barthes is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the writings of this key theorist and his continuing relevance in our post-9/11 world.
One of the notable trends within contemporary critical theory is the re-emergence of communism as a political proposition during a time of global financial crisis. This takes the form of explicit attempts to reformulate a communist project (Badiou), readings of a communist tradition (Žižek), and a reimagining of a communist inheritance (Rancière, Balibar). Within the field of critical theory these positions have tended to pass relatively unchallenged as other theoretical idioms (psychoanalysis, post-colonialism, feminism, post-structuralism) have been occupied in the last few years with archival and micro-level analysis. The poverty of the Speculative turn in object-oriented philosophy has also allowed the contemporary discourse on communism to run unquestioned. Through a series of readings of Derrida, Marx, de Man, fiction, film and contemporary politics this book problematizes the idea of political articulation within the public realm with a view to interrogating and enriching the dominant notion of communism at work in theoretical writing today. It sees in theory a difficult yet essential gesture that ties the questioning of truth to a necessary undecidability that guarantees that truth and its relation to democratic engagement. The Communism of Theory is a riff on a phrase used by Blanchot to describe the curious social bond, means of affiliation and thought, that characterizes writing as testimony within a displaced community of critical readers. This book responds to key topics in contemporary thought and also turns the text of deconstruction in a direction that provokes a challenge to its own traditions.
This anthology collects 36 texts and papers from the Paul de Man archive, including essays on art and literature, translations, critical fragments, research plans, interviews, and reports on the state of comparative literature.
This is the first volume to offer a selection of texts from the field of deconstruction in all its radical diversity. It examines the fortunes of the term deconstruction, and the ideas associated with it, in the work of the leading commentators on Derrida's texts.
Love in the Post (2013) is inspired by Jacques Derrida’s book The Post Card. Like the book, the film plays with fact and fiction, weaving together the stories of a scholar of literature and a film director, alongside insights from critics and philosophers. Theo Marks works in a university department that is soon to be closed. His wife Sophie, enigmatic and distant, is in analysis. Filmmaker Joanna struggles to make a film about The Post Card. These people are set on a collision course prompted by a series of letters that will change their lives. The film features a never before seen interview with Derrida, alongside contributions from Geoff Bennington, Ellen Burt, Catherin Malabou, J. Hillis Miller and Samuel Weber. Alongside the original screenplay, Martin McQuillan provides an extended commentary on Derrida’s original text, the film and its making. Joanna Callaghan reflects on her practice as a filmmaker and her engagement with philosophy as a director. The volume concludes with interviews between McQuillan and five leading Derrida scholars.
The future of deconstruction lies in the ability of its practitioners to mobilise the tropes and interests of Derrida's texts into new spaces and creative readings. In Deconstruction without Derrida, Martin McQuillan sets out to do just that, to continue the task of deconstructive reading both with and without Derrida. The book's principal theme is an attention to instances of deconstruction other than or beyond Derrida and thus imagining a future for deconstruction after Derrida. This future is both the present of deconstruction and its past. The readings presented in this book address the expanded field of deconstruction in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, Helene Cixous, Paul de Man, Harold Bloom, J. Hillis Miller, Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak and Catherine Malabou. They also, necessarily, address Derrida's own readings of this work. McQuillan accounts for an experience of otherness in deconstruction that is, has been and always will be beyond Derrida, just as deconstruction remains forever tied to Derrida by an invisible, indestructible thread.
In 1992 the Spark invited Martin Stannard to write her biography, offering interviews and full access to her papers. The result is this biography of the Scottish author.
This anthology collects 36 texts and papers from the Paul de Man archive, including essays on art and literature, translations, critical fragments, research plans, interviews and reports on the state of comparative literature. Divided into 4 sections - Texts, Translations, Teaching and Research - these materials offer a fascinating insight into the work of one of the 20th century's most important literary theorists. The volume also engages with Paul de Man's institutional life, gathering together pedagogical and critical material to investigate his profound influence on the American academy and theory today. It contains a number of substantial, previously unpublished and un-translated texts by de Man from the span of his writing career. Accompanied by the Editor's insightful introduction and an extensive bibliography, this new collection of primary sources further enables the growing reappraisal of de Man's work.
... Then a shadow cast itself across the table and Jessica glanced over her shoulder. Tammuz was standing there, his head eclipsing the sun, its corona framing his solemn face like a halo. He held out his hand and smiled.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.