Literature, philosophy, nihilism
Subtitle: the uncanniest of guests
By: Shane Weller.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; Springer
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 244
Subjects: Nihilism (Philosophy) -- History; Literature -- Philosophy -- History
Description: "Since Nietzsche's appropriation of the term in his later work, the concept of nihilism has played a decisive role in the thinking of both modernity and postmodernity. This book charts the deployment of that concept by some of the most influential philosophers and literary theorists of the modern period, including Heidegger, Adorno, Blanchot, Derrida, Agamben, Vattimo, and Badiou. Focusing in particular on the ways in which each of these deployments involves both a countering redetermination of nihilism and a privileging of a certain concept of the literary for what is taken to be its power of resistance to it, Weller proposes neither a critique nor a revalorization of nihilism; rather, he explores through an historical, conceptual, and philological analysis the various ways in which nihilism, as what Nietzsche terms the 'uncanniest of all guests', returns to haunt the thought of those who would counter it." --Book Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Absolute devaluation : Friedrich Nietzsche; title: Homelessness : Martin Heidegger; title: Fatal positivities : Theodor Adorno; title: The naive calculation of the negative : Maurice Blanchot; title: Bad violence : Jacques Derrida; title: The fracture : Giorgio Agamben; title: Distortions, or, Nihilism against itself : Gianni Vattimo; title: The denial of (Greek) thought : Alain Badiou.