Reading unruly : interpretation and its ethical demands / Zahi Zalloua.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zalloua, Zahi Anbra, 1971- author.

Series:

Symplokē studies in contemporary theory.

Symploke Studies in Contemporary Theory

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

French literature--History and criticism--Theory, etc.

French literature.

Disorderly conduct in literature.

Literature and morals.

Aesthetics in literature.

Ethics in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (443 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Lincoln, [Nebraska] ; London, [England] : University of Nebraska Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Drawing on literary theory and canonical French literature, Reading Unruly examines unruliness as both an aesthetic category and a mode of reading conceived as ethical response. Zahi Zalloua argues that when faced with an unruly work of art, readers confront an ethical double bind, hesitating then between the two conflicting injunctions of either thematizing (making sense) of the literary work, or attending to its aesthetic alterity or unreadability. Creatively hesitating between incommensurable demands (to interpret but not to translate back into familiar terms), ethical readers are invited to cultivate an appreciation for the unruly, to curb the desire for hermeneutic mastery without simultaneously renouncing meaning or the interpretive endeavor as such. Examining French texts from Montaigne's sixteenth-century Essays to Diderot's fictional dialogue Rameau's Nephew and Baudelaire's prose poems The Spleen of Paris, to the more recent works of Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea, Alain Robbe-Grillet's Jealousy, and Marguerite Duras's The Ravishing of Lol Stein, Reading Unruly demonstrates that in such an approach to literature and theory, reading itself becomes a desire for more, an ethical and aesthetic desire to prolong rather than to arrest the act of interpretation. "-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover; Series Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Montaigne; 2. Diderot's Rameau's Nephew; 3. Translating Modernité; 4. Living with Nausea; 5. Intoxicating Meaning; 6. Fidelity to Sexual Difference; Conclusion; Notes; Works Cited; Index; About the Author; Series List

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780803254688

0803254687

9780803254657

0803254652

OCLC:

874967487