Readings in Infancy

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Nobody knows how to write. Thus opens this carefully nuanced and accessible collection of essays by one of the most important writer-philosophers of the 20th century, Jean-Franois Lyotard (1924-1998). First published in French in 1991 as Lectures d'enfance, these essays have never been printed as a collection in English. In them, Lyotard investigates his idea of infantia, or the infancy of thought that resists all forms of development, either human or technological. Each essay responds to works by writers and thinkers who are central to cultural modernism, such as James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Hannah Arendt, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Sigmund Freud. This volume with a new introduction and afterword by Robert Harvey and Kiff Bamford contextualises Lyotards thought and demonstrates his continued relevance today.

Reviews

Readings in Infancy marks a genuine turn in Lyotards work. After the reflection on the sublime comes the elaboration of the subliminal. Infancy is this non-conscious, prelinguistic state in which the subject is born and yet does not exist. If the sublime is the experience of the too late, the subliminal is that of the too early. In-between them, Lyotard powerfully unravels the traumatic adventure of the unpresentable. * Catherine Malabou, Professor of Philosophy, Kingston University, UK, and University of California at Irvine, USA *
Reading is always already entailed in the act of writing. While few musicians have perfect pitch, some writers draw near to perfect pitch in reading. Here is Lyotard lingering in books, reading prudently, slowly and extracting the fomenting unrest of those who set the tone for modernity and its discontents. * Vlad Ionescu, Associate Professor of Art Theory, Faculty of Architecture and Art/PXL MAD, Hasselt University, Belgium *
In these readings Lyotard illustrates how his innovative theory of infancy can illuminate Kafka, Joyce, Freud, Arendt, Sartre and Valry. They showcase Lyotards importance as a reader of art and literature. The six interventions are not only enlightening, but are crafted in Lyotards exquisite idiom. * Franois Noudelmann, Professor of French Literature, Thought, and Culture, New York University, USA *

Author Bio

Jean-Franois Lyotard (1924-98) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist. His interdisciplinary interests included epistemology, communication, modern art, postmodern art, literature, critical theory, the sublime, and the relationship between aesthetics and politics. He was also a director of the International College of Philosophy. Robert Harvey is Distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University, USA. His most recent books are Sharing Common Ground: A Space for Ethics (Bloomsbury, 2017) and Witnessness: Beckett, Levi, Dante and the Foundations of Ethics (Continuum, 2010). From 2001 until 2007, Harvey was a programme director at the Collge International de Philosophie in Paris. Kiff Bamford is Reader in Contemporary Art in the School of Art, Architecture and Design at Leeds Beckett University, UK. He is also an artist and lecturer and the author of Lyotard and the Figural in Performance, Art and Writing (Bloomsbury 2012), Jean-Franois Lyotard: Critical Lives (2017) and editor of Jean-Franois Lyotard: The Interviews and Debates (Bloomsbury, 2020).