In the Place of Language

Claudia Brodsky is Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. She is the author of The Imposition of Form: Studies in Narrative Representation and Knowledge, Lines of Thought: Discourse, Archetonics, and the Origin of Modern Philosophy and the editor, with Toni Morrison, of Birth of a Nation 'hood.

"Beyond its stunning synthesis of philosophy and literature this book offers fresh readings of Goethe's two currently most discussed works." -Modern Language Quarterly "Building on Brodsky's earlier explorations of the interconnection between the discursive arts and the art of building, In the Place of Language situates the act of linguistic reference at the intersection of earth and edifice, indication and signification, convention and invention. Through nuanced readings of an impressive array of modern and contemporary artists and thinkers-Rousseau, Kant, Goethe, Proust, Schmitt, Benjamin, Heidegger, Lanzmann, Agamben-this book offers original insights into the relationship between the artistic, technological, and political modalities of the modernist project and in so doing suggests novel understandings of our contemporary situation. In the Place of Language will be of interest not only to those concerned with recent discussions in philosophy and literary studies, but also to those interested in understanding the place of architecture, as both empirical practice and as conceptual model, in the contemporary disposition of the cultural disciplines." -- -Andrew Payne University of Toronto "Refreshingly bold and brilliantly exacting, In the Place of Language gives us an entirely new language for understanding forms of historicity in the built structures of literature and theory. In Brodsky's capable hands the relationship between text and non-text does not devolve into mere context, but comes into view instead through the marked demarcation of experience in writing about the changes and challenges that history entails. Grounding her account of how space, time, and matter itself come to matter in the architecture and architectonics of referential form, the author delivers breathtaking new readings of Goethe's Faust and Elective Affinities in vibrant and critical dialogue with Kant, Rousseau, Heidegger, Benjamin, Schmitt, Lanzmann, Agamben, and others. In the Place of Language is a crystalline and indispensable book for thinking about the properties and stakes of loss and presence, life and death, building and language in major literary works and critical theories of modern history into the 21st century." -- -Leslie A. Adelson Cornell University "Passionately and with abundant erudition Claudia Brodsky turns against traditional ideas of language and prefers to investigate the question of why so many fundamental works of literature and philosophy depend on architecture to demarcate a space in which imagination lingers to discover past and future. Claudia Brodsky intensely involves us in her argumentation, whether she concentrates on an incisive moment in Claude Lanzmann's movie 'Shoah', effectively employs Kant to deflate Agamben or interprets Plato, Rousseau, Heidegger, Benjamin, Proust or Goethe's most important novel and dramas. I know few recent books of such force and rare originality." -- -Peter Demetz Yale University "A truly engaging, profoundly challenging and superb piece of critical scholarship and theory, of great importance for current debates on language, architecture, and aesthetics and the functions of space and time." -- -Willi Goetschel University of Toronto "An outstanding work of scholarly erudition, penetrating analyses, and original insights, Brodsky's book makes a remarkable contribution to the study of Goethe and general literary theory, offering penetrating new readings of two of Goethe's most demanding and philosophically invested works." -- -Clark Muenzer University of Pittsburgh