Understanding Blanchot, Understanding Modernism: (Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism)

Maurice Blanchot occupies a central though still-overlooked position in the Anglo-American reception of 20th-century continental philosophy and literary criticism. On the one hand, his rigorous yet always-playful exchanges with the most challenging figures of the philosophical and literary canons of modernity have led thinkers such as Georges Bataille, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault to acknowledge Blanchot as a major influence on the development of literary and philosophical culture after World War II. On the other hand, Blanchot's reputation for frustrating readers with his difficult style of thought and writing has resulted in a missed opportunity for leveraging Blanchot in advancing the most essential discussions and debates going on today in the comparative study of literature, philosophy, politics, history, ethics, and art. Blanchot's voice is simply too profound, too erudite, and too illuminating of what is at stake at the intersections of these disciplines not to be exercising more of an influence than it has in only a minority of intellectual circles. Understanding Blanchot, Understanding Modernism brings together an international cast of leading and emergent scholars in making the case for precisely what contemporary modernist studies stands to gain from close inspection of Blanchot's provocative post-war writings.

Table of Contents:
Notes on Contributors Series Preface List of Abbreviations Introduction: Against Praise of Maurice Blanchot Christopher Langlois, St. Lawrence University, USA Part 1 – Conceptualizing Blanchot 1. Critical First Steps: On Faux Pas Cosmin Toma, Université de Montréal, Canada 2. Thus Spoke Literature Hannes Opelz, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland 3. Absolute Modernism and The Space of Literature James Martell, Lyon College, USA 4. Writing the Future: Blanchot's Le Livre à venir Leslie Hill, University of Warwick, UK 5. Literature Outside the Law: Blanchot's The Infinite Conversation Christopher Langlois, St. Lawrence University, USA 6. ''Exacerbating the Self-Critical Tendency'': Ethics and Critique in Le pas au-delà Aïcha Liviana Messina, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile Part 2 – Blanchot and Aesthetics 7. Nescio Vos: The Pathos of Unknowing in When the Time Comes Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania, USA 8. Writing as Überfluss: Blanchot's Reading of Kafka's Diaries Michael Holland, Oxford University, UK 9. I Hear My Destiny in the Rustling of an Oak: Blanchot's Char Kevin Hart, University of Virginia, USA 10. Neutral Conditions: Blanchot, Beckett, and the Space of Writing Jonathan Boulter, Western University, Canada 11. The Look of Nothingness: Blanchot and the Image Jeff Fort, University of California, Davis, USA 12. “The Call of the Anterior”: Blanchot, Lacan, and the Death Drive Allan Pero, Western University, Canada 13. “Unmade According to His Image” or, Night for Day: Blanchot and the Blacknesses of Cinema Figure Kevin Bell, Pennsylvania State University, USA Part 3 – Glossary Disaster William S. Allen, University of Southampton, UK Fragmentary Writing William S. Allen, University of Southampton, UK Community Joseph Albernaz, University of California, Berkeley, USA Désoeuvrement Michael Krimper, New York University, USA The Neuter/the Neutral John McKeane, University of Reading, UK Passivity Patrick Lyons, University of California, Berkeley, USa Literature Audrey Wasser, Miami University, Ohio, USA Outside Audrey Wasser, Miami University, Ohio, USA Friendship Aïcha Liviana Messina, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile Index

About the Author :
Christopher Langlois is Lecturer of English at Dawson College, Canada, and the author of Samuel Beckett and the Terror of Literature (2017).

Review :
This indispensable collection of essays reveals how Blanchot, one of the pioneers of French thought, illuminates-and is illuminated by-modernist literature. At once compelling and lucid, Understanding Blanchot, Understanding Modernism offers an irresistible invitation to join this conversation of outstanding scholars enabling us to rethink the juncture between literature and philosophy. This absorbing volume of deeply knowledgeable and insightful essays, including original contributions from seasoned commentators of Maurice Blanchot as well as a number of fresh critical voices, covers the full spectrum of his literary, philosophical and political writing. The clear-sighted summaries of some of Blanchot's gnomic 'key terms' is an added bonus. As a result it goes a good deal further than a reassessment of his work in the context of what we might call modernism (since the term itself resonates by its very absence within Blanchot's oeuvre): as we put this book down we are reminded that Blanchot's work represents one of the profoundest meditations of the 20th century, but one which has nonetheless brought us closer to an understanding of the infinite and timeless power of literature itself. Organized in an innovative and instructive format, this illuminating collection spans the entirety of Blanchot's oeuvre, while insisting throughout on the key refrains of passivity, impossibility, forgetfulness, silence, writing and disaster, and thought from the outside that make this oeuvre at once so recognizable and also not one. The sections that transgress the Blanchotian preference against interpretation are particularly riveting.