Dead Theory Derrida, Death, and the Afterlife of Theory

by Leo, Jeffrey R. Di

• ISBN13: 9781474274357
• ISBN10: 1474274358
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-05-19
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

What is the legacy of Theory after the deaths of so many of its leading lights, from Jacques Derrida to Roland Barthes? Bringing together reflections by leading contemporary scholars, Dead Theory explores the afterlives of the work of the great theorists and the current state of Theory today. Considering the work of thinkers such as Derrida, Deleuze, and Levinas, the book explores the ways in which Theory has long been haunted by death and how it might endure for the future.

Author Biography

Jeffrey R. Di Leo is Professor of English and Philosophy and Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Houston-Victoria, USA. Formerly President of the Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts, he is Editor of the American Book Review and Founding Editor of the journal Symploke. His previous publications include Criticism After Critique: Aesthetics and the Political (2014) and Turning the Page: Book Culture in the Digital Age (2014).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Notes from Underground: Theory, Theorists, and Death (Jeffrey R. Di Leo, University of Houston-Victoria, USA)
Part I: Theory, Theorists, Death
1. The Heirs to Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction (W. Lawrence Hogue, John and Rebecca Moores Professor, University of Houston, USA)
2. The Humanists Strike Back: An Episode from the Cold War on Theory (Herman Rapaport, Reynolds Professor of English, Wake Forest University, USA)
3. The Afterlife of Critics (Henry Sussman, Visiting Professor of Gemanic Language and Literature, Yale University, USA)
Part II: Derrida, Death, Theory
4. Thanatographies of the Future: Freud, Derrida, Kant (Jean-Michel Rabaté, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania, USA)
5. Ghosts in the Politics of Friendship (Paul Allen Miller, Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature, University of South Carolina, USA)
6. Death, Survival and Translation (Brian O'Keeffe, Lecturer, Barnard College, USA)
7. Theory's Autoimmunity (Zahi Zalloua, Associate Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Whitman College, USA)
Part III: Politics, Death, Theory
8. Eclipse of the Gaze: Nancy, Community and the Death of the Other (Kir Kuiken, Associate Professor, University at Albany, State University of New York, USA)
9. Deleuze, Kerouac, Fascism, and Death (Hassan Melehy, Professor of French, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA)
10. Theory's Ruins (Nicole Simek, Assistant Professor, Whitman College, USA)
11. Undying Theory: Levinas, Place, and the Technology of Posthumousness (Christian Moraru, Professor of American Literature and Critical Theory, University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA)
Index