The contribution describes the differences between modernism and postmodernism as historical periods of the twentieth century and establishes comparable differences between structuralism and post-structuralism as semiotic approaches. Like modernism, structuralism rejects traditional modes of thought, attempts to reconstruct academic disciplines on the basis of a few fundamental principles and strives to work with reconstructed terminologies and axioms. Like post-modernism, post-structuralism is characterized by the necessity of finding ways to continue research based on the fragmentary (...) results left by structuralist projects. In the beginning of the twentieth century, structuralism itself had responded to materialism, atomism, historicism, and naturalism by introducing its own methodology built around the dichotomies of signified and signifier, paradigm and syntagm, synchrony and diachrony, langue and parole. Rather than rejecting this apparatus, post-structuralism explicated the paradoxes behind these dichotomies and tried to overcome them by under-mining the first concept of each pair. This change of perspective foregrounded the material, processual, and intertextual character of signs as well as the sense-producing function of interpretation. Rejecting rigidly fixed methods as well as general theories, and waiving the distinction between object-signs and meta-signs in favor of their joint reflection, post-structuralist semiotics became an alternative to conventional practices of academic sign analysis and now approaches the status of an art. (shrink)

The article draws a conceptual distinction the (French) structuralism of the 50’s–60’s and the post-structuralism of the 70’s, which are discussed as overlapping in their intellectual paths; their mutual dynamics is defined as a reaction of the intelligence to the pressure of depersonalized unified schemes within the logic of structuralism against free improvisation and loose interpretation instead of total explanations in the post-structuralism interpretation. The article establishes a conceptual identity of the paradoxical nature between post-structuralism (and deconstructionism, (...) which is homogeneous and identical thereto in a number of aspects), on the one hand, and constructionism with its specific process of language dismantling – social/ideological languages, social group dialects, on the other hand, which naturally leads the authors to the analysis of the paradoxicality principles, defined by post-structuralism (five principles of paradoxicality of Gilles Deleuze – paradox of regress, paradox of sterile reiteration, paradox of neutrality, paradox of absurd, paradox of Levi-Strauss); poststructuralists’ paralogisms are examined through paradoxical denotation; the late Roland Barthes’ phenomenon of paradoxicality, becoming a plot-forming principle of narration, is analyzed. Poststructuralism is conceptualized in the article as the first decisive step of post-modernism; the affinity of post-structuralist and postmodernist commitment to parody, game and irony is stated; the theory of language games in post-modern interpretation is explored; one of those games – a game of carnival – is explored within the diachronic retrospective; the affinity of parody and carnival tradition of post-structuralism and post-modernism to the romantic irony of the XIXth century and its inconsistency with the popular culture of laugh is established. The genesis of poststructuralism and post-modernism is connected with the ideological restart of the Western society before the “very end” of the Resistance ideas and the disappointment of the left European intellectuals in the “great legends” and illusions of Marxism. The blurred concepts of relativism are connected with the mutual disproportion of different layers of historical experience. (shrink)

This paper provides arguments for and against M.Lotman’s (2002) contention that Y.Lotman’s seminal concept of semiosphere is of post-modernist (post-structuralist; Posner 2011) orientation. A comparative reading of the definitional components of the semiosphere, their hierarchical relationship and their interactions is undertaken against the two principal axes of space and subjectivity in the light of Kantian transcendental idealism, as inaugural and authoritative figure of modernity, the Foucauldian discursive turn and the Deleuzian (post) radical empiricism (sic), as representative authors (...) of the highly versatile post-modernvernacular. This comparative reading aims at highlighting not only similarities and differences between the Lotmanian conceptualization of the semiosphere and the concerned modernist and postmodernist authors, but the construct’s operational relevance in a post-metanarratives cultural predicament that has been coupled with the so-called spatial turn in cultural studies (Hess- Luttich 2012). (shrink)

This article is about a period of technology transfer – the late 1910s and 1920s – when wartime aerial reconnaissance techniques and operations were being adapted to a range of civilian uses, including urban planning, land use analysis, traffic control, tax equalization, and even archaeology. At the center of the discussion is the ‘photomosaic’: a patchwork of overlapping aerial photographs that have been rectified and fit together so as to form a continuous survey of a territory. Initially developed during the (...) First World War to provide coverage of fronts, photomosaic mapping was widely practiced and celebrated during the postwar years as an aid to urban development. The article traces both the refinements in photomosaic technology after the Armistice and the rhetorical means by which the form’s avant-garde wartime reputation was domesticated into an ‘applied realism’ that often effaced its site-specific perspective, its elaborately rectified optics, and the oppositionality of both its military and civilian uses. The article has a broader theoretical aim as well. Classic statements of both structuralist and post-structuralist spatial theory have produced an ossified geometry wherein the vertical is the axis of paradigm, top-down strategy, and manipulative distance and the horizontal the axis of syntagm, grassroots tactics, and resistant proximities and differences. In its close study of the technology and rhetoric surrounding interwar photogrammetry, the article provides an example of how one might reverse the long-standing misrecognition of high-altitude optics as effacing time, difference, and materiality – and what it might mean to view such optics as, instead, a resource in turning from abstract toward differential conceptions of both aerial photography and our theoretical habits. This turn I call ‘applied modernism’, a term that accesses both the wartime photomosaic’s affiliation with avant-garde painting and its insistence that portraits of the total are always projections from partial, specific vantages. (shrink)

Post- and Transhumanism are being introduced with respect to foundational questions, utopian issues, normative and evaluative elements, ontological perspectives and arts. The topics are divided up into five sections with the following titles: Confessions, Lands of Cockaygne, Neo-Socratic Reflections, Ontologies of Becoming and Paragone of the Arts.

Post-modernism offers a revolutionary approach to the study of society: in questioning the validity of modern science and the notion of objective knowledge, this movement discards history, rejects humanism, and resists any truth claims. In this comprehensive assessment of post-modernism, Pauline Rosenau traces its origins in the humanities and describes how its key concepts are today being applied to, and are restructuring, the social sciences. Serving as neither an opponent nor an apologist for the movement, she (...) cuts through post-modernism's often incomprehensible jargon in order to offer all readers a lucid exposition of its propositions. Rosenau shows how the post-modern challenge to reason and rational organization radiates across academic fields. For example, in psychology it questions the conscious, logical, coherent subject; in public administration it encourages a retreat from central planning and from reliance on specialists; in political science it calls into question the authority of hierarchical, bureaucratic decision-making structures that function in carefully defined spheres; in anthropology it inspires the protection of local, primitive cultures from First World attempts to reorganize them. In all of the social sciences, she argues, post-modernism repudiates representative democracy and plays havoc with the very meaning of "left-wing" and "right-wing." Rosenau also highlights how post-modernism has inspired a new generation of social movements, ranging from New Age sensitivities to Third World fundamentalism. In weighing its strengths and weaknesses, the author examines two major tendencies within post-modernism, the largely European, skeptical form and the predominantly Anglo-North-American form, which suggests alternative political, social, and cultural projects. She draws examples from anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, law, planning, political science, psychology, sociology, urban studies, and women's studies, and provides a glossary of post-modern terms to assist the uninitiated reader with special meanings not found in standard dictionaries. (shrink)

Post-structuralist Geography is a highly accessible introduction to post-structuralist theory that critically assesses how post-structuralism can be used to study space and place. The text comprises: - a thorough appraisal of the work of key post-structuralist thinkers, including Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and Bruno Latour - case studies to elucidate, illustrate, and apply the theory - boxed summaries of complex arguments which - with the engaging writing style - provide a clear overview of post-structuralist approaches (...) to the study of space and place. Comprehensive and comprehensible - communicating a new and exciting agenda for human geography - Post-structuralist Geography is the students’ essential guide to the theoretical literature. (shrink)

From a post-structuralist position, it is problematic and seemingly impossible to refer to God as the Trinity. This article describes possibilities for thinking about the Trinity (religion and God) within a post-structuralist context. As an example of such thinking, the 2015 culture-critique film, The Brand New Testament, will be analysed. It is a creative retelling of the Christian story and of the Trinity in a secular and post-metaphysical vein. This ‘Brand New Testament’ reveals God as ‘one’ – (...) as the encompassing love, hope and life which we may experience in this life. The life-giving characteristics of this ‘god’ are surprisingly close to the biblical understanding of the Trinity. In the ‘Brand New Testament’, however, the Trinity is portrayed radically differently than in the Christian tradition. The personae of father, son and spirit are deconstructed in the film, in that a daughter and a mother also form part of the godhead. This deconstruction of the Trinity, which should not be confused with blasphemy, opens up a possible post-structuralist imagining of God. It playfully reveals a powerless god who shares some fundamental characteristics with the Trinity – such as love, joy and life. It allows for the ‘oneness of god’ to include more, and less, than the ‘Holy Trinity’. (shrink)

Introduction 'Superstructuralism'. I coin the term to cover the whole field of Structuralists, Semioticians, Althusserian Marxists, ...

This chapter contains sections titled: The Meanings of “Postmodernism” The Meanings of Post‐structuralism Education and the Politics of Post‐structuralism.

French post-structuralism theory was transformed when taken up in England by the native Marxist tradition; it thus came to intervene across the whole field of the human sciences. Through this fresh exploration of the relation between Marxism, post-structuralism and the theory of the subject, Antony Easthope contrasts the degree to which post-structuralism has made a radical impact on English and American national cultures. The book reprints for the first time an important 1980 interview in which Jacques Derrida (...) discusses the relations between Marxism and deconstruction. -- Back cover. (shrink)

The extent to which discourses surrounding the Good, the sacred, and (more problematically) the beautiful have preoccupied thinkers in continental philosophy and in poststructuralism is striking. What is equally striking, however, is the decisively ‘non-theological’ theoretical cast of this account of the Good. Attempts to “disengage” the account of trancendence at stake remain complicated. What is in question is an understanding that is profoundly ethical—and, I want to argue, against the fabric of theoretical modernity, profoundly historical in ways doubtless that (...) motivate much of ‘poststructuralist’ thought in this area. In what follows, I want to show how Emmanuel Levinas distinguishes the “divergence” of the Good within philosophy, and how Levinas’s philosophy betrays the effect of modernity and the detraditionalization of the ethical even in appealing to certain traditions for the intelligibility—if you will, the figure—of the ethical. (shrink)

ABSTRACTColin Hay's constructivist institutionalism and Vivien A. Schmidt's discursive institutionalism are two recent attempts to theorize ideas as potential explanations of institutional change. This new attention to the causal role of ideas is welcome, but Hay and Schmidt do not take into consideration the constitutive and structural aspects of ideas. Instead they reduce ideas to properties of individual conscious minds, scanting the respects in which ideas are intersubjectively baked into the practices shared by individuals. This aspect of ideas—arguably, the institutional (...) side of ideas—is developed in post-structuralist thought, which therefore demands a place in ideational research. (shrink)

Recent developments in literary theory, such as structuralism and deconstruction, have come under attack for neglecting history, while historically-based approaches have been criticized for failing to take account of the problems inherent in their methodological foundations. This collection of essays is unique in that it focuses on the relation between post-structuralism and historical (especially Marxist) literary theory and criticism. The volume includes a deconstructive reading of Marx, essays that relate history to the philosophical and institutional context, and a number (...) of studies of particular texts, literary and non-literary, which pose the question of history and literary theory with particular force. (shrink)

Poststructuralism changes the way we understand the relations between human beings, their culture, and the world. Following a brief account of the historical relationship between structuralism and poststructuralism, this Very Short Introduction traces the key arguments that have led poststructuralists to challenge traditional theories of language and culture. Whilst the author discusses such well-known figures as Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, and Lacan, she also draws pertinent examples from literature, art, film, and popular culture, unfolding the poststructuralist account of what it means (...) to be a human being. (shrink)

Western Marxism, since its Western deviation and theoretical development in the 1920s, developed in diverse ways that has reflected the broader philosophical environment. First, a theory of conscio...

Pierre Klossowski's career in philosophy is a brief but significant intervention into the manner in which the connections between desire, identity, and meaning are thought. Although Klossowski's influence on much of what is called French “post-structuralism” or “post-modernism” is frequently noted, Klossowski's development of the motif of the simulacrum is rarely traced in its proper context. Through readings of the texts of the Marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille, and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as his own ruminations on (...) the polytheism of the ancient Roman cult of Diana, Klossowski constructs a critique not only of the identity of the self but also of the supposed unity of reason and rational signs. Klossowski's critique demonstrates how meaningful discourse is produced from the basis of incommunicable affects, which project images in consciousness that, only then, are able to take the form of iterable simulacra. Our “gregarious” discourse in language is, thus, formed only indirectly from the affects and acquires its supposed unity only as it fails to express those affects. (shrink)

Abstract and Introduction. This essay is an attempt to dispense with the negative aspects of Romanticism and examine whatever positive it has to offer--in the light of ideas scattered through diverse writings of Ernest Gellner.

I critically evaluate Bickle’s version of scientific theory reduction. I press three main points. First, a small point, Bickle modifies the new wave account of reduction developed by Paul Churchland and Clifford Hooker by treating theories as set-theoretic structures. But that structuralist gloss seems to lose what was distinctive about the Churchland-Hooker account, namely, that a corrected theory must be specified entirely by terms and concepts drawn from the basic reducing theory. Set-theoretic structures are not terms or concepts but the (...) structures that they describe. Second, and more serious, a familiar problem for classical positivist account of reduction resurfaces within this newest wave of thinking, namely, commitment to property identities and inter-theoretic bridge laws (a problem I discussed at more length in "Collapse of the New Wave"). Indeed, this problem is exacerbated by Bickle’s conciliatory treatment of property plasticity, since he is willing to grant that a large number of special science terms denote multiply realized properties, at least if realistically construed. Still, in the end, Bickle sidesteps the reduction of properties by appealing to Hooker’s "function-to-structure token reduction." This is an interesting move with an intriguing concept of reduction. But problems remain. For, third, Bickle and Hooker's function-to-structure token reduction is actually a guised form of eliminative materialism. But that should be unacceptable since the position extends well beyond any modest revisionism for suspect items from a folk theory, say, in folk psychology or folk biology. Instead, it applies to functional terms and concepts employed throughout well-developed and explanatorily successful sciences. (shrink)

Robert Ranisch’s and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner’s Post- and Transhumanism. An Introduction provides a broad background for anyone interested in the societal and philosophical repercussions of new technologies. As the title suggests, the volume specifically centers on the trans- and posthumanism debate, which, over the past two decades, has been focusing on the way our highly technological societies raise an entirely new set of questions that urge to be answered and discussed. Of particular importance to this debate is the necessity (...) for new understandings about what it means to be human in a world where the traditional distinctions between human and non-human, technology and biology, as well as nature and culture, are becoming increasingly ambiguous.The book’s self-announced aim is to address the concepts of trans- and posthumanism, exploring their ‘common foundations, topics, and resources of influence’ , as a means to help clarify a ‘widespread conceptual confusion’ . This is a .. (shrink)

In tracing the impact of post-structuralist thought not only on literary criticism but on such disciplines as philosophy, politics, psychoanalysis, the social sciences, and art, this book will be essential reading for those who want a clear ...

Foucault appears to challenge traditional views of truth, reason, and knowledge in the doctrine of power/knowledge developed in his post?1970 writings. This doctrine applies to all the sciences (and to non?scientific and non?discursive practices that are not discussed here). Foucault's notions of discourse (1) and power (3) are sufficiently discussed to set out his explanatory theory of the cause of our discourses and their change. In (4) three theses concerning the power/knowledge link are distinguished, of which the more important (...) is called the ?Primacy Thesis?, namely the causal priority of power over knowledge. Various formulations of this thesis are investigated, some of which are contrasted with Francis Bacon's more plausible account of the link between power and knowledge. In (5), six criticisms of the thesis are discussed. Foucault's notion of truth is explored on the way, more particularly in (6). The outcome of the discussion is that Foucault's doctrine of power/knowledge, apart from some insights for an empirically based sociological investigation into the causes of some of our scientific beliefs, is generally false; for philosophical theories of truth and knowledge it has nothing to say. In fact if Foucault is to be a critic of the beliefs which circulate as a result of power, he needs the traditional account of truth and knowledge. (shrink)

RAULET: How should we begin? I have had two questions in mind. First, what is the origin of this global term, "post-structuralism"? FOUCAULT: First, none of the protagonists in the structuralist movement -- and none of those who, willingly or otherwise, were dubbed structuralists -- knew very clearly what it was all about. Certainly, those who were applying structural methods in very precise disciplines such as linguistics and comparative mythology knew what was structuralism, but as soon as one strayed (...) from these very precise disciplines, nobody knew exactly what it was. I am not sure how interesting it would be to attempt a redefinition of what was known, at the time, as structuralism. (shrink)

Over the last twenty-five years, Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff have developed a groundbreaking interpretation of Marxian theory generally and of Marxian economics in particular. This book brings together their key contributions and underscores their different interpretations. In facing and trying to resolve contradictions and lapses within Marxism, the authors have confronted the basic incompatibilities among the dominant modern versions of Marxian theory, and the fact that Marxism seemed cut off from the criticisms of determinist modes of thought offered by (...) post-structuralism and post-modernism and even by some of Marxisms greatest theorists. (shrink)

Post-modernist thought represents the latest skeptical turn in a revolution going back to the overthrow of speculative thought in and after Hegel's time, whose principal phases are traced from its dogmatic origins in 19c scientism and absolutism, through the 20c. schools of meta-philosophy, to the explicitly post-philosophical positions of Derrida, Rorty and others who would finally abandon or suspend all engagement with the tradition of philosophical reason. The progress toward this denouement has brought with it progressive distortion of (...) the understanding of classical philosophical arguments on their own terms, an understanding which now needs to be recovered from a standpoint that takes account of the legacy of the ultra-philosophical critique but now knows it as itself limited. (shrink)

This paper examines and elaborates upon the work of two writers, Usher and Edwards who have explored the significance of post-modernism for those involved in the post-compulsory sector of education. They argue that postmodernism signals an increasing interest in this sector of education and a major challenge to the idea of compulsory schooling. In this paper it is argued that postmodernism challenges the very distinction between compulsory and postcompulsory education. It problematises and disturbs a number of entrenched (...) assumptions about education, teaching and learning in interesting ways. The paper concludes with an outline of what formal education might become as a result of such problematisation and disturbance. (shrink)

The structuralist Andre-Weil–Claude-Levi-Strauss transformation formula (CF), initially applied to kinship systems, mythology, ritual, artistic design and architecture, was rightfully criticized for its rationalism and tendency to reduce complex transformations to analogical structures. I present a revised non-mathematical revision of the CF, a general transformation formula (rCF) applicable to networks of complementary semantic binaries in conceptual value-fields of culture, including comparative religion and mythology, ritual, art, literature and philosophy. The rCF is a rule-guided formula for combinatorial conceptualizing in non-representational, presentational mythopoetics (...) and other cultural symbolizations. I consider poststructuralist category-theoretic and algebraic mathematical interpretations of the CF as themselves only mathematical analogies, which serve to stimulate further revision of the logic model of the rCF. The rCF can be used in hypothesis-making to advance understanding of the evolution and prehistory of human symbolic behaviour in cultural space, philosophical ontologies and categories, definitions and concepts in art, religion, psychotherapy, and other cultural-value forms. (shrink)

This article considers American writer and filmmaker Chris Kraus’s genre-bending, parodic book I Love Dick as a way to deconstruct divisions that persist between the female “hysteric” and th...

It could be said that after Hegel’s, Philosophy in the world begun its downturn, falling in chaos during more than one hundred years. The Science study the specific thing replaced the philosophy as the King position in human’s knowledge. But, in fact, the science was born by philosophy. From 19th century, people could study the specific object by way of science, not philosophy. Of course, the best way to study the specific thing is the science. But, to study the onto, (...) science does not work. The onto is the target object of philosophy. The specific object is not the target study object of philosophy! The object for philosophy is the onto. But, in 19th and 20th century, people did not know this very well, viewing all the specific thing was studied very well by science, the scholars of philosophy were very upset. this is because they did not know the target object of philosophy is the onto, not the specific object. If they want to get a kind of specific object in nature to be the object of philosophy, of course, they would get defeated by the science, which was really the history. Finally, some got a field, called the phenomena, then, the phenomenology begun, but the phenomenology is not philosophy. Now, the human have got very large achievement in study of nature object. as per ontology and cognition logic, the onto is the root basis of every object, but, to get to know the specific object is the correct way for to get to know the onto. Now, with theachievement of study various object, philosophy could get new progress in study the onto. Following is the abstract explain why the phenomenology is not philosophy. From the very beginning of philosophy, people know the reality, the onto is hided in the phenomena, philosophy’s task is to find out the essence, the reality hided in the phenomena. At the time about early 20th century, there came out a kind of philosophy, called Phenomenology, ever developed ardently during last century for several decades, even now, it is still there, continue split philosophy, bring confusion to philosophy. Philosophy was produced by study the essence of object, especially the onto of everything. but in Phenomenology, there is no essence or the onto hided in the nature, it regard the phenomena as the study object, it deny the onto exists. The onto is the target object of philosophy over the past 2000 more years, but the phenomenology deny the onto, then, how could the phenomenology still regard itself as “philosophy”? Obviously, the phenomenology is not philosophy. Of course, the onto is there, longlive with the nature, the sun, the space. To get to know the onto, is the long live study for human. So, the phenomenology is wrong, at least wrong in the regard of the philosophy. Because of phenomenology’s ridiculous study object and theme, it produced various kinds of ridiculous answer and explain, by its main study such as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and latter, The structuralism, post structuralism and post modernism ect.. Finally, philosophy was split, falling apart in everything, it seemed any kind thing or phenomena could produce a kind of philosophy, what more ridiculous is any kind of phenomena ever expected to explain the nature the world the space by its several points of view about itself. this make philosophy look like garbage, loss the glory it ever had. Now, it is high time to say that the phenomenology, since it deny the essence and the onto in the nature, is not philosophy. It shall not be called as philosophy. philosophy’s target object is the onto, which is the root basis of everything, the root theory in the space. (shrink)

From the very beginning of philosophy, people know the reality, the onto is hided in the phenomena, philosophy’s task is to find out the essence, the reality hided in the phenomena. At the time about early 20th century, there came out a kind of philosophy, called Phenomenology, ever developed ardently during last century for several decades, even now, it is still there, continue split philosophy, bring confusion to philosophy. Philosophy was produced by study the essence of object, especially the onto (...) of everything, but in Phenomenology, there is no essence or the onto hided in the nature, it regard the phenomena as the study object, it deny the onto exists. The onto is the target object of philosophy over the past 2000 more years, but the phenomenology deny the onto, then, how could the phenomenology still regard itself as “philosophy”? Obviously, the phenomenology is not philosophy. Of course, the onto is there, longlive with the nature, the sun, the space. To get to know the onto, is the long live study for human. So, the phenomenology is wrong, at least wrong in the regard of the philosophy. Because ofphenomenology’s ridiculous study object and theme, it produced various kinds of ridiculous answer and explain, by its main study such as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and latter, The structuralism, post structuralism and post modernism etc. Finally, philosophy was split, falling apart in everything, it seemed any kind thing or phenomena could produce a kind of philosophy, what more ridiculous is any kind of phenomena ever expected to explain the nature the world the space by its several points of view about itself. This make philosophy look like garbage, loss the glory it ever had. Now, it is high time to say that the phenomenology, since it deny the essence and the onto in the nature, is not philosophy. it shall not be called as philosophy. Philosophy’starget object is the onto, which is the root basis of everything, the root theory in the space. (shrink)

Classicists have long been wary of comparisons, partly for ideological reasons related to the incomparability of ‘the Classical’, partly because of the often problematic basis and limited illumination afforded by such efforts as have been made: the -reception of the work of the Cambridge ritualists — such as J.G. Frazer and Jane Harrison — is a case in point in both respects. Interestingly, even the specifically comparative interests of the much more rigorous projects of the Paris School, at the Centre (...) Louis Gernet, have not had much resonance outside France, notwithstanding the enormous influence of their work concerning purely Greek subject matter. In part, perhaps, this was a result of the shift from Vernant's originally Marxist framework, in which societies were comparable in terms of an evolutionary sociological scheme, to a structuralist one, entailing an emphasis on the uniqueness of different cultural traditions. The emphasis on the uniqueness of the Classical world was only reinforced by post-structuralism and post-modernism, which in their strongest forms suggested that cultures, like languages, were fundamentally incommensurable, and thus not accessible to outsider knowledge, let alone comparable. Indeed, so virulent was the post-structuralist virus that disciplines to which we might have expected to be able to turn for guidance, like comparative religion, are only now recovering the courage ‘to compare religious phenomena, theologies or artefacts outside of footnotes or less heavily policed epilogues’. (shrink)

Evil remains a primary source of inquiry in contemporary literature of French expression, even among its most secular writers. In considering French-speaking authors from France, Belgium, the United States, the Maghreb, and Sub-Saharan Africa, this collection delineates a rich international perspective on some of the most disturbing events of our time. Each essay testifies to the urgency expressed in works of fiction to give an account of human catastrophes, from the Shoah and the Rwandan genocide to the terrorist attacks of (...) September 11, and the ongoing oppression of women in Islamic nations. Themes underlying this volume include an investigation into the origins of evil, its representations in writing, and the ethical responsibilities of authors who write on human suffering. Contemporary fiction on evil confronts us with fundamental questions: Can evil be attributed to intentionality, is evil "subconscious," or is it the result of impersonal forces? Which styles of writing are ethically appropriate or effective for depicting evil? Can we speak of a veritable "poetics of evil" shared by contemporary authors? When does a literary text on evil become "evil"? In providing informed and nuanced answers to these important questions, the scholars engage in crucial theories of psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and post-modernism, address a number of issues raised by trauma and genocide studies, and draw from critical frameworks in literary theory on testimony, the limits of representing the extreme, and "transgressive" writing. (shrink)