Glas - Softcover

Derrida, Jacques

4.15

204 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803265816 ISBN 13: 9780803265813

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 1990

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Jacques Derrida is probably the most famous European philosopher alive today. The University of Nebraska Press makes available for the first English translation of his most important work to date, Glas. Its appearance will assist Derrida's readers pro and con in coming to terms with a complex and controversial book. Glas extensively reworks the problems of reading and writing in philosophy and literature; questions the possibility of linear reading and its consequent notions of theme, author, narrative, and discursive demonstration; and ingeniously disrupts the positions of reader and writer in the text. Glas is extraordinary in many ways, most obviously in its typography. Arranged in two columns, with inserted sections within these, the book simultaneously discusses Hegel's philosophy and Jean Genet's fiction, and shows how two such seemingly distinct kinds of criticism can reflect and influence one another. The customary segregation of philosophy, rhetoric, psychoanalysis, linguistics, history, and poetics is systematically subverted. In design and content, the books calls into question "types" of literature (history, philosophy, literary criticism), the ownership of ideas and styles, the glorification of literary heroes, and the limits of literary representation.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

"Extraordinary. . . . What [Derrida] is broaching in "Glas" is the deconstruction not only of certain tenacious philosophical ideas, but also of the way those ideas have worked to reinforce the predominant values and assumptions of Western ethnocentris."-Chris Norris, "London Times Literary Supplement,"

Synopsis:

'In this magnificent translation and in the indispensable notes and essays of "Glassary" these authors have succeeded in opening the English language to the extravagantly fermented effluvium of Derrida's French' - "Modern Language Notes". What the critics have said about the English translation of "Glas", first published by the University of Nebraska Press in 1986: 'Derrida writes seductively, playfully, hauntingly. He offers philosophical readings of literary authors and literary analyses of the heroes of philosophy' - Alexander Nehamas, "New Republic". 'Extraordinary ...What [Derrida] is broaching in "Glas" is the deconstruction not only of certain tenacious philosophical ideas, but also of the way those ideas have worked to reinforce the predominant values and assumptions of Western ethnocentrism' - Chris Norris, "London Times Literary Supplement".'In this magnificent translation ...these authors have succeeded in opening the English language to the extravagantly fermented effluvium of Derrida's French. Both Derrida and the English language ...will never be the same again. The publication of this translation ...will have a lasting and profound impact on philosophical and literary theory in English.

In its almost absolutely singular abolition of singularity, the English "Glas" may well mark an epoch in poststructuralist-deconstructive theory in English' - Ned Lukacher, "Modern Language Notes". Derrida authorized this translation by John P. Leavey, Jr., and Richard Rand. Leavey, who teaches at the University of Florida, has also translated Derrida's "Edmund Husserl's "Origin of Geometry": An Introduction" and is the author of "Glassary" (1986), a companion volume to "Glas" published by the University of Nebraska Press.Rand, who teaches at the University of Alabama, has translated Derrida's "Signsponge" (1984).

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.