Comparative Literature

Memoir of the Cultural Demolition Derby, 2015-22

Henry Sussman, Rutgers University, USA Longtime scholar and critic Henry Sussman deploys anecdote, reportage, memoir, and a pilgrimage to major intellectual stops in his trajectory of marshaling the disbelief and dismay prompted by the rise of anti-intellectualism in recent decades and reflected most disturbingly in Donald Trump’s ascension to the US presidency In retracing his own intellectual and experiential steps, Sussman revisits his personal list of inspirations, including Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Douglas R Hofstadter, and J Hillis Miller The result is an intellectual meditation on ‘the great dismissal,’ in public and political life, of venerable and vital humanistic traditions, ethics, and ways of thinking

UK January 2023 • US January 2023 • 240 pages PB 9781501392283 • £1999 / $2695 • HB 9781501392290 • £6000 / $8000 ePub 9781501392306 • £1819 / $2425 ePdf 9781501392313 • £1819 / $2425 Bloomsbury Academic Edited by Susanne Bayerlipp, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany, Ralf Haekel, Universität Leipzig, Germany & Johannes Schlegel, JuliusMaximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany This book explores the media ecologies of literature – how a literary text is interwoven in its material, technical, performative, praxeological, affective, and discursive network - determining how it is experienced and interpreted Drawing on developments in advanced media theory, these essays emphasize the productivity of innovative reconceptualizations of literature as its own medium In an intentionally wide historical scope, the essays engage with literary texts from the late Victorian to the contemporary, from Virginia Woolf to A L Kennedy and Mark Z Danielewski, from the print novel to audiobooks and reading apps

UK December 2022 • US December 2022 • 224 pages HB 9781501383878 • £8000 / $11000 ePub 9781501383885 • £7279 / $9900 ePdf 9781501383892 • £7279 / $9900 Bloomsbury Academic

Love and the Politics of Intimacy

Bodies, Boundaries, Liberation

Edited by Stanislava Dikova, University of Essex, UK, Wendy McMahon, University of East Anglia, UK & Jordan Savage, University of Essex, UK Reflecting on experiences of intimate, romantic and sexual love, and the role of individual identity within such relationships, these essays look back from the present to explore historical trajectories that have culminated in particular experiences of intimate love Incorporating academic writing and original creative work from established and emerging scholars around the globe, these essays approach love through fields across the humanities and social sciences – including literary studies, sociology, psychology, philosophy and gender studies – providing a renewed investigation of a history of ideas that often encloses itself with the confines of Western philosophy.

UK February 2023 • US February 2023 • 256 pages • 2 bw illus HB 9781501387371 • £9000 / $12000 ePub 9781501387388 • £7934 / $10800 ePdf 9781501387395 • £7934 / $10800 Bloomsbury Academic

Dispersion

Thoreau and Vegetal Thought

Edited by Branka Arsic, Columbia University, USA Plants are silent, still, or move slowly; we do not have the sense that they accompany us, or even perceive us But is there something that plants are telling us? Is there something about how they live and connect, how they relate to the world and other plants that can teach us about ecological thinking, about ethics and politics? Grounded in Thoreau’s ecology and in contemporary plant studies, Thoreau and Vegetal Thought offers answers to those questions by pondering such concepts as co-dependence, the continuity of life forms, relationality, cohabitation, porousness, fragility, the openness of beings to incessant modification by other beings and phenomena, patience, waiting, slowness and receptivity

UK March 2023 • US March 2023 • 312 pages PB 9781501370625 • £2899 / $3995 Previously published in HB 9781501370588 ePub 9781501370595 • £7934 / $10800 ePdf 9781501370601 • £7934 / $10800 Bloomsbury Academic

Antonin Artaud and the Healing Practices of Language

How Life Matters in Artaud’s Later Writings

Joeri Visser, Helinium School, Rotterdam, Netherlands The life of Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) was tormented by physical and mental illnesses In his earlier writings, Artaud tried to express his physical and mental suffering, but perceived, in describing his feelings, the obstructive and illnessinducing role of language. In the first English-language book on Artaud’s “healing language,” Joeri Visser guides us through the years in which Artaud suffered more and more from mental instability and considered the act of writing his only means of survival In doing so, Visser unfolds a literary and a philosophical analysis on language and life, joy and anguish

UK January 2023 • US January 2023 • 200 pages PB 9781501372360 • £2899 / $3995 Previously published in HB 9781501372322 ePub 9781501372339 • £7279 / $9900 ePdf 9781501372346 • £7279 / $9900 Bloomsbury Academic

Illegibility

Blanchot and Hegel

William S. Allen, University of Southampton, UK The philosophical significance of Maurice Blanchot’s writings has rarely been in doubt Specifying the nature and implications of his thinking has proved more difficult, particularly in reference to the key figure of G. W. F. Hegel. William S. Allen demonstrates aspects of Hegelian thought that permeate Blanchot’s writings and, in turn, develops a detailed 3-way analysis of Derrida, Hegel, and Blanchot and the relationships between thought and language concerning finitude and infinitude. Illegibility introduces a new, substantially philosophical account of Blanchot’s importance, situating Derrida within a history of discussions of Hegel and enabling a more critical response to Hegel’s works

UK January 2023 • US January 2023 • 264 pages PB 9781501376788 • £2899 / $3995 Previously published in HB 9781501376757 ePub 9781501376764 • £7934 / $10800 ePdf 9781501376771 • £7934 / $10800 Bloomsbury Academic