James Martell – författare

Focusing on their conception and use of the notion of the mother, Modernism, Self-Creation, and the Maternal proposes a new interpretation of literature by modernist authors like Rousseau, Baudelaire, Poe, Rimbaud, Rilke, Joyce, and Beckett. Seen through this maternal relation, their writing appears as the product of an "anxiety" rising not from paternal influence, but from the violence done to their mother in their attempts at self-creation through writing. In order to bring to light this modernist violence, this study analyzes these authors in tandem with Derrida’s work on the gender-specific violence of the Western philosophical and literary tradition. The book demonstrates how these writer-sons wrote their works in a constant crisis vis-à-vis the mother’s body as site of both origin and dissolution. It proves how, if modernism was first established as a patrilineal heritage, it was ultimately written on the bodies of women and mothers, confusing them in order to appropriate their generative traits.

Uncannily similar projects, Beckett's and Derrida's oeuvres have been linked by literary and philosophy scholars since the 1990s. Taking into consideration their shared historical and personal contexts as writers whose main language of expression was 'adopted' or 'imposed', this Element proposes a systematic reading of their main points of connection. Focusing on their engagement with the intricacies of beginnings and origins, on genetic grounds or surfaces analogous to the Platonic khôra, and on their similar critiques of the aporias of sovereignty, it exposes the reasons why multiple readers, like Coetzee, consider Derridean deconstruction a philosophical mirror of Beckett's literary achievements.

Uncannily similar projects, Beckett's and Derrida's oeuvres have been linked by literary and philosophy scholars since the 1990s. Taking into consideration their shared historical and personal contexts as writers whose main language of expression was 'adopted' or 'imposed', this Element proposes a systematic reading of their main points of connection. Focusing on their engagement with the intricacies of beginnings and origins, on genetic grounds or surfaces analogous to the Platonic khôra, and on their similar critiques of the aporias of sovereignty, it exposes the reasons why multiple readers, like Coetzee, consider Derridean deconstruction a philosophical mirror of Beckett's literary achievements.

Focusing on their conception and use of the notion of the mother, Modernism, Self-Creation, and the Maternal proposes a new interpretation of literature by modernist authors like Rousseau, Baudelaire, Poe, Rimbaud, Rilke, Joyce, and Beckett. Seen through this maternal relation, their writing appears as the product of an "anxiety" rising not from paternal influence, but from the violence done to their mother in their attempts at self-creation through writing. In order to bring to light this modernist violence, this study analyzes these authors in tandem with Derrida’s work on the gender-specific violence of the Western philosophical and literary tradition. The book demonstrates how these writer-sons wrote their works in a constant crisis vis-à-vis the mother’s body as site of both origin and dissolution. It proves how, if modernism was first established as a patrilineal heritage, it was ultimately written on the bodies of women and mothers, confusing them in order to appropriate their generative traits.

The essays collected in Tattooed Bodies draw on a range of theoretical paradigms and empirical knowledge to investigate tattoos, tattooing, and our complex relations with marks on skin.

The essays collected in Tattooed Bodies draw on a range of theoretical paradigms and empirical knowledge to investigate tattoos, tattooing, and our complex relations with marks on skin.

The most current multidisciplinary and multivocal engagement with Sade’s enduring influences on modernism and the philosophical need for continued analysis of his work and the questions it raises.From Lacan to Dalí, through Simone de Beauvoir, Beckett, Horkheimer, Burroughs, Pasolini, Foucault, Deleuze, up to Žižek, the Marquis de Sade’s influence and impact on modernism and modern thinking is hard to measure. Understanding Sade, Understanding Modernism presents its readers with a chance to reflect on the importance of this radical oeuvre from different perspectives. Contributors examine Sadean literature and thought through some of its main texts (including 120 Days of Sodom, History of Juliette, The Crimes of Love, and Philosophy in the Boudoir) in a series of comparative essays that not only examine Sade’s influence in French, European, and American thought, but also critique it in the context of some of modern philosophy’s most relevant subjects: ecology, nature, universalism, and the links between ethics and aesthetics.The final section identifies key concepts and notions within Sade's corpus in a series of entries offering context and a discussion of their relevance for current thought.

The most current multidisciplinary and multivocal engagement with Sade’s enduring influences on modernism and the philosophical need for continued analysis of his work and the questions it raises.From Lacan to Dalí, through Simone de Beauvoir, Beckett, Horkheimer, Burroughs, Pasolini, Foucault, Deleuze, up to Žižek, the Marquis de Sade’s influence and impact on modernism and modern thinking is hard to measure. Understanding Sade, Understanding Modernism presents its readers with a chance to reflect on the importance of this radical oeuvre from different perspectives. Contributors examine Sadean literature and thought through some of its main texts (including 120 Days of Sodom, History of Juliette, The Crimes of Love, and Philosophy in the Boudoir) in a series of comparative essays that not only examine Sade’s influence in French, European, and American thought, but also critique it in the context of some of modern philosophy’s most relevant subjects: ecology, nature, universalism, and the links between ethics and aesthetics.The final section identifies key concepts and notions within Sade's corpus in a series of entries offering context and a discussion of their relevance for current thought.

New analyses on the insightful ways in which Beckett’s work actively engages with contested notions of Nature and the natural, developing a radical version of modernism’s main questions and insights. Beckett and Nature takes its cue from contemporary developments in Beckett scholarship focused on ecocriticism, posthumanism, and the Anthropocene, going beyond them into a questioning of the very concepts of “Nature” and “the natural.” It examines one of the most unthought ontological dimensions of literature and life: that symbolic space, deemed natural or part of Nature, appears necessary and undeniable and, therefore, impossible to be deconstructed. In doing so, the authors show that, in fact, this space takes on many shapes, recognizing three “natural” dimensions criticized by Beckett: bodies, worlds, and literatures.Featuring a wide range of both Beckett's work and Beckett scholars – including Jean-Michel Rabaté and Stanley E. Gontarski – Beckett and Nature offers contextualized readings of the understandings of nature and the natural throughout his decade-spanning œuvre. The volume shows that part of the radicality of Beckett’s writing is that – through a variety of evolving techniques and strategies – it questions what appears in our cultures as the most unquestionable and opens up possibilities for thinking not only what is human, literature, and philosophy, but also gender, identity, and any attempt at definitions of ourselves or the world at large.