The Singularity of Literature

Attridge, Derek

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198733195.003.0002

Cited by 136 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…Second, a turn to life or naturalism insists that the world is always the world for this or that living system, always embedded in a milieu given as a range of affordances: this ranges from the retrieval of phenomenology and the embedding of mind in life (Petito, Varela, Pachoud and Roy 1999) against an anti-organicism or textualism that would draw attention to forces beyond the lived, to the celebration of bio-political production and the multitude against a bio-power that is seen as extrinsic and opposed to life (Hardt and Negri 2000). Finally, one might cite a return to the aesthetic, whether that be an aesthetics of language that separates man as a speaking being who gives himself his world from animality (Agamben 2004), to a reaffirmation of literature ( Joughin and Malpas 2003;Attridge 2004) or art in general as grounded in the human organism's sense-making capacities of its world. It would be far too obvious to add to this list the affirmations of identity politics or, worse, subjectivity, that would posit a self that is nothing more than the negation of a world in itself (knowable, measurable and presentable) precisely because the subject is that which gives a world, law and norm to itself.…”

Section: Framing the End Of The Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Death of the PostHuman: Essays on Extinction, Volume One

Colebrook¹

2014

260

116

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Section: Framing the End Of The Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Death of the PostHuman: Essays on Extinction, Volume One

Colebrook¹

2014

260

116

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…The statement that a work is not an object but an event may be a truism, but it is a truism whose implications have generally been resisted. 6) This is a passage rich with a variety of implications, but at this juncture I want to underscore Attridge's claim that the text as event implicates both (a) the process of "writing that brought it into being as a potentially readable text," and (b) the possibility of framing it in relation to the "contingencies" of "history. "…”

Section: ____________________________________mentioning

confidence: 99%

W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming”: Event, Text, and Avant-Textes

Armstrong¹

2018

The Yeats Journal of Korea

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Abstract:The way in which "The Second Coming" detaches itself from its own immediate context is what enables it to embrace new contexts, new events. "The Second Coming"'s power simply stems from its status as a literary text. But critics are unsure whether the poem's forcefulness is intrinsic or borrowed from a religious tradition with which it affiliates itself. What seems to mark off "The Second Coming" as a singular literary event is the degree to which it interweaves literary, political, and apocalyptical discourses, to the point where it is hard to distinguish them from one another. This is what makes this poem a singular event in itself.

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“…Even the 'singular' and creatively 'original' works which Attridge thinks constitute properly ethical forms of literature insofar as they provoke readers to go 'beyond existing conventions' by articulating 'thoughts that have not yet even been formulated as thoughts, feelings that as yet have no objective correlative', for the most part remain within these bounds and cause no controversy. 115 Certain works, by design or in effect, transgress the limits of propriety tolerable by certain interpretive communities. These are exceptional works, the ones that provoke controversy.…”

Section: An Ethics Of Proprietymentioning

confidence: 99%

Islam and Controversy

Mondal

2014

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Please respect intellectual property rightsThis material is copyright and its use is restricted by our standard site license terms and conditions (see http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/connect/info/terms_conditions.html). If you plan to copy, distribute or share in any format including, for the avoidance of doubt, posting on websites, you need the express prior permission of Palgrave Macmillan. To request permission please contact rights@palgrave.com."A highly perceptive analysis of the grounds and moral -but not necessarily legal -limits of free speech. It both retains and goes beyond the important insights of liberalism. Its theoretical discussion enriches and is in turn enriched by a shrewd analysis of concrete cases. A most welcome and timely book." -Lord Bhikhu Parekh, author of 'The Parekh Report: The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain' and 'Rethinking Multiculturalism' "In contrast to much journalism and commentary on these issues, this is an important, reasoned and patient account of these infl ammatory matters. Mondal's book is crucial reading for those interested not only in the work and impact of Salman Rushdie, not only for those working in contemporary literature more widely, but also those with a concern for issues of freedom, expression and the future of cosmopolitan and multicultural democracy." -Professor Robert Eaglestone, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought, Royal Holloway, University of London "Anshuman Mondal has performed the considerable service of puncturing the unexamined clichés and self-serving cant that characterise the freedom of speech debate. He refuses to accept at face value the assumed contention between liberal secular notions of free speech and the supposed censorious strictures of Muslim intolerance, as played out in numerous recent controversies. Instead, he strips the discussion back to fi rst principles, pointing out how all speech and writing is a dialogic act of communication that anticipates a response from its recipient. Offence is seen as the product of the relationship between speaker, addressee and all-important contextual power relations. In an era when 'liberals' from both the right and left have come together to denounce Islam as an intolerant force and a geopolitical enemy, Mondal reveals how professions of liberal reasonableness and neutrality mask an absolutist cultural supremacism wherein the 'right to offend' is separated from its consequences. He demonstrates how the central traditions of Western liberalism are each blind to the power relations which mark all societies and which take a particularly intractable form in multicultural ones.At the heart of the book is the question, what is free speech for? Is it an end in itself? Or does it serve a higher purpose, such as safeguarding democracy, as is often claimed? In a brilliant, forensic analysis of some of the rhetoric around freedom and offence, Mondal asks how notions of a good and fair society can possibly be furthered by the deliberate denigration of a portion of its membership. Recognising e...

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The Singularity of Literature

Cited by 136 publications

References 0 publications

Death of the PostHuman: Essays on Extinction, Volume One

Death of the PostHuman: Essays on Extinction, Volume One

W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming”: Event, Text, and Avant-Textes

Islam and Controversy

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