Literature and Event

"Literature and Event is full of surprises. This rich collection by a group of iconoclastic thinkers moves through classic theories of the event into experiments that test how literature – as gesture, inscriptive mark of graphic agency, or happening (at once exceptional and unexceptional) - might be defined "eventally." The book provides rich interdisciplinary applications for the event’s conceptual panoply: Aristotelian kairos, Heideggerian Ereignis , Badiou’s truth-event, Althusser’s "time of times" (of capital), Benjamin’s Jetztzeit, Malabou’s "plastic" event; a politics awaited or infinitely deferred, the decision, the standstill, revolution, cataclysm, survival, the accident, the actant, the micro-event, the moment of living death, the instance of the letter, the question of what a poem does or might do. An excellent teaching tool, this book is no small publishing event in itself, with multifaceted contributions that lay the groundwork for a new critical appreciation of what the event is, and how it can be theorized in literature, aesthetics, historical analysis and politics." Emily Apter, Silver Professor of Comparative Literature and French, New York University. Author of Unexceptional Politics: On Obstruction, Impasse and the Impolitic (Verso, 2018)

"Moving beyond the occasion of the conference at which many of the essays were first presented, this volume is something of an event in literary theory. Attending to what is irruptive and aporetic, undecidable and singular in the literary work, the chapters collectively offer incisive explorations of the literary by focusing, across languages and cultures, on what one contributor refers to as its ‘conceptually alluring’ status as event." Andrew Bennett, Professor of English, University of Bristol

"The relationship between literature and history is perhaps the conceptual problem of literary studies today. One way of addressing the relation – the dominant way – is through "form". The other, more interesting route is through the notion of the "event". The essays in this collection offer multiple angles on this question, and they vastly expand the field beyond the limits of, say, the "Badiou" (exceptional) event and the "Deleuze" (unexceptional) event. Fascinating discussions of micropolitics, theories of plasticity and contingency, autofiction, and experiments in "graphic events" that straddle writing and drawing, shift the debate into new theoretical and practical terrain. This is an indispensable, field-shaping volume." Timothy Bewes, Professor of English, Brown University, author of The Event of Postcolonial Shame (Princeton University Press, 2011)

"From trace, exception, and the work of art to impossibility, singularity and gift, the "event" has taken the guise of many of the most salient categories in literary and cultural theory. This volume shows that such "events" continue to play a motivating role in theory today, providing a unique and literary prism through which we can address, from unexpected angles, such questions as climate change, political action, and the limits of conceiving of life and death." Julia Ng, Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought, Goldsmiths, University of London

"Literature and Event: Twenty-First Century Reformulations is an important intervention into contemporary literary studies. The volume considers afresh the concept of the event, so crucial to continental philosophy and literary criticism alike. In a series of thought-provoking essays, this is a tour-de-force through key thinkers and writers of the event, highlighting its conceptual, aesthetic and critical import for literature and literary studies. With remarkable breadth and across genres, the collection reflects on the unique power of literature to provoke newness and invoke indeterminacy. As such, the volume is a crucial contribution to calibrating literary studies for the twenty-first century." Birgit Mara Kaiser, Utrecht University