First sustained critical reading of Lacoue-Labarthe's Phrase, which provides insights into a philosophically inspired work of prose poetry. This book presents an interpretation of a volume of poetry and theoretical reflections (Phrase) by the late Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, who is widely known as one of the major contributors to thinking about the relation between philosophy and literature in the continental tradition. His work has shaped the deconstructive...

This book investigates synaesthesia in philosophy and literature, from Aristotle to Charles Baudelaire to Jean-Luc Nancy and beyond. Its central claim is that while synaesthesia is generally read as a figure of transcendence and unity, there is another effect of synaesthesia, one that articulates differences and displaces essence. This other synaesthesia opens up within or alongside the more familiar sense of synaesthesia as synthesis, pointing to...

Struck by the contrast between the prestige of their literary tradition and their apparent philosophical insignificance, modern writers from Spain have devoted themselves to exploring the relation between literature and philosophy. This Side of Philosophy focuses on four major authors-Miguel de Unamuno, José Ortega y Gasset, Antonio Machado, and María Zambrano-who engage literary resources in order to reach beyond philosophy to the essential sources...

Reconsiders mostly German narratives from around 1800 to recover echoes of a queer messianic that still resonate today. Queer theory has focused heavily on North American and contemporary contexts, but in this book Richard O. Block helps to expand that reach. Deftly combining the two main currents of recent queer theory, the asocial and the reparative, he reconsiders mostly German narratives from around 1800, while relating his findings to recent...

Explores issues related to race and religion in Lovecraft criticism. Today, H. P. Lovecraft is both more popular and controversial than ever: the influence of his "Cthulhu mythos" is everywhere in popular culture, his cosmic pessimism has reemerged as a major theme in contemporary philosophy, and his racism continues to spark controversy in the media. The Love of Ruins takes a fresh look at a figure widely acknowledged as the father of modern horror...

The Writing of Innocence explores the topic of innocence and the peculiar relationship to Christianity in the writing of Maurice Blanchot. Its starting point is that innocence is not a condition relegated to a mythical past but rather one resulting from the construction of the subject in and through language. Hence, we don't lose innocence; instead, we are lost by innocence. It is an excess, not a lack. This inverted notion of innocence raises new...

Juxtaposes five contemporary French poets, illuminating the philosophical elements of their work while making their sometimes difficult writing newly accessible. Drawing from five contemporary French poets-Jacques Roubaud, Emmanuel Hocquard, Danielle Collobert, Anne Portugal, and Jacques Jouet-Ann Smock juxtaposes them and provides a milieu suitable for philosophical reflection on identity, on not-being and being, on communication, and on secrets....

The first complete English translation of Lacoue-Labarthe's most innovative and original work, exploring the very origins of experience, language, desire, and mortality. Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1940—2007) is widely acknowledged in his native France and in the English-speaking world as one of the most important philosophers of his generation and an exceptionally rigorous reader of Heidegger, Hölderlin, Benjamin, Blanchot, and Celan. An astute...

Examines literary responses to the impact of economic and technological globalization in Latin America. Literature and "Interregnum" examines the unraveling of the political forms of modernity through readings of end-of-millennium literary texts by César Aira, Marcelo Cohen, Sergio Chejfec, Diamela Eltit, and Roberto Bolaño. The opening of national spaces to the global capitalist system in the 1980s culminates in the suspension of key principles...

Charts the vicissitudes of a distinctly modern and peculiarly human vulnerability-our intimate dependence on the fragile, time-bound cultural framework that we inhabit-in the history of the realist novel. The Blossom Which We Are traces the emergence of a distinctly modern form of human vulnerability-our intimate dependence on the fragile and time-bound cultural frameworks that we inhabit-as it manifests in the realm of the novel. Nir Evron juxtaposes...