1st Edition

Ways of Re-Thinking Literature

Edited By Tom Bishop, Donatien Grau Copyright 2018
    238 Pages
    by Routledge

    238 Pages
    by Routledge

    Ways of Re-Thinking Literature creates a unique platform where leading literary thinkers and practitioners provide a multiplicity of views into what literature is today.

    The texts gathered in this extraordinary collection range from philosophy to poetry, to theater, to cognitive sciences, to art criticism, to fiction, and their authors rank amongst the most significant figures in their fields, in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

    Topics covered include an assessment of the role of literary narratives in contemporary writing, new considerations on the novel, a redefinition of the "poetic" factor in poetry and life, and a discussion of how literature engages with contemporary forms of individuality.

    Under the auspices of literary luminaries Hélène Cixous and the late John Ashbery, these new pieces of writing bring to light contributions by innovative and well-established authors from the English-speaking sphere, as well as never-before translated prominent new voices in French theory.

    Featuring original work from some of today’s most influential authors, Ways of Re-Thinking Literature is an indispensable tool for anybody interested in the future and possibilities of literature as an endeavor for life, thought, and creativity.

    With special cover artwork by Rita Ackermann, the volume includes contributions from Emily Apter, Philippe Artières, John Ashbery, Paul Audi, Dodie Bellamy, Tom Bishop, Hélène Cixous, Laurent Dubreuil, Tristan Garcia, Stathis Gourgouris, Donatien Grau, Boris Groys, Shelley Jackson, Wayne Koestenbaum, Camille Laurens, Vanessa Place, Maël Renouard, Peter Schjeldahl, Adam Thirlwell, and Camille de Toledo.

    Introduction

    Tom Bishop and Donatien Grau

    Prelude: Golden Discount

    John Ashbery

    Part I: Literary Narratives

    1. The Disappearing Avant-Garde
    2. Tom Bishop

    3. The Critical Life: Rethinking Biography in an Experimental Mode
    4. Emily Apter

    5. What Literature Can Do
    6. Philippe Artières

    7. Some Notes Towards a Literary Conception of Literature
    8. Donatien Grau

      Part II: Literature and the Novel

    9. The Installation as Novel
    10. Boris Groys

    11. History of New Novels
    12. Adam Thirlwell

    13. What becomes of the novel when the gods are coming back
    14. Tristan Garcia

      Part III: Literature and the Poetic

    15. The Varieties of Literary Experience
    16. Peter Schjeldahl

    17. Intellection, Cognition, Contradiction
    18. Laurent Dubreuil

    19. Heiner Müller’s Lyric Loneliness and the Mythical Body
    20. Stathis Gourgouris

    21. The Route of the Impossible
    22. Paul Audi

      Part IV: A New Subjectivity

    23. Re-thinking, re-feeling literature
    24. Camille Laurens

    25. Hoarding as Écriture
    26. Dodie Bellamy

    27. Corpse Pose
    28. Wayne Koestenbaum

    29. The Shelley Jackson Vocational School for Ghost Speakers and Hearing-Mouth Children
    30. Shelley Jackson

    31. Some Fragments
    32. Maël Renouard

    33. Fictional Habitation
    34. Camille de Toledo

    35. Act two: Why I am a destiny

    Vanessa Place

    Conclusion: Ay yay! The Cry of Literature

    Hélène Cixous

    Index

    Biography

    Tom Bishop is the Florence Lacaze Gould Professor of French, Professor of French and Comparative Literature at New York University (NYU), USA. For fifty years, he served as Chair of the department of French at NYU and Director of the Center for French Civilization and Culture. Amongst his many publications are: From the Left Bank: Reflections on the Modern French Theater and Novel (1997) and Pirandello and the French Theater (1960, 1970).

    Donatien Grau is a Guest Curator at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA. He holds a doctorat in French and comparative literature from the Sorbonne, France, and a DPhil from the University of Oxford, UK. He was twice a Guest Resarch Researcher at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; a Florence Gould Lecturer, New York University; a Special Guest of French Studies, Cornell University; a Visiting Scholar, Stevanonich Institute for the Formation of Knowledge, University of Chicago; a teaching fellow, Sorbonne and Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France.