
Paralyses
Literature, Travel, and Ethnography in French Modernity
John Culbert(Author)
University of Nebraska Press
Published on 1. January 2011
Book
Hardback
456 pages
978-0-8032-2991-4 (ISBN)
Description
Modernity has long been equated with motion, travel, and change, from Marx's critical diagnoses of economic instability to the Futurists' glorification of speed. Likewise, metaphors of travel serve widely in discussions of empire, cultural contact, translation, and globalization, from Deleuze's "nomadology" to James Clifford's "traveling cultures." John Culbert, in contrast, argues that the key texts of modernity and postmodernity may be approached through figures and narratives of paralysis: motion is no more defining of modern travel than fixations, resistance, and impasse; concepts and figures of travel, he posits, must be rethought in this more static light. Focusing on the French and Francophone context, in which paralyzed travel is a persistent motif, Culbert also offers new insights into French critical theory and its often paradoxical figures of mobility, from Blanchot's pas au-dela and Barthes's derive to Derrida's aporias and Glissant's diversions. Here we see that paralysis is not merely the failure of transport but rather the condition in which travel, by coming to a crisis, calls into question both mobility and stasis in the language of desire and the order of knowledge. Paralyses provides a close analysis of the rhetoric of empire and the economy of tourism precisely at their points of breakdown, which in turn enables a deconstruction of master narratives of exploration, conquest, and exoticism. A reassessment of key authors of French modernity-from Nerval and Gautier to Fromentin, Paulhan, Beckett, Leiris, and Boudjedra-Paralyses also constitutes a new theoretical intervention in debates on travel, translation, ethics, and postcoloniality.
Reviews / Votes
"Culbert convincingly shows how in their travel accounts, diverse colonial and postcolonial authors such as Eugene Fromentin, Jean Paulhan, Michel Leiris, Roland Barthes, and Rachid Boudjedra are always caught in a double bind of mobility and stasis."-C.B. Kerr, ChoiceMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Lincoln
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 38 mm
Weight
839 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8032-2991-4 (9780803229914)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
John Culbert teaches at Scripps College and has published articles in numerous journals, including October, Postmodern Culture, Qui Parle, and L'Esprit Createur.
Content
Acknowledgments 000
Introduction 000
1. The Muse of Paralysis 000
2. Horizon of Conquest: Eugene Fromentin's Algerian Narratives 000
3. Slow Progress: Jean Paulhan and Madagascar 000
4. Frustration: Michel Leiris 000
5. Atopia: Roland Barthes 000
6. The Wake of Ulysses 000
Notes 000
Bibliography 000
Index 000
Introduction 000
1. The Muse of Paralysis 000
2. Horizon of Conquest: Eugene Fromentin's Algerian Narratives 000
3. Slow Progress: Jean Paulhan and Madagascar 000
4. Frustration: Michel Leiris 000
5. Atopia: Roland Barthes 000
6. The Wake of Ulysses 000
Notes 000
Bibliography 000
Index 000