Martin McQuillan – författare

This collection of essays thinks through deconstruction's relation to politics by explicating the text of Derrida in relation to political examples. Neither 'deconstruction' nor 'reading' nor 'politics' is left untouched in the encounters explored in this volume, dispelling the notion of a separation of deconstruction from the everyday.

This volume is an attempt to engage the writing of Muriel Spark in a sustained theoretical reading. It has a particular emphasis on gender, psychoanalysis, postcolonial and deconstructive reading strategies. Drawing together a range of significant names in the field of contemporary literature and critical theory (including Judith Roof, Susan Sellers, Bryan Cheyette, Patricia Duncker, Nicholas Royle, Willy Maley, Julian Wolfreys, and Helene Cixous) this collection of essays deals with the full range of Spark's literary output. It concludes with a new interview with Muriel Spark.

Roland Barthes was one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, but why should the reader of today, or tomorrow, be concerned with him? Martin McQuillan provides a fresh perspective on Barthes, addressing his political and institutional inheritance and considering his work as the origins of a critical cultural studies.This stimulating study:- Provides a biographical consideration of Barthes' writing- Offers an extended reading of his 1957 text Mythologies as a text for our own time, drawing Barthes' work into a historical relation to the present- Examines his connection to what we call cultural studies- Features an annotated bibliography of Barthes' published workThought-provoking and insightful, Roland Barthes is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the writings of this key theorist and his continuing relevance in our post-9/11 world.

Roland Barthes was one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, but why should the reader of today, or tomorrow, be concerned with him? Martin McQuillan provides a fresh perspective on Barthes, addressing his political and institutional inheritance and considering his work as the origins of a critical cultural studies.This stimulating study:- Provides a biographical consideration of Barthes' writing- Offers an extended reading of his 1957 text Mythologies as a text for our own time, drawing Barthes' work into a historical relation to the present- Examines his connection to what we call cultural studies- Features an annotated bibliography of Barthes' published workThought-provoking and insightful, Roland Barthes is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the writings of this key theorist and his continuing relevance in our post-9/11 world.

The Narrative Reader aims to provide a comprehensive survey of narrative theories ranging from Plato to Post-Structuralism. The selection of texts is bold and broad, demonstrating the extent to which narrative permeates the entire field of literature and culture. It shows the ways in which narrative crosses disciplines, continents and theoretical perspectives and is a long overdue and welcome addition to the field. The Narrative Reader will fascinate students and researchers alike, providing a much needed point of entry to the increasingly complex field of narrative theory.

The Narrative Reader aims to provide a comprehensive survey of narrative theories ranging from Plato to Post-Structuralism. The selection of texts is bold and broad, demonstrating the extent to which narrative permeates the entire field of literature and culture. It shows the ways in which narrative crosses disciplines, continents and theoretical perspectives and is a long overdue and welcome addition to the field. The Narrative Reader will fascinate students and researchers alike, providing a much needed point of entry to the increasingly complex field of narrative theory.

In this book Martin McQuillan brings Derrida's writing into the immediate vicinity of geo-politics today, from the Kosovan conflict to the war in Iraq. The chapters in this book follow both Derrida's writing since Specters of Marx and the present political scene through the former Yogoslavia and Afghanistan to Palestine and Baghdad. His 'textual activism' is as impatient with the universal gestures of philosophy as it is with the complacency and reductionism of policy-makers and activists alike. This work records a response to the war on thinking that has marked western discourse since 9/11.

In this book Martin McQuillan brings Derrida's writing into the immediate vicinity of geo-politics today, from the Kosovan conflict to the war in Iraq. The chapters in this book follow both Derrida's writing since Specters of Marx and the present political scene through the former Yogoslavia and Afghanistan to Palestine and Baghdad. His 'textual activism' is as impatient with the universal gestures of philosophy as it is with the complacency and reductionism of policy-makers and activists alike. This work records a response to the war on thinking that has marked western discourse since 9/11.

Demonising Disney is nothing new. Disney films have long been synonymous with a certain conservative, patriarchal, heterosexual ideology, occupying a centre-stage position at the heart of the evil empire. Deconstructing Disney takes issue with knee-jerk polarities, overturning classical oppositions and recognising that, just as the Disney 'text' has changed, so too must the terms of critical engagement. This book is a sharply focused deconstruction of the political culture - and the cultural politics - of the Disney canon in the years since the emergence of the so-called New World Order. Eleanor Byrne and Martin McQuillan offer a critical encounter with Disney which alternates between readings of individual texts and wider thematic concerns such as race, gender and sexuality, the broader context of American contemporary culture, and the global ambitions and insularity of the last great superpower. The movies discussed include The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Pocohontas, Snow White, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Dumbo, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, Hercules and Mulan.

'In this fine collection a group of distinguished scholars have produced the best book so far about Derrida's politics of the future.'J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Research Professor, University of California at IrvineJacques Derrida has had a huge influence on contemporary political theory and political philosophy. Derrida's thinking has inspired Slavoj Zizek, Richard Rorty, Ernesto Laclau, Judith Butler and many more contemporary theorists. This book brings together a first class line up of Derrida scholars to develop a deconstructive approach to politics.Deconstruction examines the internal logic of any given text or discourse. It helps us analyse the contradictions inherent in all schools of thought, and as such it has proved revolutionary in political analysis, particularly ideology critique.This book is ideal for all students of political theory, and anyone looking for an accessible guide to Derrida's thinking and how it can be used as a radical tool for political analysis.

Post-Theory brings together some of the most prominent figures and rising stars in the field of Critical Theory. Essays consider such issues as: the current state of Critical Theory; the type of work Theory has made possible; and the future of theory. Opening with a Preface by Ernesto Laclau, the book closes with a 'Post-Word' from Helene Cixous. This volume of new work features examples of new theoretical possibilities. Contributors include: Catherine Besley, Geoffrey Bennington, Hélène Cixous, Patricia Duncker, Lorna Hutson, Ernesto Laclau, Julian Murphet, Christopher Norris, Nicholas Royle, Robert Smith and Eric Woehrling.Key Features* Ground-breaking collection of opinion-changing work* Timely and topical intervention into Critical Theory* Wide range of approaches and examples of theoretical possibilities* Contributors include huge names in the field, such as Catherine Besley, Geoffrey Bennington, Hélène Cixous, Patricia Duncker, Lorna Hutson, Ernesto Laclau, Julian Murphet, Christopher Norris, Nicholas Royle, Robert Smith and Eric Woehrling

This is not a Derrida Reader. It is the first volume to offer a selection of texts from the field of deconstruction in all its radical diversity. The collection examines the fortunes of the term deconstruction, and the ideas associated with it, in the work of the leading commentators on Derrida's texts. It includes previously untranslated, newly translated and uncollected work by Derrida and others.Deconstruction: A Reader begins with examples of pre-Derridean deconstruction, then divides into sections covering philosophy, literature, culture, sexual difference, psychoanalysis, politics, ethics, and memorial texts and interviews by Derrida. It covers a broad range of topics including: AIDS, architecture, art, feminism, ghosts, law, Marxism, postmodernism, race, revolution, Shakespeare, technology, telepathy and theology.This is an indispensable anthology and a guide both to the history of deconstruction and to its current scene. It provides a significant introduction to the challenge of deconstruction.Features* The first anthology devoted to deconstruction* Broad thematic and interdisciplinary coverage* The introductory essay provides a cogent and sustained set of definitions of deconstruction* Includes previously untranslated, newly translated and uncollected work by Derrida and others* Provides a comprehensive introduction to the field

A collection of critical texts from Paul de Man's Harvard University years, published for the first timeThese essays, brought together from the Paul de Man papers at the University of California (Irvine), make a significant contribution to the cultural history of deconstruction and the present state of literary theory. From 1955 to 1961, Paul de Man was Junior Fellow at Harvard University where he wrote a doctoral thesis entitled 'The Post-Romantic Predicament: a study in the poetry of Mallarmé and Yeats'. This dissertation is presented alongside his other texts from this period, including essays on Hölderlin, Keats and Stefan George. This collection reflects familiar concerns for de Man: the figurative dimension of language, the borders between philosophy and literature, the ideological obfuscations of Romanticism, and the difficulties of the North American heritage of New Criticism.Key Features: • The first collection of texts by Paul de Man published since the posthumous Aesthetic Ideology (1997)• The missing link in the published de Man corpus• With an introduction by Martin McQullian, a leading de Man scholar

Spanning sixteen years, these letters chart a profound intellectual friendship at the heart of deconstruction, traversing philosophy, literature and the institutional life of theory from Yale to Paris. The exchange offers new insights into the private and professional worlds of Derrida and de Man as they navigate their writing, teaching and the intellectual crises of their era. Previously unseen material redefines our understanding of the Derrida-de Man relationship and illuminates the development of late-twentieth-century critical theory at its pivotal moment. Transcribed and translated with scholarly apparatus and a substantial contextual introduction, this volume is essential for understanding the evolution of modern thought and the ethics of reading and friendship.

The future of deconstruction lies in the ability of its practitioners to mobilise the tropes and interests of Derrida's texts into new spaces and creative readings. In Deconstruction without Derrida, Martin McQuillan sets out to do just that, to continue the task of deconstructive reading both with and without Derrida. The book's principal theme is an attention to instances of deconstruction other than or beyond Derrida and thus imagining a future for deconstruction after Derrida. This future is both the present of deconstruction and its past. The readings presented in this book address the expanded field of deconstruction in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, Helene Cixous, Paul de Man, Harold Bloom, J. Hillis Miller, Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak and Catherine Malabou. They also, necessarily, address Derrida's own readings of this work. McQuillan accounts for an experience of otherness in deconstruction that is, has been and always will be beyond Derrida, just as deconstruction remains forever tied to Derrida by an invisible, indestructible thread.

Sir Salman Rushdie is perhaps the most significant living novelist in English. His second novel, Midnight’s Children, is regularly cited as the ‘Booker of Bookers’ and its impact is still being felt throughout in world literature. His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, led to the ‘Rushdie Affair’ certainly the most significant literary-political event since the Second World War. Rushdie has continued to produce challenging fiction, controversial, thought-provoking non-fiction and has a presence on the world stage as a public intellectual. This collection brings together leading scholars to provide an up-to-date critical guide to Rushdie’s writing from his earliest works up to the most recent, including his 2012 memoir of his time in hiding, Joseph Anton. Contributors offer new perspectives on key issues, including: Rushdie as a postcolonial writer; Rushdie as a postmodernist; his use and reuse of the canon; the ‘Rushdie Affair’; his responses to 9/11 and to the ‘War on Terror’; and issues of more complex philosophical weight arising from his fiction.

Sir Salman Rushdie is perhaps the most significant living novelist in English. His second novel, Midnight’s Children, is regularly cited as the ‘Booker of Bookers’ and its impact is still being felt throughout in world literature. His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, led to the ‘Rushdie Affair’ certainly the most significant literary-political event since the Second World War. Rushdie has continued to produce challenging fiction, controversial, thought-provoking non-fiction and has a presence on the world stage as a public intellectual. This collection brings together leading scholars to provide an up-to-date critical guide to Rushdie’s writing from his earliest works up to the most recent, including his 2012 memoir of his time in hiding, Joseph Anton. Contributors offer new perspectives on key issues, including: Rushdie as a postcolonial writer; Rushdie as a postmodernist; his use and reuse of the canon; the ‘Rushdie Affair’; his responses to 9/11 and to the ‘War on Terror’; and issues of more complex philosophical weight arising from his fiction.

The future of deconstruction lies in the ability of its practitioners to mobilise the tropes and interests of Derrida's texts into new spaces and creative readings. In Deconstruction without Derrida, Martin McQuillan sets out to do just that, to continue the task of deconstructive reading both with and without Derrida.The book's principal theme is an attention to instances of deconstruction other than or beyond Derrida and thus imagining a future for deconstruction after Derrida. This future is both the present of deconstruction and its past. The readings presented in this book address the expanded field of deconstruction in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, Helene Cixous, Paul de Man, Harold Bloom, J. Hillis Miller, Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak and Catherine Malabou. They also, necessarily, address Derrida's own readings of this work. McQuillan accounts for an experience of otherness in deconstruction that is, has been and always will be beyond Derrida, just as deconstruction remains forever tied to Derrida by an invisible, indestructible thread.

One of Derrida’s most complex, intriguing and challenging texts, Glas is a work of resounding importance for literature, for philosophy, for literature, and for the relationship between the two. This collection of essays, featuring leading scholars in the field, seeks to trace its resonance four decades after its publication. A number of interconnected problems and themes will be examined, including Derrida’s deconstruction of the Hegelian interpretation of Antigone, the philosophy and politics of familial and civil life, questions of sexual difference and dissidence, the question of the signature, the complex role played by figuration and language, and the continuing relevance of Glas today. While some of the essays undertake rigorous close readings of the text, at the same time as tracing the limits of such reading as they are indeed anticipated by Glas itself, others take this work as the occasion to explore its reverberations in other writings and in a host of topics and problems germane not only to literary and philosophical studies, but to cultural and political worlds far beyond the confines of academia.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. What is the relationship between theory and practice in the creative arts today? In Critical Practice, Martin McQuillan offers a critical interrogation of the idea of practice-led research. He goes beyond the recent vocabulary of research management to consider the more interesting question of the emergence of a cultural space in which philosophy, theory, history and practice are becoming indistinguishable. McQuillan considers the work of a number of writers and thinkers who cross the divide between theoretical and creative practice, including Alain Badiou and Terry Eagleton, and the longer tradition of 'theory-writing' that runs through the work of Hélène Cixous, Roland Barthes and Louis Althusser. His aim is to elucidate the contemporary ramifications of a relationship that has been contested throughout the long history of philosophy, from Plato's dialogues to Derrida's 'Envois'.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. What is the relationship between theory and practice in the creative arts today? In Critical Practice, Martin McQuillan offers a critical interrogation of the idea of practice-led research. He goes beyond the recent vocabulary of research management to consider the more interesting question of the emergence of a cultural space in which philosophy, theory, history and practice are becoming indistinguishable. McQuillan considers the work of a number of writers and thinkers who cross the divide between theoretical and creative practice, including Alain Badiou and Terry Eagleton, and the longer tradition of 'theory-writing' that runs through the work of Hélène Cixous, Roland Barthes and Louis Althusser. His aim is to elucidate the contemporary ramifications of a relationship that has been contested throughout the long history of philosophy, from Plato's dialogues to Derrida's 'Envois'.

Love in the Post (2013) is inspired by Jacques Derrida’s book The Post Card. Like the book, the film plays with fact and fiction, weaving together the stories of a scholar of literature and a film director, alongside insights from critics and philosophers. Theo Marks works in a university department that is soon to be closed. His wife Sophie, enigmatic and distant, is in analysis. Filmmaker Joanna struggles to make a film about The Post Card. These people are set on a collision course prompted by a series of letters that will change their lives. The film features a never before seen interview with Derrida, alongside contributions from Geoffrey Bennington, Ellen Burt, Catherin Malabou, J. Hillis Miller and Samuel Weber.Alongside the original screenplay, Martin McQuillan provides an extended commentary on Derrida’s original text, the film and its making. Joanna Callaghan reflects on her practice as a filmmaker and her engagement with philosophy as a director. The volume concludes with interviews between McQuillan and five leading Derrida scholars.

Love in the Post (2013) is inspired by Jacques Derrida’s book The Post Card. Like the book, the film plays with fact and fiction, weaving together the stories of a scholar of literature and a film director, alongside insights from critics and philosophers. Theo Marks works in a university department that is soon to be closed. His wife Sophie, enigmatic and distant, is in analysis. Filmmaker Joanna struggles to make a film about The Post Card. These people are set on a collision course prompted by a series of letters that will change their lives. The film features a never before seen interview with Derrida, alongside contributions from Geoffrey Bennington, Ellen Burt, Catherin Malabou, J. Hillis Miller and Samuel Weber.Alongside the original screenplay, Martin McQuillan provides an extended commentary on Derrida’s original text, the film and its making. Joanna Callaghan reflects on her practice as a filmmaker and her engagement with philosophy as a director. The volume concludes with interviews between McQuillan and five leading Derrida scholars.

Oxi (Gr. Determiner, lit. ‘No’, fig. ‘Resistance’, pronounced ‘ochi’) retells Sophocles’ Antigone through the contemporary Greek crisis and modern European philosophy. A collaboration between the renowned British auteur Ken McMullen and the literary theorist Martin McQuillan, the film draws upon and responds to the importance of the Antigone of modern thought (Hegel, Arendt, Lacan, Derrida, Butler), while coming up close to the politics of the street and the malign effects of the austerity experiment in Greece today. The screenplay weaves together a range of idioms, including performance, fiction, documentary, interview and literary collage. The result is an intensely moving reflection on the tragedy of austerity today, with contributions from Hélène Cixous, Etienne Balibar and Antonio Negri, as well as several significant figures in Greek cultural life. The volume includes full transcripts of the interviews with Cixous, Balibar and Negri, and a previously unpublished interview with Jacques Derrida on the question of Oedipus, as well as critical commentary from the filmmakers.

Oxi (Gr. Determiner, lit. ‘No’, fig. ‘Resistance’, pronounced ‘ochi’) retells Sophocles’ Antigone through the contemporary Greek crisis and modern European philosophy. A collaboration between the renowned British auteur Ken McMullen and the literary theorist Martin McQuillan, the film draws upon and responds to the importance of the Antigone of modern thought (Hegel, Arendt, Lacan, Derrida, Butler), while coming up close to the politics of the street and the malign effects of the austerity experiment in Greece today. The screenplay weaves together a range of idioms, including performance, fiction, documentary, interview and literary collage. The result is an intensely moving reflection on the tragedy of austerity today, with contributions from Hélène Cixous, Etienne Balibar and Antonio Negri, as well as several significant figures in Greek cultural life. The volume includes full transcripts of the interviews with Cixous, Balibar and Negri, and a previously unpublished interview with Jacques Derrida on the question of Oedipus, as well as critical commentary from the filmmakers.

Presents Paul de Man’s thinking to a contemporary politicised audience through original archival researchTaking de Man’s recently published manuscript Textual Allegories as a point of departure, 13 experts revisit de Man’s account of Rousseau in a ‘post-theoretical’ landscape concerned with political theology, occupied with the transformation of the western model of sovereignty, and faced with the apparent collapse of the capitalist global contract. The volume is framed by an introduction by Martin McQuillan and concludes with an original and previously unpublished text by Paul de Man on Nietzsche.Key Features:Presents the first published responses to a recently published de Man manuscriptRelates de Man’s work to key topics in contemporary TheoryOutstanding list of contributors including Etienne Balibar, Ellen Burt, Stephen Barker, Andrzej Warminski, Tom Cohen and J. Hillis MillerFirst publication of a Paul de Man text on Nietzsche