Understanding Derrida, Understanding Modernism

Jean-Michel Rabaté is one of the world's foremost literary theorists. Since 1992, he has been professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Professor Rabaté has authored or edited more forty books on modernism, psychoanalysis, contemporary art, philosophy, and writers like Beckett, Pound and Joyce. Recent books include Crimes of the Future (Bloomsbury, 2014), The Cambridge Introduction to Psychoanalysis and Literature (2014), The Pathos of Distance (Bloomsbury, 2016), and Rust (Bloomsbury, 2018). He is one of the founders and curators of Slought Foundation in Philadelphia (slought.org) and the Managing Editor of the Journal of Modern Literature. Since 2008, he has been a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

• Introduction: Derrida’s modernity and our modernismJean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania, USAPart 1. Rethinking the main concepts of modernism1. Trickster Economy: Derrida’s Baudelaire, and the Role of Money, Counterfeits, and Alms in the Modern CityMarit Grøtta, University of Oslo, Norway2. Kant’s Celestial Economy; a Footnote to The Gift of DeathEddis N. Miller, Pace University, USA3. Derrida and Kafka: A Talmudic Disputation Before the LawVivian Liska, Antwerp University, Belgium4. Derrida with Heidegger: Poetic Language, Animality, WorldJennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei, Fordham University, USA5. To Wound the Language: Derrida Reads CelanMiriam Jerade, University of Mexico, MexicoPart 2. Engaging with the poetics of canonical modernism6. Derrida’s JoyceSam Slote, Trinity College, Dublin7. Derrida re-voicing ArtaudAlhelí Alvarado, Columbia University, USA8. Derrida on Bataille: from dueling to duetClaire Lozier, University of Leeds, UK9. A Cross in the margin, Inscription and Erasure in Derrida and PoundMark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia10. Derrida after Valéry (after Derrida)Suzanne Guerlac, University of California, Berkeley, USAPart 3. Différance as performance: pushing modernism beyond its borders11. Three ways of looking at Derrida’s encounter with AustinRaoul Moati, University of Chicago, USA12. Writing in the Shadow of Sartre’s Genet, Derrida’s Glas and the Ethics of BiographyRobert Doran, Rochester University, USA13. Derrida, Cixous, and (Feminine) WritingMarta Segarra, University of Barcelona, Spain14. Reading between the lines: Derrida, Blanchot, BeckettLeslie Hill, University of Warwick, UKPart 4. GlossaryJean-Michel RabatéAporiaAuto-immunityBiography/Autobiography/AutothanatographyDeconstructionDifféranceHauntologyHospitalityIterabilityLiesMethodsPerformativePoetryUndecidabilityWriting / TextingIndex

Understanding Derrida, Understanding Modernism is a superb, transformative exercise of critical thought, attuned to both contextual and philosophical-ethical différance; 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.