SUNY series, Literature...in Theory – serie

Examines literary responses to the impact of economic and technological globalization in Latin America.Literature and "Interregnum" examines the unraveling of the political forms of modernity through readings of end-of-millennium literary texts by César Aira, Marcelo Cohen, Sergio Chejfec, Diamela Eltit, and Roberto Bolaño. The opening of national spaces to the global capitalist system in the 1980s culminates in the suspension of key principles of modernity, most notably that of political sovereignty. While the neoliberal model subjugates modern forms of social organization and political decision making to an economic rationale, the market is unable to provide a new ordering principle that could fill the empty place formerly occupied by the national figure of the sovereign. The result is a situation that resembles what the Italian political philosopher Antonio Gramsci termed "interregnum," an in-between time in which "the old [order] is dying and the new cannot be born." The recoding of history as literary form provides occasions for reconsidering modern conceptualizations of aesthetic experience, mood, temporality, thought, politics, ethical experience, as well as of literature itself as social institution. In his analysis, Patrick Dove seeks to create dialogues between literature and theoretical perspectives, including Continental philosophy, political thought, psychoanalysis, and sociology of globalization. The author highlights the connections between mass media, technology, politics, and economics.

Examines literary responses to the impact of economic and technological globalization in Latin America.Literature and "Interregnum" examines the unraveling of the political forms of modernity through readings of end-of-millennium literary texts by César Aira, Marcelo Cohen, Sergio Chejfec, Diamela Eltit, and Roberto Bolaño. The opening of national spaces to the global capitalist system in the 1980s culminates in the suspension of key principles of modernity, most notably that of political sovereignty. While the neoliberal model subjugates modern forms of social organization and political decision making to an economic rationale, the market is unable to provide a new ordering principle that could fill the empty place formerly occupied by the national figure of the sovereign. The result is a situation that resembles what the Italian political philosopher Antonio Gramsci termed "interregnum," an in-between time in which "the old [order] is dying and the new cannot be born." The recoding of history as literary form provides occasions for reconsidering modern conceptualizations of aesthetic experience, mood, temporality, thought, politics, ethical experience, as well as of literature itself as social institution. In his analysis, Patrick Dove seeks to create dialogues between literature and theoretical perspectives, including Continental philosophy, political thought, psychoanalysis, and sociology of globalization. The author highlights the connections between mass media, technology, politics, and economics.

First sustained critical reading of Lacoue-Labarthe's Phrase, which provides insights into a philosophically inspired work of prose poetry.This book presents an interpretation of a volume of poetry and theoretical reflections (Phrase) by the late Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, who is widely known as one of the major contributors to thinking about the relation between philosophy and literature in the continental tradition. His work has shaped the deconstructive approach to the question of the subject and has opened important paths of research relating to the topic of literary mimesis. Along with Jean-Luc Nancy, he made very important contributions in the areas of romantic literary theory and psychoanalytic theory.Christopher Fynsk's analysis of Phrase focuses principally on two of its key motifs. Fynsk first deals with the theme of infancy and draws forth the deep relation to Blanchot that is revealed in this text. The second motif which organizes the narrative of the autobiographical component of Phrase (which Lacoue-Labarthe entitles "a history of renunciation") names the condition of modern poetic speech. Thus, Fynsk interprets the history of renunciation and elucidates the meaning of what Lacoue-Labarthe terms "literature."

First sustained critical reading of Lacoue-Labarthe's Phrase, which provides insights into a philosophically inspired work of prose poetry.This book presents an interpretation of a volume of poetry and theoretical reflections (Phrase) by the late Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, who is widely known as one of the major contributors to thinking about the relation between philosophy and literature in the continental tradition. His work has shaped the deconstructive approach to the question of the subject and has opened important paths of research relating to the topic of literary mimesis. Along with Jean-Luc Nancy, he made very important contributions in the areas of romantic literary theory and psychoanalytic theory.Christopher Fynsk's analysis of Phrase focuses principally on two of its key motifs. Fynsk first deals with the theme of infancy and draws forth the deep relation to Blanchot that is revealed in this text. The second motif which organizes the narrative of the autobiographical component of Phrase (which Lacoue-Labarthe entitles "a history of renunciation") names the condition of modern poetic speech. Thus, Fynsk interprets the history of renunciation and elucidates the meaning of what Lacoue-Labarthe terms "literature."

Explores issues related to race and religion in Lovecraft criticism.Today, H. P. Lovecraft is both more popular and controversial than ever: the influence of his "Cthulhu mythos" is everywhere in popular culture, his cosmic pessimism has reemerged as a major theme in contemporary philosophy, and his racism continues to spark controversy in the media. The Love of Ruins takes a fresh look at a figure widely acknowledged as the father of modern horror or "weird" fiction. In these pages, Lovecraft emerges not as the atheist and nihilist he is often claimed to be, but as a kind of "psychonaut" and mystic whose stories, through their own imaginative rigor, expose the intellectual bankruptcy of their author's racism. The Love of Ruins is itself written in the form of letters, in order to do homage to Lovecraft's love of the form of the personal letter (he wrote more than 100,000), and to emulate Lovecraft's lifetime practice of thinking-as-corresponding.

Explores issues related to race and religion in Lovecraft criticism.Today, H. P. Lovecraft is both more popular and controversial than ever: the influence of his "Cthulhu mythos" is everywhere in popular culture, his cosmic pessimism has reemerged as a major theme in contemporary philosophy, and his racism continues to spark controversy in the media. The Love of Ruins takes a fresh look at a figure widely acknowledged as the father of modern horror or "weird" fiction. In these pages, Lovecraft emerges not as the atheist and nihilist he is often claimed to be, but as a kind of "psychonaut" and mystic whose stories, through their own imaginative rigor, expose the intellectual bankruptcy of their author's racism. The Love of Ruins is itself written in the form of letters, in order to do homage to Lovecraft's love of the form of the personal letter (he wrote more than 100,000), and to emulate Lovecraft's lifetime practice of thinking-as-corresponding.

Provides an innovative and theoretically rigorous approach to the subject of testimony in Latin America.This book rethinks the nature of testimony beyond the ground of the human in works produced in Chile and Argentina from the 1970s to the present. Focusing on literature by Juan Gelman, Sergio Chejfec, and Roberto Bolaño, as well as art by Eugenio Dittborn, Kate Jenckes argues that these works represent life, death, and the relation between self and other "beyond the human," that is beyond the sense that we can know and represent ourselves and others, with powerful implications for our understanding of history, community, and politics. Jenckes engages with the work of Jacques Derrida together with the intellectually rigorous field of Chilean aesthetic theory to explore issues related to the nature of testimony.

Provides an innovative and theoretically rigorous approach to the subject of testimony in Latin America.This book rethinks the nature of testimony beyond the ground of the human in works produced in Chile and Argentina from the 1970s to the present. Focusing on literature by Juan Gelman, Sergio Chejfec, and Roberto Bolaño, as well as art by Eugenio Dittborn, Kate Jenckes argues that these works represent life, death, and the relation between self and other "beyond the human," that is beyond the sense that we can know and represent ourselves and others, with powerful implications for our understanding of history, community, and politics. Jenckes engages with the work of Jacques Derrida together with the intellectually rigorous field of Chilean aesthetic theory to explore issues related to the nature of testimony.

Focuses on how nuances of poetic form alter how we have come to understand cultural aspects of time.Figures of Time proposes radically new ideas about the very poetic ground of culture. Presenting unique close readings of six modern poets-Wallace Stevens, W. B. Yeats, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, and T. S. Eliot-David Ben-Merre brings recent theoretical questions about the rhetoric of modernism and poetic figuration into current discussions in critical theory. He argues that poetic spaces, often disjunctions of sound and sense, disrupt our culturally inherited notions of time, reimagining with an often irrational and anachronistic backward glance what we take to be historical chronologies, psychological perceptions of time, and collective scripts about causality.

Focuses on how nuances of poetic form alter how we have come to understand cultural aspects of time.Figures of Time proposes radically new ideas about the very poetic ground of culture. Presenting unique close readings of six modern poets-Wallace Stevens, W. B. Yeats, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, and T. S. Eliot-David Ben-Merre brings recent theoretical questions about the rhetoric of modernism and poetic figuration into current discussions in critical theory. He argues that poetic spaces, often disjunctions of sound and sense, disrupt our culturally inherited notions of time, reimagining with an often irrational and anachronistic backward glance what we take to be historical chronologies, psychological perceptions of time, and collective scripts about causality.

Reconsiders mostly German narratives from around 1800 to recover echoes of a queer messianic that still resonate today.Queer theory has focused heavily on North American and contemporary contexts, but in this book Richard O. Block helps to expand that reach. Deftly combining the two main currents of recent queer theory, the asocial and the reparative, he reconsiders mostly German narratives from around 1800, while relating his findings to recent texts such as A Lover's Discourse and Brokeback Mountain. He offers novel readings of well-known texts by Shelley, Kleist, and Goethe, arguing that this early writing serves as a creative font for much of the subsequent work in sexology. These texts also provide echoes of a kind of love overlooked or suppressed in favor of a politics of appeasement or one intended to make queers model citizens. This book charts the unexplored possibilities for queer love in an attempt to map a future for gay politics in the age of homonormativity.

Reconsiders mostly German narratives from around 1800 to recover echoes of a queer messianic that still resonate today.Queer theory has focused heavily on North American and contemporary contexts, but in this book Richard O. Block helps to expand that reach. Deftly combining the two main currents of recent queer theory, the asocial and the reparative, he reconsiders mostly German narratives from around 1800, while relating his findings to recent texts such as A Lover's Discourse and Brokeback Mountain. He offers novel readings of well-known texts by Shelley, Kleist, and Goethe, arguing that this early writing serves as a creative font for much of the subsequent work in sexology. These texts also provide echoes of a kind of love overlooked or suppressed in favor of a politics of appeasement or one intended to make queers model citizens. This book charts the unexplored possibilities for queer love in an attempt to map a future for gay politics in the age of homonormativity.

Explores how violence structures language and the writing of literature and philosophy.Within the violence our societies must confront today exists a dimension proper to language. Anyone who has been through the educational system, for example, recognizes how language not only shapes and models us, but also imposes itself upon us. During the twentieth century, this system revealed how language can condemn one to a certain death. In The Vocation of Writing, philosopher Marc Crépon explores this dimension of language, convinced that the node of all violence pertains first to language and how we make use of it. Crépon focuses on Kafka, Levinas, Singer, and Derrida, not only because each rose against commandeering language in order to warn against the next massacres, but also because their work affirms the vocation of writing-that which makes literature and philosophy the final weapon for unmasking the violence and hatred that language bears at its heart. To affirm the vocation of writing is to turn language against itself, to defuse its murderous potentialities by opening it toward exchange, responsibility, and humanity when the latter fixes the other and the world as its goals.

Explores how violence structures language and the writing of literature and philosophy.Within the violence our societies must confront today exists a dimension proper to language. Anyone who has been through the educational system, for example, recognizes how language not only shapes and models us, but also imposes itself upon us. During the twentieth century, this system revealed how language can condemn one to a certain death. In The Vocation of Writing, philosopher Marc Crépon explores this dimension of language, convinced that the node of all violence pertains first to language and how we make use of it. Crépon focuses on Kafka, Levinas, Singer, and Derrida, not only because each rose against commandeering language in order to warn against the next massacres, but also because their work affirms the vocation of writing-that which makes literature and philosophy the final weapon for unmasking the violence and hatred that language bears at its heart. To affirm the vocation of writing is to turn language against itself, to defuse its murderous potentialities by opening it toward exchange, responsibility, and humanity when the latter fixes the other and the world as its goals.

The first complete English translation of Lacoue-Labarthe's most innovative and original work, exploring the very origins of experience, language, desire, and mortality.Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1940–2007) is widely acknowledged in his native France and in the English-speaking world as one of the most important philosophers of his generation and an exceptionally rigorous reader of Heidegger, Hölderlin, Benjamin, Blanchot, and Celan. An astute thinker of the political and a far-reaching and decisive analyst of the place of theater and music in Western metaphysics, Lacoue-Labarthe also had another, clandestine passion for something called "poetry" or "literature," though he would remain deeply suspicious of these words. Phrase is his most original work, a sequence of texts both autobiographical and philosophical, written in lucid prose and in free verse over a period of more than twenty-five years.Published here in its entirety for the first time in English, Phrase is a profoundly moving meditation on the relationship between love and mortality, language and embodiment, writing and inspiration, memory and hope, loss and recompense, and music and silence. At its heart is a probing awareness of the mysterious gift of language itself, and of the perpetually elusive yet obsessive "phrase" that informs all human existence and provides the book with its lapidary title and distinctive signature. This translation also includes a postface by Jean-Christophe Bailly, one of Lacoue-Labarthe's most long-standing friends and interlocutors, and incorporates a number of translator's notes that will facilitate access to Lacoue-Labarthe's sometimes allusive writing. There is no better introduction to Lacoue-Labarthe's thought than Phrase, and no more compelling proof of the enduring significance of his thinking than this uniquely powerful text.

The first complete English translation of Lacoue-Labarthe's most innovative and original work, exploring the very origins of experience, language, desire, and mortality.Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1940–2007) is widely acknowledged in his native France and in the English-speaking world as one of the most important philosophers of his generation and an exceptionally rigorous reader of Heidegger, Hölderlin, Benjamin, Blanchot, and Celan. An astute thinker of the political and a far-reaching and decisive analyst of the place of theater and music in Western metaphysics, Lacoue-Labarthe also had another, clandestine passion for something called "poetry" or "literature," though he would remain deeply suspicious of these words. Phrase is his most original work, a sequence of texts both autobiographical and philosophical, written in lucid prose and in free verse over a period of more than twenty-five years.Published here in its entirety for the first time in English, Phrase is a profoundly moving meditation on the relationship between love and mortality, language and embodiment, writing and inspiration, memory and hope, loss and recompense, and music and silence. At its heart is a probing awareness of the mysterious gift of language itself, and of the perpetually elusive yet obsessive "phrase" that informs all human existence and provides the book with its lapidary title and distinctive signature. This translation also includes a postface by Jean-Christophe Bailly, one of Lacoue-Labarthe's most long-standing friends and interlocutors, and incorporates a number of translator's notes that will facilitate access to Lacoue-Labarthe's sometimes allusive writing. There is no better introduction to Lacoue-Labarthe's thought than Phrase, and no more compelling proof of the enduring significance of his thinking than this uniquely powerful text.

Examines four discourses by Kierkegaard, arguing that they play a critical and surprising role in his oeuvre and contribute to the philosophy of figural language.How do texts speak with authority? That is the question at the heart of Kierkegaard's theory and practice of "indirect communication." None of Kierkegaard's texts respond to this question more concisely and powerfully than the four discourses he wrote about the lily in the Gospel. The Lily's Tongue is a nuanced, sustained reading of these Lily Discourses. Kierkegaard takes the lilies as authoritative, rather than merely "figural" or "metaphorical." This book is a careful exploration of what Kierkegaard means by this authority.Frances Maughan-Brown demonstrates how Kierkegaard argues that the key is in the act of reading itself-no text can have authority unless the reader grants it that authority because no text can entirely avoid figural language. Texts don't speak directly; their tongue is always the lily's tongue. What is revealed in the Lily Discourses is a groundbreaking theory of figure, which requires a renewed reading of Kierkegaard's major pseudonymous works.

Examines four discourses by Kierkegaard, arguing that they play a critical and surprising role in his oeuvre and contribute to the philosophy of figural language.How do texts speak with authority? That is the question at the heart of Kierkegaard's theory and practice of "indirect communication." None of Kierkegaard's texts respond to this question more concisely and powerfully than the four discourses he wrote about the lily in the Gospel. The Lily's Tongue is a nuanced, sustained reading of these Lily Discourses. Kierkegaard takes the lilies as authoritative, rather than merely "figural" or "metaphorical." This book is a careful exploration of what Kierkegaard means by this authority.Frances Maughan-Brown demonstrates how Kierkegaard argues that the key is in the act of reading itself-no text can have authority unless the reader grants it that authority because no text can entirely avoid figural language. Texts don't speak directly; their tongue is always the lily's tongue. What is revealed in the Lily Discourses is a groundbreaking theory of figure, which requires a renewed reading of Kierkegaard's major pseudonymous works.

Charts the vicissitudes of a distinctly modern and peculiarly human vulnerability—our intimate dependence on the fragile, time-bound cultural framework that we inhabit—in the history of the realist novel.The Blossom Which We Are traces the emergence of a distinctly modern form of human vulnerability-our intimate dependence on the fragile and time-bound cultural frameworks that we inhabit-as it manifests in the realm of the novel. Nir Evron juxtaposes seminal works from diverse national literatures to demonstrate that the trope of cultural extinction offers key insights into the emotional and ideological work performed by the realist novel. With an analysis that ranges from the works of Maria Edgeworth and Walter Scott, Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence and Joseph Roth's Radetzky March and Yaakov Shabtai's Past Continuous, and finally to the current state of the humanities, this book seeks to recover literary criticism's humanistic mission, bringing the best that has been thought and said to bear on urgent contemporary concerns.

Charts the vicissitudes of a distinctly modern and peculiarly human vulnerability—our intimate dependence on the fragile, time-bound cultural framework that we inhabit—in the history of the realist novel.The Blossom Which We Are traces the emergence of a distinctly modern form of human vulnerability-our intimate dependence on the fragile and time-bound cultural frameworks that we inhabit-as it manifests in the realm of the novel. Nir Evron juxtaposes seminal works from diverse national literatures to demonstrate that the trope of cultural extinction offers key insights into the emotional and ideological work performed by the realist novel. With an analysis that ranges from the works of Maria Edgeworth and Walter Scott, Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence and Joseph Roth's Radetzky March and Yaakov Shabtai's Past Continuous, and finally to the current state of the humanities, this book seeks to recover literary criticism's humanistic mission, bringing the best that has been thought and said to bear on urgent contemporary concerns.

Juxtaposes five contemporary French poets, illuminating the philosophical elements of their work while making their sometimes difficult writing newly accessible.Drawing from five contemporary French poets-Jacques Roubaud, Emmanuel Hocquard, Danielle Collobert, Anne Portugal, and Jacques Jouet-Ann Smock juxtaposes them and provides a milieu suitable for philosophical reflection on identity, on not-being and being, on communication, and on secrets. Smock also includes thinkers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Giorgio Agamben, who contribute to the conversation, as do Jean-Luc Nancy and Maurice Blanchot. Though the poems considered here are often thought difficult, Smock maintains a light touch throughout. She writes in an accessible, even pleasurable style while contributing to the scholarly study of literature at the border shared by poetry and philosophy

Juxtaposes five contemporary French poets, illuminating the philosophical elements of their work while making their sometimes difficult writing newly accessible.Drawing from five contemporary French poets-Jacques Roubaud, Emmanuel Hocquard, Danielle Collobert, Anne Portugal, and Jacques Jouet-Ann Smock juxtaposes them and provides a milieu suitable for philosophical reflection on identity, on not-being and being, on communication, and on secrets. Smock also includes thinkers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Giorgio Agamben, who contribute to the conversation, as do Jean-Luc Nancy and Maurice Blanchot. Though the poems considered here are often thought difficult, Smock maintains a light touch throughout. She writes in an accessible, even pleasurable style while contributing to the scholarly study of literature at the border shared by poetry and philosophy

Lively analysis of how Henry James's fiction anticipates later filmmakers' concerns with what we can see and what we can know.Perched as he was at the beginning of literary modernism and the evolution of film as a medium, Henry James addressed a cluster of epistemological and aesthetic issues related to the visualization of reality. In Knowing It When You See It, Patrick O'Donnell compares several late novels and stories by Henry James with a series of films directed by Michael Haneké, Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, and Lars Von Trier. O'Donnell argues that these issues find parallels in films made at the other end of an arc extending from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the initial years of the twenty-first. In mapping affinities between literature and film, he is not concerned with adaptation or discursivity, but rather with how the "visual" is represented in two mediums-with how seeing becomes knowledge, how framing what is seen becomes a critical part of the story that is conveyed, and how the perspective of the camera or the narrator shapes reality. Both James and these later auteurs "think" visually in ways that inter-illuminate their fictions and films, and newly bring into relief the trajectory of modernity in relation to visuality.

Lively analysis of how Henry James's fiction anticipates later filmmakers' concerns with what we can see and what we can know.Perched as he was at the beginning of literary modernism and the evolution of film as a medium, Henry James addressed a cluster of epistemological and aesthetic issues related to the visualization of reality. In Knowing It When You See It, Patrick O'Donnell compares several late novels and stories by Henry James with a series of films directed by Michael Haneké, Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, and Lars Von Trier. O'Donnell argues that these issues find parallels in films made at the other end of an arc extending from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the initial years of the twenty-first. In mapping affinities between literature and film, he is not concerned with adaptation or discursivity, but rather with how the "visual" is represented in two mediums-with how seeing becomes knowledge, how framing what is seen becomes a critical part of the story that is conveyed, and how the perspective of the camera or the narrator shapes reality. Both James and these later auteurs "think" visually in ways that inter-illuminate their fictions and films, and newly bring into relief the trajectory of modernity in relation to visuality.

A comparative study of breath and breathing as a core poetic and compositional principle in modern literature.Breathing and its rhythms-liminal, syncopal, and usually inconspicuous-have become a core poetic compositional principle in modern literature. Examining moments when breath's punctuations, cessations, inhalations, or exhalations operate at the limits of meaningful speech, Stefanie Heine explores how literary texts reflect their own mediality, production, and reception in alluding to and incorporating pneumatic rhythms, respiratory sound, and silent pauses. Through close readings of works by a series of pairs-Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg; Robert Musil and Virginia Woolf; Samuel Beckett and Sylvia Plath; and Paul Celan and Herta Müller-Poetics of Breathing suggests that each offers a different conception of literary or poetic breath as a precondition of writing. Presenting a challenge to historical and contemporary discourses that tie breath to the transcendent and the natural, Heine traces a decoupling of breath from its traditional association with life, and asks what literature might lie beyond.

A comparative study of breath and breathing as a core poetic and compositional principle in modern literature.Breathing and its rhythms-liminal, syncopal, and usually inconspicuous-have become a core poetic compositional principle in modern literature. Examining moments when breath's punctuations, cessations, inhalations, or exhalations operate at the limits of meaningful speech, Stefanie Heine explores how literary texts reflect their own mediality, production, and reception in alluding to and incorporating pneumatic rhythms, respiratory sound, and silent pauses. Through close readings of works by a series of pairs-Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg; Robert Musil and Virginia Woolf; Samuel Beckett and Sylvia Plath; and Paul Celan and Herta Müller-Poetics of Breathing suggests that each offers a different conception of literary or poetic breath as a precondition of writing. Presenting a challenge to historical and contemporary discourses that tie breath to the transcendent and the natural, Heine traces a decoupling of breath from its traditional association with life, and asks what literature might lie beyond.

Examines the thought of W. E. B. Du Bois, with attention to its potential for reorienting present-day critical theory and political philosophy.Widely known for his probing analysis of W. E. B. Du Bois's early work, in this book Nahum Dimitri Chandler references writing from across the whole of Du Bois's long career, while bringing sharp focus on two later texts issued in the immediate aftermath of World War II-Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace and The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part which Africa Has Played in World History. In these texts, "the problem of the color line," which Du Bois had already characterized as the problem not only of the twentieth century, but of the modern epoch as a whole, is further figured as a global problem, as a horizon linking the contemporary conjuncture of the history of modern systems of enslavement with the ongoing impact of modern colonialism and imperialism on the world's possible futures. On this line of thought, Chandler proposes that the name of "Africa" is a theoretical metaphor that enables a hyperbolic re-narrativization of modern historicity. Du Bois thus emerges as an exemplary thinker of history and hope for the world beyond the limit of the present.

Examines the thought of W. E. B. Du Bois, with attention to its potential for reorienting present-day critical theory and political philosophy.Widely known for his probing analysis of W. E. B. Du Bois's early work, in this book Nahum Dimitri Chandler references writing from across the whole of Du Bois's long career, while bringing sharp focus on two later texts issued in the immediate aftermath of World War II-Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace and The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part which Africa Has Played in World History. In these texts, "the problem of the color line," which Du Bois had already characterized as the problem not only of the twentieth century, but of the modern epoch as a whole, is further figured as a global problem, as a horizon linking the contemporary conjuncture of the history of modern systems of enslavement with the ongoing impact of modern colonialism and imperialism on the world's possible futures. On this line of thought, Chandler proposes that the name of "Africa" is a theoretical metaphor that enables a hyperbolic re-narrativization of modern historicity. Du Bois thus emerges as an exemplary thinker of history and hope for the world beyond the limit of the present.

Examines the skeptical foundations of literature in order to reassess the status of fiction.Literature and Skepticism links the skeptic attitude to the conditions of possibility in (modern) literature-in particular, the narrative form and the essay. Pablo Oyarzun proposes that narrative and the essay document the relationship between literature and skepticism in different but complementary and, at the same time, complicit ways. As the narrative performance reaches the structural limit of the literary-understood as the domain of fiction-a sort of para-discursive reflection critically accompanies this performance, discussing it, ironizing it, feigning to disbelieve it, or overtly belying it. Yet the narrative doubtfully takes distance from itself, surrendering all right to a final truth at the very moment at which truth emerges, essayistic, to the surface. The authors considered-Montaigne, Swift, Lichtenberg, Kleist, Kafka, and Borges-are eminent representatives of one and the other form, and all of the works analyzed are cases of a complex interplay between narrative and essay.