"Over the past three decades, Jean-Luc Nancy has become one of the most celebrated contemporary philosophers. His remarkably diverse body of work, which deals with such topics as post-Heideggerian ontology, Christian painting, the experience of drunkenness, heart transplants, contemporary cinema and the problem of freedom, is entirely ""immersed"" in modernity, as he puts it. Within this plural framework, art – which he explicitly defines as a modern construct – plays a singular role in that it is the very prism through which he explores the problems of sense and feeling in general, particularly as they relate to “our” experience of modernity.
The contributors to Understanding Nancy, Understanding Modernism fully delve into the heretofore under-acknowledged and under-explored modernism of Nancy’s writings on philosophy and the arts through close readings of his key works as well as broader essays on the relationship between his thought and aesthetic modernity.
In addition to an interview with Nancy himself, a final section consists of an extended glossary of Nancy’s signature terms, which will be a valuable resource for students and experts alike."
Introduction (Cosmin Toma, University of Oxford, UK) Part I – Conceptualizing Nancy 1.“Jean-Luc Nancy’s Expectation: Rephrasing ‘Philoliterature’” (Ginette Michaud, Université de Montréal) 2. “Fort-pflanzung: The Literary Absolute’s Botanic Afterlife” (Stefanie Heine, University of Copenhagen) 3.“Back to The Muses: a Di-versation on the World and the Arts” (Nicholas Cotton-Lizotte, Princeton University / Collège Édouard-Montpetit) 4.“After Listening: Music, Musicians and Modernity” (Sarah Hickmott, Durham University) 5.“Fabula, Bucca, Humanitas: On Ego Sum” (Andrea Gyenge, University of Toronto) 6.“From Dis-Enclosure to Adoration: Literature and the Deconstruction of Christianity” (Schalk Gerber, Stellenbosch University / Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Part II – Nancy and Aesthetics 1.“From the Abyss” (Jean-Luc Nancy, Université de Strasbourg; trans. Mike Holland, University of Oxford / St Hugh’s College) 2. “Close Relations: Nancy and the Question of Psychoanalysis” (Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania) 3.“Noli me operare: Reading Nancy (Re)reading Blanchot” (Aukje van Rooden & Andreas Noyer, University of Amsterdam) 4. “Streams of Consciousness: River Poetry from Heidegger to Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe” (John McKeane, University of Reading) and “Altus” (Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Université de Strasbourg) 5.“The Regime of Technique: Nancy, Science and Modernism” (Ian James, Cambridge University) 6.“Le fond du film: Worlds, Images, and the Machining of Grounds (or: Blanchot Not/Beyond Nancy)” (Jeff Fort, University of California, Davis) 7.“The Poetics and Politics of Disenclosure: Nancy, Mbembe” (Michael Krimper, New York University) 8.“Nancy(’s) Surfaces” (James Martell, Lyon College) 9.“Between Modernism and Modernité: An Interview with Jean-Luc Nancy” (Jean-Luc Nancy, Université de Strasbourg & Cosmin Toma, St Hugh’s College) Part III – Glossary of Key Terms “Art” (John McKeane, University of Reading) “Body” (Juan Manuel Garrido Wainer, Universidad Alberto Hurtado) “Excription” (John Ricco, University of Toronto) “Globalization” (Barney Norman, independent scholar) “Sense” (Isabelle Perreault, Université du Québec à Rimouski) “With” (Jérôme Lèbre, ENS Lyon)
Cosmin Toma is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford, St Hugh's College, UK. He has primarily published on modern and contemporary French literature, critical theory, music, and aesthetics. His first book, Neutraliser l’absolu. Blanchot, Beckett et la chose littéraire (2019) is an inquiry into what remains of what Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe called “the literary absolute” when it is neutralized by modernity. He has also worked extensively as an academic translator.
Reviews for Understanding Nancy, Understanding Modernism
This is a stunning collection that will be a priceless resource for readers of Nancy's work. The essays are deeply knowledgeable and together they chart remarkably clear paths through all the major features of Nancy's world and his thinking of 'world.' * Peggy Kamuf, Professor Emerita of French and Italian and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California, USA * The texts included here demonstrate in incisive ways not only how Nancy's writings open onto understanding modernity but also how questions of modernity offer new and compelling paths for reading Nancy. It is a wonderfully impressive volume. * Philip Armstrong, Professor of Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University, USA * This volume is a timely and much-needed contribution to scholarship specifically on the critical pertinence of Jean-Luc Nancy's thinking to modernism. What makes this volume additionally delightful is that it brings together experts on Nancy's thought alongside up-and-coming scholars committed to advancing his thinking further into the future. * Irving Goh, Associate Professor of Literature, National University of Singapore, and author of The Reject: Community, Politics, and Religion after the Subject (2014), L'Existence Prepositionnelle (2019), and The Deconstruction of Sex (2021, with Jean-Luc Nancy) *
