Continental Theory Buffalo

Description

Continental Theory Buffalo is the inaugural volume of the Humanities to the Rescue book series, a public humanities project dedicated to discussing the role of the arts and humanities today. This book is a collaborative act of humanistic renewal that builds on the transcontinental legacy of May 1968 to offer insightful readings of the cultural (d)evolution of the last fifty years. The volume contributors revisit, reclaim and reassess the "revolutionary" legacy of May 1968 in light of the urgency of the present and the future. Their essays are effective illustrations of the potential of such interpretive traditions as philosophy, literature and cultural criticism to run interference with (and offer alternatives to) the instrumentalist logic and predatory structures that are reducing the world to a collection of quantifiable and tradeable resources. The book will be of interest to cultural historians and theorists, media studies scholars, political scientists, and students of French and Francophone literature and culture on both sides of the Atlantic.
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Humanities to the Rescue
David R. Castillo

Continental Theory and Graphic Narrative: A Long Yet Missed Encounter
Jan Baetens

When Poetry Talks Theory: Language Poetry and New Narrative's Dialogue with Continental Critical Theory and Philosophy
Vincent Broqua

OulipoHack
Peter Consenstein

Poststructuralist Turn?
Jonathan Culler

France, 1968, and the Radical Politics of 1970s Film Theory
Jane M. Gaines

Postscriptum on the Master's Tools
Lucile Haute

Return to Form? Expanded Formalism and the Idea of Literature
Alison James

Not Reading Blanchot: Theory and Practice
Émile Lévesque-Jalbert

Politics and Life Are Not Coextensive: Nancy, Badiou, Balibar, and General Equivalence
Alberto Moreiras

Is Love Revolutionary? Lacan and Duras after '68
Fernanda Negrete

May '68 and SubStance
Michel Pierssens

May '68 and the Crisis of Philosophy of History: Georges Bataille, Furio Jesi, and Latin America
Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott

Afterword: Ends of Thinking in Computational Age
Ewa Plonowska Ziarek

Contributors
Index

Sujets

• France
• Portugal
• Spain (groupe)
• My Last Duchess
• Italy
• Spain
• Literary theory
• Comparative literature

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438486468
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

Continental Theory Buffalo
SUNY series, Humanities to the Rescue
Continental Theory Buffalo
Transatlantic Crossroads of a Critical Insurrection
Edited by
David R. Castillo, Jean-Jacques Thomas, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Castillo, David R., 1967– editor. | Thomas, Jean-Jacques, editor. | Ziarek, Ewa Płonowska, [date]– editor.
Title: Continental theory Buffalo : transatlantic crossroads of a critical insurrection / David R. Castillo, Jean-Jacques Thomas, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Series: SUNY series, Humanities to the rescue | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021039920 (print) | LCCN 2021039921 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438486451 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438486444 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438486468 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Continental philosophy. | Critical theory, | General Strike, France, 1968. | Social change.
Classification: LCC B804 .C575 2021 (print) | LCC B804 (ebook) | DDC 190—dc23/eng/20211007
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021039920
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021039921
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
—Bon, tout ça est parfait, la France rayonne dans le monde et on avance vers le Grand Soir. (Hervé avait retrouvé son sourire). Si on plongeait là ?
Well, it’s all perfect, France shows the way to the entire world and we’re moving towards the Grand Soir. (Hervé smiled again). Why don’t we take a swim right here?
—Julia Kristeva, Les Samouraïs
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Humanities to the Rescue
David R. Castillo
Continental Theory and Graphic Narrative: A Long Yet Missed Encounter
Jan Baetens
When Poetry Talks Theory: Language Poetry and New Narrative’s Dialogue with Continental Critical Theory and Philosophy
Vincent Broqua
OulipoHack
Peter Consenstein
Poststructuralist Turn?
Jonathan Culler
France, 1968, and the Radical Politics of 1970s Film Theory
Jane M. Gaines
Postscriptum on the Master’s Tools
Lucile Haute
Return to Form? Expanded Formalism and the Idea of Literature
Alison James
Not Reading Blanchot: Theory and Practice
Émile Lévesque-Jalbert
Politics and Life Are Not Coextensive: Nancy, Badiou, Balibar, and General Equivalence
Alberto Moreiras
Is Love Revolutionary? Lacan and Duras after ’68
Fernanda Negrete
May ’68 and SubStance
Michel Pierssens
May ’68 and the Crisis of Philosophy of History: Georges Bataille, Furio Jesi, and Latin America
Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott
Afterword: Ends of Thinking in Computational Age
Ewa Plonowska Ziarek
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
In the Fall of 2018, the Humanities Institute at the State University of New York co-organized with the Melodia E. Jones Chair the “North American International Colloquium on Continental Theory (and Its Future) as the last Global Western Epistemology.” This North American Colloquium encouraged a dialogue between invited guests, who brought testimony of the many aspects of the “Continental invasion,” and participants to discuss both the historical beginnings of this new epistemological trend in US intellectualism and the current version, the twentieth-century avatar of the new progressive and liberating Humanism.
In 2018, all over the world, French and Francophone scholars celebrated the official fiftieth anniversary of the “May ’68 Events,” a student and popular uprising that marked the coming of age of the baby boomers and the transformation of postwar France from a mostly rural and agricultural traditional society to one that is modern, urban, and consumer-oriented.
In the 1970s and ’80s, aspects of this movement progressively found their way to the United States and Canada under the general label of “Continental Theory.” The continental invasion was not limited to the two coasts. As a matter of record, the traditional Ivy League schools resisted this continental invasion, and the main propagandists of this new French humanism were found in the Midwest at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Nebraska, the University of Michigan, and the University of Minnesota, to name only a few key locations.
The University at Buffalo (UB) was a great place for this generation of French intellectuals to visit; traces are found in our local archives of the extended visits by writers, poets, philosophers, filmmakers, and feminist intellectuals, including Michel Foucault, Michel Serres, Louis Marin, Michel Deguy, Max Milner, Danièle Huillet, Michel Butor ( Mobile ends “at home: Buffalo!”), René Girard, and Hélène Cixous. The present volume acknowledges the central role played by the State University of New York at Buffalo in the establishment of this new intellectual trend and its elaboration and influence.
Among the sponsors of the original Colloquium, we wish to thank the UB Humanities Institute, the Departments of Comparative Literature, English, and Romance Languages and Literatures, as well as the Eugenio Donato Chair of Comparative Literature, and the Melodia E. Jones Chair in French. Additionally, we wish to acknowledge the office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development for its generous sponsorship of this edited volume. Finally, we are especially grateful for the work of Ashley Byczkowski, the research assistant of the Melodia E. Jones Chair, who supervised the preparation of the essays included in this volume.
Introduction
Humanities to the Rescue
DAVID R. CASTILLO
The Humanities to the Rescue book series is a public humanities project dedicated to discussing the role of the arts and the humanities today. As we reflect on the current “crisis of the humanities” in the context of the multifaceted and profound challenges we face in the twenty-first century, the first obvious question we might ask is: What can we do to rescue the arts and humanities from the failing funding model of higher education and the perils of the market university? Yet, Humanities to the Rescue seeks to answer an even bigger and potentially more pressing question: What can the arts and humanities do to rescue our communities from the antismarts epidemic that has taken hold of public discourse in the post-truth age? This new book series will explore the different ways in which humanistic disciplines can help us interpret and navigate our rapidly changing environment in the current age of media saturation and informational silos.
As we are inundated 24/7 with a barrage of fake news, demagoguery, hate speech, and self-interested denialisms that are threatening our democratic institutions (not to mention our planetary survival), it is more urgent than ever for the humanities to reclaim a central place in public discourse; to bring evidence-based analysis, ethics, imagination, and creativity to bear on the big challenges of our time. In the current social environment dominated by attention merchants who trade in misinformation and divisiveness, the arts and humanities must continue to point the way forward. 1 While the erosion of our civic and political institutions has accelerated with the rise of entrenched media silos, coming to grips with the current crisis of democracy and reclaiming a viable democratic future will require a sense of history and a collective reinvestment in humanistic education, dialectical inquiry, public ethics, and political imagination.
A locally and globally engaged and engaging humanities must help us break through the walls of the media bubble that treats intellectualism with impatience and suspicion while offering cover to the special interests invested in ignoring or actively denying such uncomfortable realities as global warming and structural injustice. Humanists and artists can bring crucial skills to address the current resurgence of authoritarianism, fundamentalism, racism, and misogyny, as well as the cynical posturing that continues to justify destructive economic and environmental policies. 2
Speaking as the UB Silver’s Visiting Professor in the Humanities as part of the inaugural 2018 “Humanities to the Rescue” event that inspired the creation of this book series, fiction writer Margaret Atwood challenged her audience to reflect on the seminal questions that drive the humanities. She made a key point about the need to revisit these historically humanistic questions as we ponder the future we would want to inhabit: “Here is a question that is at the core of the humanities […] Where and how do we want to live? Is it in a society that strives to right ancient wrongs, to search for balance and equality, and to respect truth and fairness, or do we want to live in some other place in some other way? It will be up to you to decide that, to question values, to explore the nature of truth and fairness. It will be up to you to understand the stories and to create better ones.” 3
The Humanities to the Rescue book series