The Book, Inside and Out

Warren Motte’s treatment of the work of Edmond Jabès argues that Jabès’s work is animated by a meditation on the idea of the book. Motte contends that despite that sustained reflection, the status of the book in Jabès’s writing remains ambiguous. Indeed, his analysis shows that Jabès always defers a coherent, functional definition of the book. Motte underscores how that process of deferral—paired with the constant iterative process of crafting new interrelated books—has resulted in a powerful œuvre that gives the reader the sense of an ideal book, but one that never quite exists materially.

Mallarmé’s Gardens of Culinary Delights

Albert Sonnenfeld’s essay, we return to Mallarmé, but this time in a context that emphasizes the quotidian pleasure of gastronomy. Sonnenfeld explores this ‘garden of culinary delights’ as seen in both Mallarmé’s correspondence and poetry. Sonnenfeld argues for both the eroticization of food (especially when Méry Laurent, Mallarmé’s putative mistress and correspondent, is concerned) and the ‘poetization’ of gastronomy in Mallarmé’s verse.

What’s in a Word?

Stephen Nichols’s text analyzes one of the most famous examples of troubadour lyric, Peire d’Alverna’s Occitan canso Cantarai d’aqestz trobadors (‘I’ll sing about these troubadours’). Nichols explores its formal, linguistic, and epistemological character, its status in the broader literary-historical context of the late twelfth century, and its relevance for contemporary theoretical debates about conceptual knowledge.

For Lawrence Kritzman

A tribute to Lawrence D. Kritzman, this volume’s honoree.

Making History or Preventing the World from Unraveling

François Hartog’s piece is on what he calls the ‘modern regime of historicity’ and how Sartre’s and Camus’s relationships with that ‘regime’ evolved, and how the latter constituted a facet of their rupture. Hartog traces Sartre’s move away from a literature of ‘exis’ (think La Nausée) to a literature of ‘praxis’ (Les Chemins de la liberté). Hartog places the Sartrean trajectory in contrast with that of Camus who, in the postwar period came to reject the ‘religion’ of history. For Camus, the priority was the present moment, and what was necessary was not to make history, but rather to prevent the world ‘from destroying itself.’

‘African philosophy’ The History of an Expression

Souleymane Bachir Diagne’s text is on the history of what has been called ‘African philosophy,’ a phrase with origins in the early post-World War II period. Diagne begins by tracing the complex history and legacy of the book Bantu Philosophy (1949), which was written by the philosopher and theologian Placide Tempels, a Franciscan missionary and Belgian citizen. Diagne argues that that text represented an important break with the way in which Africa had been ignored and set aside in philosophical circles (a practice that Diagne traces to Hegel). From there, he outlines how currents in African philosophy first imitated, and then later broke with, Tempels’s model. He concludes with observations on current trends in African philosophy, which above all focus on democratic transitions, human rights, the future of the arts, citizenship, and languages in use on the continent today.

The Author’s Afterlife

François Noudelmann’s essay explores the notion of a ‘posthumous truth.’ This concept refers to how discourses on an author can be shaped by supposed ‘revelations’ after his or her death. Noudelmann interrogates whether these alleged ‘truths’ may be considered as such, and to what degree they remain open to interpretation. This is all the more important given the malleability of archives and, crucially, the decisions made by living authors to have information released after their deaths. Noudelmann contends that these authors are creating a kind of truth effect, given the broad tendency of the public to view information released posthumously as more true to life, more authentic.

Mallarmé Médiéval

R. Howard Bloch’s text explores Mallarmé’s linguistic links to antiquity and the medieval era. With a close reading of ‘Un coup de dés n’abolira jamais le hasard’—Mallarmé’s epic final, and perhaps most famous, poem—Bloch attends to the publication history of the text, its typographic layout, and its medieval philological underpinnings.

Osnabrück Station to Jerusalem

Hélène Cixous’s text grapples with a familial history that is removed from her in both time in space. It is a narrative marked by personal loss, the brutalities of history, and baffling lacunae and ambiguities. Deeply influenced by the importance of canonical literature and familial storytelling, Cixous’s text presents a tableau of migration, opaque and mysterious family chronicles, tragedy, exile, and the impossibility of knowing where is home.

Beckett’s French Resistance

Barbara Will’s essay is a treatment of the relationship between Samuel Beckett’s Resistance activity and his minimalistic writing after the war. Will argues for the need to situate Beckett’s work in a political and historical context, instead of an exclusively aesthetic one. Indeed, Will contends that one must look at Beckett’s work translating and encrypting top-secret documents in the ‘Gloria’ Resistance cell in Paris to place into proper context Beckett’s investment in ‘economy’ and ‘clarity’ that characterizes his postwar work.