Understanding Sade, Understanding Modernism

(Hardback)

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The most current multidisciplinary and multivocal engagement with Sades enduring influences on modernism and the philosophical need for continued analysis of his work and the questions it raises. From Lacan to Dal, through Simone de Beauvoir, Beckett, Horkheimer, Burroughs, Pasolini, Foucault, Deleuze, up to iek, the Marquis de Sades influence and impact on modernism and modern thinking is hard to measure. Understanding Sade, Understanding Modernism presents its readers with a chance to reflect on the importance of this radical oeuvre from different perspectives. Contributors examine Sadean literature and thought through some of its main texts (including 120 Days of Sodom, History of Juliette, The Crimes of Love, and Philosophy in the Boudoir) in a series of comparative essays that not only examine Sades influence in French, European, and American thought, but also critique it in the context of some of modern philosophys most relevant subjects: ecology, nature, universalism, and the links between ethics and aesthetics. The final section identifies key concepts and notions within Sade's corpus in a series of entries offering context and a discussion of their relevance for current thought.

Author Bio

James Martell is Associate Professor of Romance Languages at Lyon College, USA. He has published articles on Derrida, Deleuze, Beckett, Malabou, and the cinema of Bla Tarr in journals like Mosaic, the Oxford Literary Review, and Sanglap. He co-edited in 2018 together with Fernanda Negrete a special volume of Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourdhui, titled Beckett Beyond Words, and in 2021 Tattooed Bodies: Theorizing Body Inscription Across Disciplines and Cultures with Erik Larsen. His book, Modernism, Self-Creation, and the Maternal: The Mother's Son was published in 2019.