Discusses the problems of text and context in studying the philosophical writings of Wittgenstein, Ricoeur, Sartre, Jameson, Marx, and Bakhtin.

Michel Foucault, in Les Mots et les choses, claims to have developed an original, structural method for the study of intellectual history. Foucault believes this "archeological" technique can afford total understanding of the thought-of a particular period. However, when applied to sixteenth-century France, Foucault's method yields unsatisfactory results. Foucault asserts that prior to Descartes, all thinking was qualitative and magical, but in support of his thesis he can cite only marginal figures whose work had been thoroughly discredited by the learned (...) humanists who constituted the mainstream of sixteenth-century French thought. When he does examine respected thinkers, he misinterprets their work. (shrink)

A stellar cast of fifteen contributors seeks to show the direction in which continental and continentally oriented American literary criticism has evolved in recent years. Nine of the essays are published here for the first time; five of the remaining six were translated, by the editor, from the French; only one has previously appeared in English. The essays make available some of the most important and most representative work that has been done in the wake of structuralism. Among the topics (...) treated are the relationships between semiology and literature, anthropology and literature, and psychoanalysis and literature; modern American poetics; algebraic models as epistemological operators; the modes of production of a poem; Flaubert's view of history; and poetic language. Professor Harari has arranged the essays to move from the general to the particular and from the abstract to the concrete. In an informative and ambitious introduction, he discusses each essay in relation to the whole and explains the interrelationships among the various theories and strategies that are represented in the anthology. A book meant for the specialist as well as the novice, for the teacher of literature and criticism as well as the student, Textual Strategies is a brilliant introduction to post-structuralist critical theories and practices. (shrink)

_Deconstruction: Theory and Practice_ has been acclaimed as by far the most readable, concise and authoritative guide to this topic. Without oversimplifying or glossing over the challenges, Norris makes deconstruction more accessible to the reader. The volume focuses on the works of Jacques Derrida which caused this seismic shift in critical thought, as well as the work of North American critics Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman, J. Hillis Miller and Harold Bloom. In this third, revised edition, Norris builds on his (...) 1991 Afterword with an entirely new Postscript, reflecting upon recent critical debate. The Postscript includes an extensive list of recommended reading, complementing what was already one of the most useful bibliographies available. (shrink)