University Professor Emeritus of French and Francophone literature in the French Studies Department and in the Department of Comparative Literature at Brown University. Still working on French and Francophone literature of the Twentieth century as well as on film theory and contemporary philosophy. I just had a new book come out at Bloomsbury on "Gilles Deleuze, postcolonial theory and the philosophy of limit'. The book on Roland Barthes and the essayistic form is coming out in Spanish.
... utilisation de mots techniques ou rares dans un morceau bio-graphique : anamnèse ... mêmes le... more ... utilisation de mots techniques ou rares dans un morceau bio-graphique : anamnèse ... mêmes le montrent du reste bien : leur al-lure d'improvisation perpétuelle ["à sauts et gambades" comme di-rait Montaigne] porte la marque d'une spontanéité de "bricoleur" qui décourage ...
Yearbook of comparative and general literature, Aug 1, 2019
Is it possible to write something new about an author who has always accompanied his work with hi... more Is it possible to write something new about an author who has always accompanied his work with his own commentary? In this article, I tried to rise to the challenge by avoiding two pitfalls: on the one hand, that of Psittacism—which consists of repeating the author’s theses by forcing them into a system—and, on the other hand, that of the Reduction to a unified line of thought that would have been underplaying the heterogeneity and pluralism of the theses in question. This led me to highlight some of the issues related to the tactics that Roland Barthes developed in his work: a tactics that will have no other objective than to free oneself from the blackmail of the theory and the delirium that alienate its pretenders.
Portrait of an illusion: one of the most striking phenomena for critics — and perhaps for literar... more Portrait of an illusion: one of the most striking phenomena for critics — and perhaps for literary critics in particular — is indeed the critical fecundity and pertinence of Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts pertaining to literary texts and, more generally of their artistic concepts (painting, cinema, music). We marvel at the fact that a certain text by Kafka, Doblin, Blanchot, Proust or Mozart seems to have been written in the wake of what we find in conceptual form in the work of the two philosophers. But even more interesting and disturbing in certain respects is the existence of the reverse phenomenon in another ‘species’ of critics. For these latter, it was not the philosophical and critical work of Deleuze and Guattari that unearthed an analytic or critical gem (on the quality of a musician’s pulsed timing, intuition relating to an event, a line of flight or the capture of a haecceity the singularity of an author’s becoming-animal, etc.), but, on the contrary, the perspicacity and poetic genius of the authors and creators ‘elected’ by the two philosophers that led them to develop their theoretical problems and refine their concepts. If critics base their arguments on such premises, what is, perhaps sadly, missed in both cases is the specificity of the philosopher’s work in relation to that of the creator of a work of art. Both are, in my opinion, empirical approaches, which remove from the ‘encounter’ (cf. Bensmaia 2010) between philosopher and artists everything that makes such encounter a crucial moment in the creative process — in the process of the creation of concepts on the part of the philosopher, and in the process of the creation of percepts and affects on the part of artists.
... Indeed, by replacing the reconciling, theological figure of the primordial couple (Adam and E... more ... Indeed, by replacing the reconciling, theological figure of the primordial couple (Adam and Eve) with that of the "insane" and "intractable," incestuous and ... intuition du coeur ou de l'oeil spirituel, bref aurore se levant dans l'ame se levant a son 'Orient' [Ishraq]" (167-68). ...
... utilisation de mots techniques ou rares dans un morceau bio-graphique : anamnèse ... mêmes le... more ... utilisation de mots techniques ou rares dans un morceau bio-graphique : anamnèse ... mêmes le montrent du reste bien : leur al-lure d'improvisation perpétuelle ["à sauts et gambades" comme di-rait Montaigne] porte la marque d'une spontanéité de "bricoleur" qui décourage ...
Yearbook of comparative and general literature, Aug 1, 2019
Is it possible to write something new about an author who has always accompanied his work with hi... more Is it possible to write something new about an author who has always accompanied his work with his own commentary? In this article, I tried to rise to the challenge by avoiding two pitfalls: on the one hand, that of Psittacism—which consists of repeating the author’s theses by forcing them into a system—and, on the other hand, that of the Reduction to a unified line of thought that would have been underplaying the heterogeneity and pluralism of the theses in question. This led me to highlight some of the issues related to the tactics that Roland Barthes developed in his work: a tactics that will have no other objective than to free oneself from the blackmail of the theory and the delirium that alienate its pretenders.
Portrait of an illusion: one of the most striking phenomena for critics — and perhaps for literar... more Portrait of an illusion: one of the most striking phenomena for critics — and perhaps for literary critics in particular — is indeed the critical fecundity and pertinence of Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts pertaining to literary texts and, more generally of their artistic concepts (painting, cinema, music). We marvel at the fact that a certain text by Kafka, Doblin, Blanchot, Proust or Mozart seems to have been written in the wake of what we find in conceptual form in the work of the two philosophers. But even more interesting and disturbing in certain respects is the existence of the reverse phenomenon in another ‘species’ of critics. For these latter, it was not the philosophical and critical work of Deleuze and Guattari that unearthed an analytic or critical gem (on the quality of a musician’s pulsed timing, intuition relating to an event, a line of flight or the capture of a haecceity the singularity of an author’s becoming-animal, etc.), but, on the contrary, the perspicacity and poetic genius of the authors and creators ‘elected’ by the two philosophers that led them to develop their theoretical problems and refine their concepts. If critics base their arguments on such premises, what is, perhaps sadly, missed in both cases is the specificity of the philosopher’s work in relation to that of the creator of a work of art. Both are, in my opinion, empirical approaches, which remove from the ‘encounter’ (cf. Bensmaia 2010) between philosopher and artists everything that makes such encounter a crucial moment in the creative process — in the process of the creation of concepts on the part of the philosopher, and in the process of the creation of percepts and affects on the part of artists.
... Indeed, by replacing the reconciling, theological figure of the primordial couple (Adam and E... more ... Indeed, by replacing the reconciling, theological figure of the primordial couple (Adam and Eve) with that of the "insane" and "intractable," incestuous and ... intuition du coeur ou de l'oeil spirituel, bref aurore se levant dans l'ame se levant a son 'Orient' [Ishraq]" (167-68). ...
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