Cixous’s Semi-Fictions: Thinking at the Borders of Fiction

Mairéad Hanrahan

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2014

Cixous’s Semi-Fictions

Thinking at the Borders of Fiction

Mairéad Hanrahan

In the series The Frontiers of Theory

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748696642

Overview
Contents

About this book

Hélène Cixous, author of over forty works of fiction, was deemed by Derrida to be the greatest living writer in French in 1990. Consistent with this evaluation, her writing is renowned for its dense poetical texture and lyricism. At the same time, she has been described by one of Derrida's translator's, Peggy Kamuf, as 'one of our age's greatest semi-theoreticians'. Connecting these two views, this book argues for a consideration of her texts as ‘semi-fictions’. Telling stories is, irreducibly, part of what Cixous does; it is irreducibly part of what she does. Fiction is at once the creation of an imaginary world and an ethical engagement, as intellectual as it is passionate, with the difficulties of the real. This book offers an in-depth reading of five different texts, addressing the idiomatic specificity of individual works and investigating how the textual fabric unfolds. It shows that the narrative dimension to Cixous’s writing needs to be reckoned with as a key component of the way it troubles the borders between fiction and its others. Each work is approached in relation to a particular theoretical question or discourse to explore how, in staging an encounter with something beyond itself, her fiction is the site of an active thinking.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	VI
Series Editor’s Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
1. Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Fictional Analysis: Dedans Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
3. An Elementary Deconstruction: Les Commencements Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
4. The Illegitimate Mother: Souffles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
5. Vital Tragedy? Déluge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
6. The Time of Hospitality: Les Rêveries de la femme sauvage Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 256
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: September 15, 2014
ISBN: 9780748696642