William S. Allen is an independent researcher at the University of Southampton, UK. He is the author of Ellipsis: Of Poetry and the Experience of Language after Heidegger, Hölderlin, and Blanchot (2007), Aesthetics of Negativity: Blanchot, Adorno, and Autonomy (2016), Without End: Sade’s Critique of Reason (Bloomsbury, 2018), and Blanchot and the Outside of Literature (Bloomsbury, 2019).

It is tempting to respond to dark times with the light of optimism. But as William S. Allen shows in Noir and Blanchot, this is to fall into the trap of darkness. In a pathbreaking exploration of using darkness to forge a way out of darkness, Allen brings together two unlikely allies - film noir and Maurice Blanchot - to disrupt the prevailing dark times.

• AcknowledgementsList of Abbreviations1. Dark Time2. Ruptures and Deviations3. Chiaroscuro4. Between Deaths5. Damnation6. Rewriting HistoryNotesIndex

William S. Allen is an independent researcher at the University of Southampton, UK. He is the author of Ellipsis: Of Poetry and the Experience of Language after Heidegger, Hölderlin, and Blanchot (2007), Aesthetics of Negativity: Blanchot, Adorno, and Autonomy (2016), Without End: Sade’s Critique of Reason (Bloomsbury, 2018), and Blanchot and the Outside of Literature (Bloomsbury, 2019).

It is tempting to respond to dark times with the light of optimism. But as William S. Allen shows in Noir and Blanchot, this is to fall into the trap of darkness. In a pathbreaking exploration of using darkness to forge a way out of darkness, Allen brings together two unlikely allies - film noir and Maurice Blanchot - to disrupt the prevailing dark times.

• AcknowledgementsList of Abbreviations1. Dark Time2. Ruptures and Deviations3. Chiaroscuro4. Between Deaths5. Damnation6. Rewriting HistoryNotesIndex

William S. Allen is an independent researcher at the University of Southampton, UK. He is the author of Ellipsis: Of Poetry and the Experience of Language after Heidegger, Hölderlin, and Blanchot (2007), Aesthetics of Negativity: Blanchot, Adorno, and Autonomy (2016), Without End: Sade’s Critique of Reason (Bloomsbury, 2018), and Blanchot and the Outside of Literature (Bloomsbury, 2019).

It is tempting to respond to dark times with the light of optimism. But as William S. Allen shows in Noir and Blanchot, this is to fall into the trap of darkness. In a pathbreaking exploration of using darkness to forge a way out of darkness, Allen brings together two unlikely allies - film noir and Maurice Blanchot - to disrupt the prevailing dark times.

• AcknowledgementsList of Abbreviations1. Dark Time2. Ruptures and Deviations3. Chiaroscuro4. Between Deaths5. Damnation6. Rewriting HistoryNotesIndex