Desire in Ashes Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Philosophy

by Morgan Wortham, Simon; Alfano, Chiara

• ISBN13: 9781472529138
• ISBN10: 1472529138
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-12-17
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

The indebtedness of contemporary thinkers to Derrida's project of deconstruction is unquestionable, whether as a source of inspiration or the grounds of critical antagonism.

This collection considers: how best to recall deconstruction? Rather than reduce it to an object of historical importance or memory, these essays analyze its significance in terms of complex matrices of desire; provoked in this way, deconstruction cannot be dismissed as 'dead', nor unproblematically defended as alive and well.

Repositioned on the threshold of life-death, deconstruction profoundly complicates the field of critical thought which still struggles to memorialize, inter, or reduce the deconstructive corpus to ashes.

Author Biography

Simon Morgan Wortham is Professor of English and co-director of the London Graduate School at Kingston University, London, UK.

Chiara Alfano is Postdoctoral Fellow at The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Ashes of Desire Simon Morgan Wortham (Professor and Associate Dean of Research, University of Kingston, UK)
1. Possibility, Desire and Disavowal Catherine Malabou (Professor of Philosophy, CRMEP, University of Kingston, UK)
2. What does Deconstruction Want? Herman Rapaport (Reynolds Professor of English, Wake Forest University, USA)
3. Bite me, Burn me, Eat me, Read me: Obliterature Elissa Marder (Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Emory University, USA)
4. (How) do you want me? David Wills (Professor of French Studies, SUNY, Albany, USA)
5. "The ends of man", then and now Etienne Balibar (Anniversary Chair, University of Kingston, UK and Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, USA)
6. Derrida's Desires Andrew Benjamin (Professor, Monash University, Australia)
7. The Sex Lives of the Philosophers Martin McQuillan (Professor of Literary Theory and Cultural Analysis, University of Kingston, London)
8. Dying for Desire Martin Hagglund (Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities, Yale University, USA)