Books in the The Frontiers of Theory series

The first book by Helene Cixous on painting and the contemporary arts. These 11 chapters bring together Helene Cixous' writings about specific contemporary artists and artworks. Neither simply 'art criticism' nor critical essays, Cixous responds to these

This book is an account of, and commentary on, a collection of dreams by the novelist, playwright and theorist Helene Cixous. As such the book presents a rich poetic experience and is a key document in understanding Cixous' writing practice. Jacques Derrida's commentary on Dream I Tell You is published in 'The Frontiers of Theory' series as Geneses, Genealogies, Genres and Genius.Key Features* Importance of Helene Cixous to contemporary literary and French feminist theory.* The poetic, autobiographical quality of the writing.* Significance of the book to the Cixous oeuvre.

Helene Cixous, author of over forty works of fiction, was deemed by Derrida to be the greatest living writer in French in 1990. Consistent with this evaluation, her writing is renowned for its dense poetical texture and lyricism. At the same time, she has been described by one of Derrida's translator's, Peggy Kamuf, as 'one of our age's greatest semi-theoreticians'. Connecting these two views, this book argues for a consideration of her texts as 'semi-fictions'. Telling stories is, irreducibly, part of what Cixous does; it is irreducibly part of what she does. Fiction is at once the creation of an imaginary world and an ethical engagement, as intellectual as it is passionate, with the difficulties of the real. This book offers an in-depth reading of five different texts, addressing the idiomatic specificity of individual works and investigating how the textual fabric unfolds. It shows that the narrative dimension to Cixous's writing needs to be reckoned with as a key component of the way it troubles the borders between fiction and its others. Each work is approached in relation to a particular theoretical question or discourse to explore how, in staging an encounter with something beyond itself, her fiction is the site of an active thinking.

Robert Rowland Smith takes Freud's work on the death-drive and compares it with other philosophies of death - Pascal, Heidegger and Derrida in particular. He also applies it in a new way to literature and art - to Shakespeare, Rothko and Katharina Fritsch, among others. He asks whether artworks are dead or alive, if artistic creativity isn't actually a form of destruction, and whether our ability to be seduced by fine words means we don't put our selves at risk of death. In doing so, he proposes a new theory of aesthetics in which artworks and literary texts have a death-drive of their own, not least by their defining ability to turn away from all that is real, and where the effects of the death-drive mean that we are constantly living in imaginary, rhetorical or 'artistic' worlds. The book also provides a valuable introduction to the rich tradition of work on the death-drive since Freud.Key Features* Includes a general introduction to the death-drive* Presents an original theory of aesthetics* Analyses both theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis* Offers in-depth treatment of Freud* Provides an overview of philosophies of death

The first translation into English of Mother Homer is Dead, written in the immediate aftermath of the death of the Cixous's mother in the 103rd year of her life.

An anthology that collects texts and papers from the Paul de Man archive, including essays on art, translations, critical fragments, research plans, interviews, and reports on the state of comparative literature. It also engages with Paul de Man's institutional life.

Why have theorists approached narrative primarily as a form of retrospect? Mark Currie argues that anticipation and other forms of projection into the future are vital for an understanding of narrative and its effects in the world. In a series of arguments and readings, he offers an account of narrative as both anticipation and retrospection, linking fictional time experiments (in Ali Smith, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and Graham Swift) to exhilarating philosophical themes about presence and futurity. This is an argument that shows that narrative lies at the heart of modern experiences of time, structuring the present, whether personal or collective, as the object of a future memory as much as it records the past.

This volume explicates Paul de Man's late project of a critique of aesthetic ideology and attempts to extend it in ways productive for critical thought. After a reading of de Man's work in all its rigour - and hence also the aesthetic theory of Kant, Schiller, and Hegel- the book goes on to uncover a 'material moment' in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit that lives on in Marx and in the Marxist tradition. The book also elucidates de Man's critical reading of Heidegger on the example of Holderlin-a moment essential for de Man's shifts to the question of rhetoric and then to the question of ideology-and ends with a reading of Derrida's 'last' text on de Man and its uncanny self-inscription in Rousseau's episode of the stolen ribbon.

A new work of scholarship in the practice of rhetorical readingThis monograph provides readings of literary and philosophical texts that work through the rhetoric of tropes to the material inscription at the origin of these texts. The book focuses on the practice and pedagogical value of rhetorical reading. Its readings follow an itinerary from poetic texts (such as those by Wordsworth and Keats) through theoretical or philosophical texts (by Descartes and Nietzsche) to narrative fiction (by Henry James). The book also contains two essays on Paul de Man and literary theory and an interview on the topic of "e;Deconstruction at Yale."e; All three of these latter texts are explicitly about the inescapable function and importance of the rhetoric of tropes for any critical reading or literary study worthy of the name. As Andrzej Warminski demonstrates, 'rhetorical reading' is a species of 'deconstructive reading'-in the full 'de Manian' sense-but one that, rather than harkening back to a past over and done with, would open the texts to a different future. Key Features:New readings of texts by Wordsworth, Keats, Descartes, Nietzsche, and Henry JamesEssays and an interview on Paul de Man and 'Deconstruction at Yale' Reflects on and exemplifies the pedagogical value of 'de Manian' rhetorical readingAttempts to open a future for 'deconstructive' or 'de Manian' reading

Focusing on surprise, spontaneous eruption and the unforeseeable, The Unexpected argues that stories help us to reconcile what we expect with what we experience. Though narrative is often understood a recapitulation of past events, the book argues that the unexpected and the future anterior, a future that is already complete, are guiding ideas for new understandings of the reading process. It also points beyond that to some of the key temporal concepts of our epoch, of unpredictability, the event, the untimely and the messianic. The Unexpected is an important intervention in narratology and a striking general argument about the cultural significance of surprise. The enquiry is developed by a range of new readings in philosophy and theory, as well as of Sarah Waters's Fingersmith, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending.

This is an exploration of the possibilities of letting go of our inner desire for control. Without Mastery constantly engages the pleasure, rigour and strangeness of reading, invoking the forcefulness of the Weird Sisters, Plato's Lady Necessity and assorted literary animals, angels, ghosts and children to explore the inner workings of our desire for mastery, and especially the omnipotence of thoughts. For Sarah Wood the thought of Derrida, Freud, Cixous, Plato and others is a kind of dramatic interaction, a message to be received emotionally and responded to inventively in writing that is both critical and creative. The destructiveness of masterful thinking has brought the planet into environmental crisis and continues to deny the facts. Reading, this book makes clear, teaches us to engage with the unthinkable. It provides a challenge and an alternative to 'masterful' or technical approaches to theory. It demonstrates that writing and power can work productively together. It draws on the power of poetry and fiction to help us think and puts this to work in the book's own practice of creative critical writing. It presents original new readings of canonical literary writers.

A collection of critical texts from Paul de Man's Harvard University years, published for the first timeThese essays, brought together from the Paul de Man papers at the University of California (Irvine), make a significant contribution to the cultural history of deconstruction and the present state of literary theory. From 1955 to 1961, Paul de Man was Junior Fellow at Harvard University where he wrote a doctoral thesis entitled 'The Post-Romantic Predicament: a study in the poetry of Mallarme and Yeats'. This dissertation is presented alongside his other texts from this period, including essays on Holderlin, Keats and Stefan George. This collection reflects familiar concerns for de Man: the figurative dimension of language, the borders between philosophy and literature, the ideological obfuscations of Romanticism, and the difficulties of the North American heritage of New Criticism.

'Already recognized as one of the most brilliant critical voices on both sides of the Atlantic, Peggy Kamuf''s book demonstrates her exemplarity as a reader of Derrida's texts. From her remarks on sovereignty and possibility to her commentaries on death and mourning, Kamuf's writing bears witness to an outstanding mind at work.'Lawrence D. Kritzman, John D. Willard Professor of French, Oratory and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College'Jacques Derrida used the phrases "e;friendly vigilance"e; and "e;rigorous collaboration"e; to describe Peggy Kamuf's long engagement with his work. This volume amply demonstrates those qualities: a warm appreciation of his achievement and the positive force of his example together with an acute eye, and ear, for the fine details of his language and his argumentation. No-one gets closer to both the spirit and the letter of Derrida's writing.'Derek Attridge, University of YorkThis book, newly available in paperback, collects ten years of Peggy Kamuf's writing on the work and friendship of Jacques Derrida.The chapters engage with a broad array of Derrida's work, from the 1960s to the posthumous publication of his teaching seminars. She also considers press interviews and the collaboration on the film D'ailleurs Derrida. These close readings - newly available in paperback - are punctuated by brief recollections from their long friendship.

'Reading Veering generates the intense joy of veering. An exuberantly successful medium, Royle calls up swarms of passages from literature and elsewhere where the word or concept "e;veering"e; is salient. On this basis he creates new theories of literature and of creative writing's place in criticism. Royle's best book yet.'J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Research Professor of Comparative Literature and English, University of California, Irvine'Nicholas Royle is one of the most interesting, inventive, and provocative thinkers of literary language currently writing in English, and he has done something truly extraordinary here. By allowing a theory of literature to emerge right from the traces of the veering movements of fiction and poetry, he has thoroughly renewed the possibility of thinking in the wake of our literary encounters. Veering issues a general license to read, once again, with all the wonder, generosity, and freedom it calls forth on every page.'Professor Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California'Every genre, every great work has its way of veering. This fascinating, richly compendious, necessary book shows the way forward for literary studies. Nicholas Royle's twisty key opens and magically re-opens the wonders of the canon and beyond. The spiralling pleasure he takes in doing so lightens, refreshes, instructs and inspires. Royle is a wonderful communicator about literature and theory and a uniquely powerful, original critical voice. This is his most exciting and widely relevant work so far.'Sarah Wood, University of KentReflections on the figure of veering form the basis for a new theory of literatureExploring images of swerving, loss of control, digressing and deviating, Veering provides new critical perspectives on all major literary genres: the novel, poetry, drama, the short story and the essay, as well as creative writing Royle works with insights from Lewis Carroll, Freud, Adorno, Raymond Williams, Edward Said, Deleuze, Cixous and Derrida. With wit and irony he investigates veering in the writings of Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Melville, Hardy, Proust, Lawrence, Bowen, J.H. Prynne and many others. Contrary to a widespread sense that literature has become increasingly irrelevant to our culture and everyday life, Royle brilliantly traces a strange but compelling literary turn

What is the importance of deconstruction, and the writing of Jacques Derrida in particular, for literary criticism today? Derek Attridge argues that the challenge of Derrida's work for our understanding of literature and its value has still not been fully met, and in this book, which traces a close engagement with Derrida's writing over two decades and reflects an interest in that work going back a further two decades, shows how that work can illuminate a variety of topics. Chapters include an overview of deconstruction as a critical practice today, discussions of the secret, postcolonialism, ethics, literary criticism, jargon, fiction, and photography, and responses to the theoretical writing of Emmanuel Levinas, Roland Barthes, and J. Hillis Miller. Also included is a discussion of the recent reading of Derrida's philosophy as 'radical atheism', and the book ends with a conversation on deconstruction and place with the theorist and critic Jean-Michel Rabate. Running throughout is a concern with the question of responsibility, as exemplified in Derrida's own readings of literary and philosophical texts: responsibility to the work being read, responsibility to the protocols of rational argument, and responsibility to the reader.

By developing his own conception of the 'figure' Andrew Benjamin has written an innovative and provocative study of the complex relationship between philosophy, the history of painting and their presentation of both Jews and animals.As Benjamin makes clear the 'Other' is never abstract. He underscores the means by which the ethical imperative, arising from the way the history of philosophy and the history of art are constructed, shows us how to respond to an already identified, even if unacknowledged, determinant other.

This major new collection of texts by Helene Cixous brings together a range of important untranslated as well as four previously unpublished essays. These essays deal with literature, politics, history, Algeria, and the university and include works from Cixous' most significant contributions to literary criticism (Joyce, Kleist, Stendhal, Kafka, Shakespeare) as well as her contemporary writing on human rights and geo-politics. They are all informed by Cixous' unique gift for combining a writer's love of idiom and life with a scholar's acute deconstructive reading. These texts present an extended account of what Cixous calls here 'autobibliography' in which writing, theory, politics and life combine to open up the world through critical reading and self-reflection. 'I am on the side of life', says Cixous. These essays affirm Cixous' reputation as one of our greatest readers and sources of critical light in the world today. Key Features*Author is a leading French theorist and writer*Essays cover a wide range of topics and contemporary issues

This book gathers essays written by Geoffrey Bennington since the death of his friend Jacques Derrida in 2004. All continue the ongoing work of elucidating difficult and complex thought, often enough with reference to Derrida's persistent interrogation of the concepts of life and death, mourning and melancholia, and what he sometimes calls 'half-mourning'. Not Half No End relates this 'ethical' interruption of mourning to the persistent but still ill-understood motif of interrupted teleology, which, it is argued here, is definitive of deconstruction in general. This suspension or interruption of the end (which is none other than differance 'itself') has all manner of consequences for our thinking, and for how we attempt to categorize that thinking (as epistemological, ethical, political or aesthetic, for example). Not Half No End moves through all these domains, and the whole of Derrida's rich and varied corpus, in a weave of styles - from the expository and analytic to the autobiographical and confessional - in the ongoing process of deconstruction. Key Features* New collection of essays by major theorist* Expanded readings of late texts by Derrida* Research monograph on mourning and melancholy* First consideration of the legacy of Derrida by a co-author

This book explores the radical reconceptions of knowledge and science emerging from constructivist epistemology, social studies of science, and contemporary cognitive science. Smith reviews the key issues involved in the twentieth-century critiques of traditional views of human knowledge and scientific truth and gives an extensively informed explanation of the alternative accounts developed by Fleck, Kuhn, Foucault, Latour, and others. She also addresses the various anxieties (e.g., over 'relativism') and 'wars' occasioned by these developments, placing them in their historical contexts and arguing that they are largely misplaced or spurious. Smith then examines the currently perplexed relations between the natural and human sciences, the grandiose claims and dubious methods of evolutionary psychology, and the complex play of naturalist, humanist, and posthumanist ideologies in contemporary views of the relation between humans and animals.

The first translation into English of 'Mother Homer is Dead, 'written in the immediate aftermath of the death of Cixous's mother in the 103rd year of her life.

ORIGINAL TEXT BY DERRIDA TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH FOR THE FIRST TIME. In this book Derrida responds to the work, Dream I Tell You, by Helene Cixous.

This book collects ten years of Peggy Kamuf's writing on the work and friendship of Jacques Derrida. The majority of the chapters discuss a key aspect of Derrida's thought, either from a single work or across several texts. Kamuf engages with a broad array of his work, from the 1960s to the posthumous publication of his teaching seminars.

In Insister Helene Cixous brings a unique mixture of theoretical speculation, breath-taking textual explication and scholarly erudition to an extremely close reading of Derrida's work.

In this polemical book Timothy Clark focuses on the ways in which Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot and Hans-Georg Gadamer distinguish the poetic from literature more generally.