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Singularities: Critical Theory
Throughout the twentieth century, the epistemological status of literature, the problem of language's claim to true representation, has challenged our received notions of ontology and being itself. In Singularities, Thomas Pepper addresses the relationship among text, philosopical value and critical difficulty through a rich sequence of nuanced close readings of especially demanding texts. Singularities addresses key moments in the work of seminal twentieth-century theorists, and by offering a critique of the very process of thematic reading, questions the whole direction of contemporary theory through a series of readings of sustained critical power.
268 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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May 30, 2018
Pepper admits he likes difficulty and he is being honest. These are tough essays, but I thought for the most part at least partially comprehensible until rhetorical jargon is used (I learned what catachresis was because of this and still don't really get why it's so important. your friend chiasmus/matic is here too). The introduction was good, it was comprehensible and it really humanized Pepper for me, as he talked about the conditions he wrote the essays in (the book is a collection of 5 essays) and the first one about Adorno and love was written in a deep depression. It shows as the other essays have a belabored, near-jaded self-aware tone at times when Pepper almost seems to start questioning if his theoretical goal could be accomplished or if he should even bother trying. The tone of his non-academic voice seemed Kierkegaardian to me, he references Kierkegaard sometimes and is apparently he's going to write a book on Kierkegaard, so perhaps not surprising!
The essay on Adorno and love I thought was good, though a bit dry. I felt like it was a very de-politicized reading of pretty much every thinker he mentions - in fact this book feels very "a-political". In the introduction he speaks in Right-wing dog-whistle terms when he says "... I write against the self-hating, know-nothingist aspect of American academia, the widespread tendency that respects anyone as long as he or she has an accent. In saying this, my (incorrectly) presumed nationalism will be objected to. But in fact the nationalism is on the side of that repressed (and thus more strongly maintained, more destructive) American self-hatred, which mixes ever more today with a disgusting, nativist and populist (one could say brown) tint." He also explicitly says he will not discuss Heidegger or de Man's (or Derrida's) politics and thinks it's a waste of time. There is a near-100 page essay on de Man in this article and an article about Heidegger (and Derrida).
The Derrida/Heidegger essay I thought was interesting, I learned what the middle voice was and how Heidegger used different crosses over Being.
the de Man essay was impenetrable to me and it almost seems like it's supposed to be, at one point Pepper says something about "reading about reading about reading" and at one point in the essay that's what one is doing. It's also very jargon heavy and requires close attention. I don't care that much about de Man to pay that close attention. But from what I grasped his ideas seem interesting. He reminds me of Derrida kinda.
The analysis of Blanchot's "The One Who Was Standing Apart from Me" was really good, an analysis of one of my favorite stories. You can feel the frustration Pepper has trying to analyze it and towards the end he does a good job elucidating what makes the dialogue so bizarre and strange. This was my favorite essay of his.
The afterword was the weakest, it used a lot of untranslated German and was mostly about Paul Celan translating a Shakespearean sonnet in some weird way using different pronouns and about a guy I've never heard of named Peter Szondi. It was short though but I felt an actual conclusion would have been better.
Very dense, jargon heavy, only recommended to people interested in at least a couple of the subjects in the book. The prose is not dry however and Pepper does a good job making it as interesting and humorous as one could make a dense, jargon heavy monograph on literary theory.
The essay on Adorno and love I thought was good, though a bit dry. I felt like it was a very de-politicized reading of pretty much every thinker he mentions - in fact this book feels very "a-political". In the introduction he speaks in Right-wing dog-whistle terms when he says "... I write against the self-hating, know-nothingist aspect of American academia, the widespread tendency that respects anyone as long as he or she has an accent. In saying this, my (incorrectly) presumed nationalism will be objected to. But in fact the nationalism is on the side of that repressed (and thus more strongly maintained, more destructive) American self-hatred, which mixes ever more today with a disgusting, nativist and populist (one could say brown) tint." He also explicitly says he will not discuss Heidegger or de Man's (or Derrida's) politics and thinks it's a waste of time. There is a near-100 page essay on de Man in this article and an article about Heidegger (and Derrida).
The Derrida/Heidegger essay I thought was interesting, I learned what the middle voice was and how Heidegger used different crosses over Being.
the de Man essay was impenetrable to me and it almost seems like it's supposed to be, at one point Pepper says something about "reading about reading about reading" and at one point in the essay that's what one is doing. It's also very jargon heavy and requires close attention. I don't care that much about de Man to pay that close attention. But from what I grasped his ideas seem interesting. He reminds me of Derrida kinda.
The analysis of Blanchot's "The One Who Was Standing Apart from Me" was really good, an analysis of one of my favorite stories. You can feel the frustration Pepper has trying to analyze it and towards the end he does a good job elucidating what makes the dialogue so bizarre and strange. This was my favorite essay of his.
The afterword was the weakest, it used a lot of untranslated German and was mostly about Paul Celan translating a Shakespearean sonnet in some weird way using different pronouns and about a guy I've never heard of named Peter Szondi. It was short though but I felt an actual conclusion would have been better.
Very dense, jargon heavy, only recommended to people interested in at least a couple of the subjects in the book. The prose is not dry however and Pepper does a good job making it as interesting and humorous as one could make a dense, jargon heavy monograph on literary theory.
Displaying 1 of 1 review