Peter Mahon – författare

How is meaning in one text shaped by another? Does intertextuality consist of more than simple references by one text to another? In Imagining Joyce and Derrida, Peter Mahon explores these questions through a comparative study of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake and the deconstructive texts of Jacques Derrida, with a particular emphasis on Glas.Mahon's reading of these works insists on thinking through Derrida's 'Hegelian' manner of understanding Joyce. Using key texts of Vico, Kant, and Heidegger, Mahon develops a theoretical framework that allows him to theorize and re-conceptualize the intertextuality between Joyce and Derrida in terms of the imagination. In order to test the flexibility of this imaginative framework, Mahon applies it to a sustained comparison of Finnegans Wake and Derrida's under-appreciated masterwork, Glas. In so doing, Mahon reconfigures and expands the intertextual terrain between Joyce and Derrida beyond a simple catalogue of those instances where Derrida cites Joyce. Engaging and innovative, this erudite study makes an important contribution to literary critical theory.

James Joyce's work has, not unjustly, been regarded as some of the most obscure, challenging and difficult writing ever committed to paper; it is also shamelessly funny and endlessly entertaining. Joyce: A Guide for the Perplexed celebrates the daring, humour and playfulness of Joyce's complex work while engaging with and elucidating the most demanding aspects of his writing. The book explores in detail the motifs and radical innovations of style and technique that characterize his major worksGAao Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. By highlighting how Joyce's texts have been read by recent innovations in literary and cultural theory, Joyce: A Guide for the Perplexed offers the reader a Joyce that is contemporary, fresh and relevant.

Focusing on the most commonly studied texts, it guides the reader through Joyce's stylistic and thematic complexity and through differing theoretical interpretations of his work. James Joyce's work has, not unjustly, been regarded as some of the most obscure, challenging and difficult writing ever committed to paper; it is also shamelessly funny and endlessly entertaining. "Joyce: A Guide for the Perplexed" celebrates the daring, humor and playfulness of Joyce's complex work while engaging with and elucidating the most demanding aspects of his writing. The book explores in detail the motifs and radical innovations of style and technique that characterize his major works - "Dubliners", "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", "Ulysses", and "Finnegans Wake". By highlighting how Joyce's texts have been read by recent innovations in literary and cultural theory, "Joyce: A Guide for the Perplexed" offers the reader a Joyce that is contemporary, fresh and relevant. Continuum's "Guides for the Perplexed" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging - or indeed downright bewildering.Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to grasp, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material.

In Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Peter Mahon goes beyond recent theoretical approaches to 'the posthuman' to argue for a concrete posthumanism, which arises as humans, animals and technology become entangled, in science, society and culture. Concrete posthumanism is rooted in cutting-edge advances in techno-science, and this book offers readers an exciting, fresh and innovative exploration of this undulating, and often unstable, terrain. With wide-ranging coverage, of cybernetics, information theory, medicine, genetics, machine learning, politics, science fiction, philosophy and futurology, Mahon examines how posthumanism played-and continues to play-a crucial role in shaping how we understand our world. This analysis of posthumanism centers on human interactions with tools and technology, the centrality of science, as well as an understanding of techno-science as a pharmakon-an ancient Greek word for a substance that is both poison and cure. Mahon argues that posthumanism must be approached with an interdisciplinary attitude: a concrete posthumanism is only graspable through knowledge derived from science and the humanities. He concludes by sketching a 'post-humanities' to help us meet the challenges of posthumanism, challenges to which we all must rise.Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed provides a concise, detailed and coherent exploration of posthumanism, introducing key approaches, concepts and themes. It is ideal for readers of all stripes who are interested in a concrete posthumanism and require more than just a simple introduction.