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
- The Disappearing Avant-Garde
- The Critical Life: Rethinking Biography in an Experimental Mode
- What Literature Can Do
- Some Notes Towards a Literary Conception of Literature
- The Installation as Novel
- History of New Novels
- What becomes of the novel when the gods are coming back
- The Varieties of Literary Experience
- Intellection, Cognition, Contradiction
- Heiner Müller’s Lyric Loneliness and the Mythical Body
- The Route of the Impossible
- Re-thinking, re-feeling literature
- Hoarding as Écriture
- Corpse Pose
- The Shelley Jackson Vocational School for Ghost Speakers and Hearing-Mouth Children
- Some Fragments
- Fictional Habitation
- Act two: Why I am a destiny
Tom Bishop
Emily Apter
Philippe Artières
Donatien Grau
Part II: Literature and the Novel
Boris Groys
Adam Thirlwell
Tristan Garcia
Part III: Literature and the Poetic
Peter Schjeldahl
Laurent Dubreuil
Stathis Gourgouris
Paul Audi
Part IV: A New Subjectivity
Camille Laurens
Dodie Bellamy
Wayne Koestenbaum
Shelley Jackson
Maël Renouard
Camille de Toledo
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.