Beckett Beyond the Normal

by Seán Kennedy (editor)

Explores Beckett’s artistic vision at the intersection of queer, disability and posthumanist studies This book examines why Beckett’s writing is so queer, so disabled and disabling. Why did Beckett write so often about mental illness, disability, perversion? Why did he take such an interest in ‘abnormals’ and ‘degenerates’? How did he reconceive ‘the human’ in the wake of Hitler and Stalin? Drawing on Beckett’s voluminous archive, as well as his primary texts, the authors use psychoanalysis, queer theory, disability theory and biopolitics to push Beckett studies beyond the normal.

168 pages, Hardcover

Published October 20, 2020

Reviews

[Jacky Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well conceptualised volume alright, but the individual pieces are stylistically far too obscure especially when their arguments are not that complicated. So my rating will fall somewhere between 3.5 and 4 out of 5, but I do think that anyone interested in breaking Beckett from the ridiculous critical mould of absurdism and existentialism and salvation etc. should read this book. The man accepted that he was abnormal; read his works for their abnormality and flaws and breakages, not for some greater transcendent meaning that simply isn't there.

Hannah Simpson's piece, though, is strikingly brilliant and incisive, as her work has always been. Sean Kennedy's introduction, too, is pretty good.