Assesses a distinct style of thinking in twentieth-century Spanish writing, one in which literature plays a central role in reaching behind philosophy to essential sources of life and meaning.

Addresses the question of how language affects the subject of speech through readings of confessional, philosophical, and fictional writings.

Delves into the meaning of stories, their tellers, and those who experience them

Probing reassessment of the relation between Celan's poetry and Heidegger's thought.

Examines the thought of W. E. B. Du Bois, with attention to its potential for reorienting present-day critical theory and political philosophy.

Shows how feminist writing in British Romanticism developed alternatives to linear time.

A comparative study of breath and breathing as a core poetic and compositional principle in modern literature.

Revisits, reassesses, and reclaims the legacy of May '68 in light of our present cultural and historical emergency.

A study of Hu Feng as a literary critic and case study on how intellectual work can respond to political pressure.

Juxtaposes five contemporary French poets, illuminating the philosophical elements of their work while making their sometimes difficult writing newly accessible.

Charts the vicissitudes of a distinctly modern and peculiarly human vulnerability—our intimate dependence on the fragile, time-bound cultural framework that we inhabit—in the history of the realist novel.

Examines the evolution of disappearance as a formal narrative and epistemological phenomenon in late twentieth-century Argentine fiction.

Proposes "the extraordinary" as a defining characteristic of modernity.

A study of novelty through analyses of the language of announcement in revolutionary texts.

A comprehensive discussion of an important but elusive Lacanian concept within the field of psychoanalysis, as well as its relevance for philosophy, literature, gender, and queer studies.

Offers a new conceptual framework rooted in mythological analysis to ground the field of Africana cultural memory studies.

Examines four discourses by Kierkegaard, arguing that they play a critical and surprising role in his oeuvre and contribute to the philosophy of figural language.

Explores why Derrida, Hegel, and Heidegger conceive their thought as a “movement” rather than as a presentation of results or conclusions, and of the consequences of such an indirect method for critique and responsibility.

Pairs literary works with philosophical and theoretical texts to examine how the Kantian sublime influenced authors in their treatments of freedom and subjectivity through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Shows how contemporary French philosophy adopted this literary paradigm and argues for its significance for addressing concerns in ethics, ontology, and aesthetics.

Develops the sustained, relational, dynamic, and reflective attention demanded by Gertrude Stein’s novel into a theory of reading and critical analysis.

The first book-length study of Bersani’s work, tracing the unfolding of his onto-ethics/aesthetics amidst numerous literary, artistic, and philosophical influences.

The first complete English translation of Lacoue-Labarthe’s most innovative and original work, exploring the very origins of experience, language, desire, and mortality.

Provides an innovative and theoretically rigorous approach to the subject of testimony in Latin America.

First sustained critical reading of Lacoue-Labarthe's Phrase, which provides insights into a philosophically inspired work of prose poetry.

Revises key psychoanalytic concepts that influence interpretive practices in the humanities and formulates a new approach to reading fiction.

Investigates the ways in which new technologies and theories of photography, phonography, moving images, and digital media engage with a diverse set of texts by British Romantic writers.

A creative study of Maurice Blanchot’s theory of literary voice.

A reappraisal of deconstruction from one of its leading commentators, focusing on the themes of force and violence.

Examines the importance of Leo Bersani’s work for queer theory, psychoanalysis, literary criticism and theory, cultural studies, and film studies.

Psychoanalytic perspectives on Kristeva's fiction.

Examines the theory and practice of nonfiction narrative literature in twentieth-century Mexico.

A comprehensive examination of one of the twentieth century's most innovative writers and critics.

A fascinating comparison of the work of Heinrich von Kleist and Herman Melville.

Explores the conceptualization of the Freudian uncanny in various late-twentieth-century theoretical and critical discourses (literary studies, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, art history, trauma studies, architecture, etc.).

Explores why American Romantic writers and contemporary continental thinkers turn to art when writing about ethics.

Examines the increasingly prevalent assumption that postmodernism is over and that literature and film are once again engaging sincerely with issues of ethics and politics.

Explores the metafictional strategies of contemporary African novels rather than characterizing them primarily as a response to colonialism.

Considers the social and political significance of Kristeva’s oeuvre.

Philosophical exploration of Jamaica Kincaid’s entire literary oeuvre.

A comprehensive examination of Lacan’s seminar on ethics.

Examines the role of forgetfulness in our understanding of the Holocaust.

Uses iconic dandy and queer figures to explore relationships between homosexuality, modernism, and modernity.

Questions whether current theories and pedagogies of alterity have allowed us truly to engage the Other.

Explores the radical political potential of close reading to make the case for a new and invigorated psychoanalytic cultural studies.

Provocative exploration of a new concept of “joy” within psychoanalytic and cultural studies.

How the Romantics invented psychoanalysis in advance of Freud.

Clinical and philosophical perspectives on key issues and debates in Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Situates Lacan’s theory of the subject within contemporary philosophical debates over freedom and agency.

Contributors explore the significance of literature and psychoanalysis for medical education and practice.

Defends political philosophy and social science against the rival claims of literature and literary criticism.

Fiction writers and critics engage the aesthetic, political, philosophical, and cultural dimensions of contemporary fiction.

Traces the development of Lacanian theory, and its possible future.

Addresses ethical and aesthetic issues in three major works by Henry James.

Draws upon Marx, Western Marxism, and poststructuralist theory to constructively engage contemporary issues.

The essential companion to Simone de Beauvoir's celebrated novel.

Explores how the concept of revolution permeates and unifies Kristeva’s body of work.

Interrogates the "writing back to the center" approach to intertextuality and explores alternatives to it.

Explores postcolonial discourse from the standpoint of feminism and writers in minority languages.

Genre-bending experiments that appropriate, impersonate, and speak through already-created literary characters in order to offer fresh interpretations of well-known literary works.

Shows the full breadth and scope of Edward Said's work and of his role as a public intellectual.

Examines deconstruction, New Historicism, postcolonialism, and other contemporary theoretical movements in their historical contexts.

Examines Lacan's key seminar on sexual difference, knowledge, desire, and love.

Argues that German Romanticism, Zen Buddhism, and deconstruction, for all their cultural differences, are three expressions of a universal vision.

Deconstructs the field of postcolonial studies.

Assesses Mircea Eliade's contribution to the contemporary understanding of religion and the academic study of religion.

Confirms the importance of literature in Derrida’s development of a postmodern ethics.

Concludes that the closest thing in Western culture to the Middle Way of Buddhism is not any sort of theory or philosophy, but the practice of literature.

In this first English translation of a classic text by one of the foremost commentators on Lacan's work, Nasio eloquently demonstrates the clinical and practical import of Lacan's theory, even in its most difficult or obscure moments.

This collection of essays addresses two major issues of contemporary culture: the problem of violence in relation to notions of "difference" and power; and the role of mediation in making possible non-conflictive play of cultural differences.

This is a theoretical study of human metamorphosis in Western literature.

This book explores the consequences of postmodern theory and answers the question, "What did postmodern theory begin?"

This book offers a radical, "Third World" approach to current debates on canon revision, multiculturalism, Eurocentrism, and reforms in education and culture.

This book aims at refocusing critical reflection on thematics in the arts, a topic that has been neglected recently. The volume is divided into four sections: theoretical essays, applications to literature, ...

What happens when a male author writes the feminine? Can a male author completely identify with a woman? Or does a male author always write through a woman's voice for purposes of his own? This fascinating ...

This is the first book-length study of William James' style, arguing that the manner in which James writes The Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience serves to construct a ...

The ten topics contained in Twentieth-Century Literary Theory reflect contemporary theoretical interests and guide the reader through fundamental questions, from the formation to the uses of theory, and ...