The Disappearance of Literature: Blanchot, Agamben, and the Writers of the No - Softcover

Hillyer, Aaron

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501306804 ISBN 13: 9781501306808

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015

Synopsis

In this book Aaron Hillyer considers the implications of Maurice Blanchot's strange formulation: "Literature is heading to its essence, which is its disappearance." This quest leads Hillyer to stage a dialogue between the works of Blanchot and Giorgio Agamben. Despite being primary points of reference for literary theory, no significant critical work has examined their "literary" writings together. The Disappearance of Literature initiates this new trajectory through readings of Blanchot's The Unavowable Community and Agamben's The Open, two short books that harbor their most enigmatic writings. A series of related concepts-study, community, mysticism, and friendship-emerges from this pairing, and, Hillyer argues, forms the basis of a new vein of contemporary literature found in the novels and hybrid fictions of Enrique Vila-Matas, Anne Carson, and Cesar Aira.

About this title

Product Description:

Disappearance of Literature

Review:

"The Disappearance of Literature is not only a thrilling addition to the growing body of work tracing the emergence of a literature of disappearance, but it also signals the birth of an important new critical voice. In recent years, few people have spoken about what escapes language with such extraordinary eloquence." --Times Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1501306804
• ISBN 13: 9781501306808
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 164