Understanding Derrida, Understanding Modernism

Reviews / Votes

Understanding Derrida, Understanding Modernism is a superb, transformative exercise of critical thought, attuned to both contextual and philosophical-ethical differance; it allows Derrida's work to be read next to, and by, a multi-angled and often eccentric philosophical and literary modernism. In a scholarship of industrial proportions, it stands out as writing after one of the most revolutionary thinkers of all time. * Textual Practice * Rabate's collection releases Derrida from negative and narrow appreciations of deconstruction to reveal a multifaceted philosopher with contrasting concerns and projects for the study of literary modernism and modernity. Simultaneously, modernism and modernity are throughout proven as apposite lenses for contextualizing and apprehending Derrida's various pursuits. [...] In concretely outlining Derrida's links to canonical modernisms, and repeatedly insisting on the continued relevance of Derrida's philosophical rigour, Rabate's collection lays the groundwork for the elaboration of such connections in the future. * Journal of Modern Literature * The 14 diverse and original essays in this volume-along with Rabate's important introduction and brilliant glossary of Derrida keywords-make it an immensely useful resource for understanding Derrida's relation to major European modernists...More important, however, are the local insights these essays provide on topics such as Baudelaire's ethics of almsgiving, the difference between Agamben and Derrida on reading Kafka, the relation of Bataille's "general economy" to Derrida's "arche-writing," the agon between Derrida and Sartre vis-a-vis Genet... Summing Up: Highly recommended. * CHOICE * Derrida as a reader of modernism; Derrida as a modernist: both these propositions-and the relationship between them-are explored in this fascinating collection of essays, ably introduced and edited by Rabate. The volume makes a fresh contribution to our understanding of the reach and richness of Derrida's work as well as the multifaceted character of modernist literature and philosophy. * Derek Attridge, Emeritus Professor of English, University of York, UK, and author of The Singularity of Literature (2004) * Who, or better yet, what speaks in 'literature' for Derrida? This long-awaited book offers thought-provoking answers to this question, examined here through close readings of Derrida's countersignatures to writers such as Baudelaire, Kafka, Celan, Joyce, Blanchot, Beckett, and Cixous. Neither a theory nor a critical method, Derrida's approach gives us something else to ponder: the conditions of the impossible enacted by the event of literature. This impressive volume thus allows us to better understand how Derrida reconfigures the concept of modernity, beyond all labels, genres, or periodizations. Moreover, this book is itself a remarkable and timely contribution to the 'humanities to come' Derrida so pressingly called for. Whether it concern the Law, the absolute singularity of the other, the secret and testimony, or democracy, literature always lies affirmatively and performatively at the very core of Derrida's thought. * Ginette Michaud, Professor of French Literature, Universite de Montreal, Canada *