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Cover image of The Power of Contestation
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The Power of Contestation

Perspectives on Maurice Blanchot

edited by Kevin Hart and Geoffrey H. Hartman

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One of the first French intellectuals to take a systematic interest in questions of language and meaning, Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003) substantially influenced such thinkers as Deleuze, Foucault, Barthes, Levinas, and Derrida. Until recently, Blanchot's work remained largely unknown outside France, in part because of its complexity and in part because Blanchot shunned intellectual celebrity. Over the past decade, however, nearly all of Blanchot's books have been translated into English, and worldwide interest in his fiction, cultural criticism, and philosophy has increased dramatically.

Kevin...

One of the first French intellectuals to take a systematic interest in questions of language and meaning, Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003) substantially influenced such thinkers as Deleuze, Foucault, Barthes, Levinas, and Derrida. Until recently, Blanchot's work remained largely unknown outside France, in part because of its complexity and in part because Blanchot shunned intellectual celebrity. Over the past decade, however, nearly all of Blanchot's books have been translated into English, and worldwide interest in his fiction, cultural criticism, and philosophy has increased dramatically.

Kevin Hart and Geoffrey H. Hartman bring together essays by prominent scholars from a range of disciplines to focus on Blanchot's diverse concerns: literature, art, community, politics, ethics, spirituality, and the Holocaust. The volume takes its title from Blanchot's idea that literature is "a power of contestation: contestation of the established power, contestation of what is..., contestation of language and of the forms of literary language, finally contestation of itself as power." Tracing this concept as a central theme of Blanchot's writings, and exploring its scope and ambiguity, the contributors bring this seminal, but formidably difficult, intellect into sharper focus.

Contributors: Gerald L. Bruns, University of Notre Dame; Leslie Hill, University of Warwick; Michael Holland, St Hugh's College, Oxford; Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, University of Strasbourg; Vivian Liska, University of Antwerp; Jill Robbins, Emory University, and the editors.

Reviews

Reviews

Hart and Hartman asked eight scholars to focus on forms of 'contestation' in Blanchot's work as philosopher-novelist. The result is a surprising revelation of how important this notion was to Blanchot throughout his long life.

Impressive, inspiring, and a pleasure to read.

A first-rate collection of essays on Maurice Blanchot, an outstanding writer, original thinker, and major figure in French modernity who exerted significant influence on many important postwar writers, critics, and philosophers, including Duras, Barthes, Foucault, Deleuze, de Man, and Derrida. All of the essays are interesting and acute, and the introduction is splendid.

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Table of Contents

Achkonwledgments
Introduction

1. An Event without Witness: Contestation between Blanchot and Bataille
2. Maurice Blanchot: The Spirit of Language after the Holocaust
3. Responding to the Infinity between

Achkonwledgments
Introduction

1. An Event without Witness: Contestation between Blanchot and Bataille
2. Maurice Blanchot: The Spirit of Language after the Holocaust
3. Responding to the Infinity between Us: Blanchot reading Levinas in L'entretien infini
4. Two Sirens Singing: Literature as Contestation in Maurice Blanchot and Theodor W. Adorno
5. A Fragmentary Demand
6. Anarchic Temporality: Writing, Friendship, and the Ontology of the Work of Art in Maurice Blanchot's Poetics
7. The Contestation of Death
8. The COunter-spirital Life

Notes
Contributors
Index of Names
Index of Topics

Author Bios
Featured Contributor

Geoffrey H. Hartman

Geoffrey H. Hartman is the Sterling Professor (Emeritus) of English and Comparative Literature at Yale University.