Stanley Cavell And Literary Studies

Arguably no other living philosopher has done as much as Stanley Cavell to show the common cause shared by literature and philosophy. Stanley Cavell and Literary Studies is not only timely but, indeed, long past due. As the discipline of literary studies struggles to move beyond the suspicious skepticisms and anti-humanisms that have dominated the field, but without lapsing into sentimentality and naïveté, Cavell's writings and ideas will only become more pertinent.

Cavell is read avidly by students of film, television, painting, and music, but especially by students of literature, for whom he offers major readings of Thoreau. Fischer (English, U. of New Mexico) shows why Cavell's work is also of particular relevance to the controversies surrounding poststructuralist literary theory. Paper edition (0-226-25141-1) is available for $10.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Stanley Cavell and Literary Studies is a groundbreaking work that makes clear the relevance of Cavell's ideas for literary criticism. Arguably no other living philosopher has done as much as Cavell to show the common cause shared by literature and philosophy. It would seem, therefore, that literary critics in particular would have much to gain by seriously engaging with Cavell's work. Yet widespread admiration for Cavell by literary critics has only infrequently resulted in real intellectual influence. Though held in great esteem and widely taught in both philosophy and literature, the extent to which Cavell has been overlooked by literary theorists, in comparison to the palpable influence upon literary studies of Cavell's philosophical contemporaries (Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze, to name only the most obvious) is striking indeed. Stanley Cavell and Literary Studies is not only timely but, indeed, long past due. As the discipline of literary studies struggles to move beyond the suspicious skepticisms and anti-humanisms that have dominated the field for the past many decades, Cavell's writings and ideas will only become more pertinent

This radically original book argues for the power of ordinary language philosophy—a tradition inaugurated by Ludwig Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin, and extended by Stanley Cavell—to transform literary studies. In engaging and lucid prose, Toril Moi demonstrates this philosophy’s unique ability to lay bare the connections between words and the world, dispel the notion of literature as a monolithic concept, and teach readers how to learn from a literary text. Moi first introduces Wittgenstein’s vision of language and theory, which refuses to reduce language to a matter of naming or representation, considers theory’s desire for generality doomed to failure, and brings out the philosophical power of the particular case. Contrasting ordinary language philosophy with dominant strands of Saussurean and post-Saussurean thought, she highlights the former’s originality, critical power, and potential for creative use. Finally, she challenges the belief that good critics always read below the surface, proposing instead an innovative view of texts as expression and action, and of reading as an act of acknowledgment. Intervening in cutting-edge debates while bringing Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell to new readers, Revolution of the Ordinary will appeal beyond literary studies to anyone looking for a philosophically serious account of why words matter.

This book offers a thorough examination of the relationship that Stanley Cavell's celebrated philosophical work has to the ways in which the United States has been imagined and articulated in its literature, highlighting how literature and philosophy are conjoined in the ethical and political project of national self-definition.

Stanley Cavell: Philosophy, Literature, and Criticism is the first book to offer a comprehensive examination of the relationship between the celebrated philosophical work of Stanley Cavell and the discipline of literary criticism. In this volume, the editors have assembled an impressive range of interlocutors who set out to explore the shape and substance of Stanley Cavell’s persistent acknowledgement of the literary as a category in which, and through which, philosophical work can be undertaken. A number of essays address his engagements with modernism, tragedy, and romanticism, while others consider Cavell’s own aesthetic modes as a writer. Stanley Cavell: Philosophy, Literature, and Criticism will be of interest to all those who are concerned with the ways in which the reading of literature, and the practice of philosophy, might continue both to influence each other across disciplinary boundaries, and to challenge the internal topographies of those disciplines.

The first three parts of this book deal with the tension between ordinary language philosophy (as envisioned in the writings of J.L. Austin and the later Wittgenstein) and the 'tradition.' In the fourth part the author explores the problem of skepticism and takes a broad view of its consequences.

Stephen Mulhall presents the first full-length philosophical study of the work of Stanley Cavell, best known for his highly influential contributions to the fields of film studies, Shakespearian literary criticism, and the confluence of psychoanalysis and literary theory. It is not properly appreciated that Cavell's project originated in his interpretation of Austin's and Wittgenstein's philosophical interest in the criteria governing ordinary language, and is given unity by an abiding concern with the nature and the varying cultural manifestations of the sceptical impulse in modernity. This book elucidates the essentially philosophical roots and trajectory of Cavell's work, traces its links with Romanticism and its recent turn towards a species of moral pefectionism associated with Thoreau and Emerson, and concludes with an assessment of its relations to liberal-democratic political theory, Christian religious thought, and feminist literary studies. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with the relationships between Anglo-American and Continental philosophy, and between philosophy and other disciplines in the humanities. 'an excellent presentation and discussion of [Cavell's] thought . . . very timely' Political Studies 'Learning to read Mulhall is both a suitable and a worthy first step to learning to read Cavell' British Journal of Aesthetics 'there can be no doubt as to the depth of Mulhall's knowledge of Cavell's writings or to his ability as an advocate. [The book] is also very well written. Mulhall's prose is capable of registering the fine grain in a subtle and elusive thinker and, while more conventional than Cavell's, is no less supple or eloquent.' Times Literary Supplement '[Mulhall's] explication is careful enough to explain the importance of Cavell's work, clarify the subtleties of Cavell's ideas, provide a complete overview of Cavell's thought, and show the coherence in Cavell's diverse writings . . .invaluable' Harvard Review