Total Expansion Of The Letter

How cubism and Dada radically reimagined the social nature of language, following the utopian poetic vision of Stéphane Mallarmé. At the outset of the twentieth century, language became a visual medium and a philosophical problem for European avant-garde artists. In Total Expansion of the Letter, art historian Trevor Stark offers a provocative history of this “linguistic turn,” centered on the radical doubt about the social function of language that defined the avant-garde movements. Major cubists and Dadaists—including Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Tristan Tzara—appropriated bureaucratic paperwork, newspapers, popular songs, and advertisements, only to render them dysfunctional and incommunicative. In doing so, Stark argues, these figures contended with the utopian vision of the late nineteenth-century poet Stéphane Mallarmé, who promised a “total expansion of the letter.” In his poems, Mallarmé claimed, “the act of writing was scrutinized down to its origins.” This scrutiny, however, delivered his work into an indeterminate zone between mediums, social practices, and temporalities—a paradox that reverberates through Stark's wide-ranging case studies in the history of the avant-garde. Stark examines Picasso's nearly abstract works of 1910, which promised to unite painting and writing at the brink of illegibility; the cubists' “hope of an anonymous art,” expressed in newspaper collages and industrial colors; the collaborative, cacophonous invention of “simultaneous poems” by the Dadaists in Zurich during World War I; and Duchamp's artistic exploration of chance in gambling and finance. Each of these cases reflected the avant-garde's transformative encounter with the premise of Mallarmé's poetics: that language—the very medium of human communication and community—is perpetually in flux and haunted by emptiness.

Israel is a divine name. The Name Israel is a scholarly, niche project that provides its readers with an informative, meaningful, and spiritually uplifting reading experience. The purpose of The Name Israel is to investigate the name employing four levels of study (PaRDeS): peshat, remez, derash, and sod. Each level is deeper and more profound than its predecessor. This text is divided into eight chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 explore the historical name Israel and pardes (four methods of Bible interpretation). The book also presents details about the shapes and sizes of the letters, permutations of Israel, anagrams, and gematria (numerology). Additionally, it includes a discussion of the Four World system, the ten sefirot, and an overview of parshat Vayishlach (Gen 32:4-33 and Gen 35:10). Throughout, The Name Israel analyzes the first word of the Torah (Bereshit) and the creation process. Readers will be fascinated as it also delves into facts about the numbers 2, 701, 37, 73, and 541; "The end of the action was at first in thought"; unique features (and hints) of the letters forming the name Israel; and concluding remarks. Come and learn!

"German--and particularly French--sources of the revolution that has occurred in literary theory during the past thirty years have long been recognized. The Russian contribution to these events has been hinted at previously, but Cassedy documents in detail the extraordinary work of Potebnya, Veselovskij, and other figures virtually unknown in the West. . . . An important contribution to intellectual history and literary theory."--Michael Holquist, author of Dostoevsky and the Novel "An astonishing number of complex movements and ideas--from Humboldt through Russian and French Symbolists to Heidegger, Husserl, Roman Jakobson and the deconstructors, from symbology to logology and iconology--begin to fit together in this wide-ranging and provocative book. . . . Cassedy's book will outrage some readers, delight others, and enlighten all."--Caryl Emerson, author of Boris Godunov: Transpositions of a Russian Theme

The Tel Quel Readerpresents for the first time in English many of the key essays that played an instrumental role in shaping the contours of literary and cultural debate in the 1960s and 1970s. Tel Quelwas a French journal and publishing team that printed some of the earliest work by Derrida, Bataille, Kristeva, Barthes, Foucault and Deleuze. From its beginning in 1960 to its closure in 1982, TQpublished some of the key essays of major poststructuralist thinkers. The Readerincludes essays available in English for the first time by Kristeva and Foucault, and a fascinating interview with Barthes. It provides a unique insight into the poststructuralist movement and presents some of the pioneering essays on literature and culture, gender, film, semiotics and psychoanalysis. Although articles included here cover diverse areas--from the semiology of paragrams to the readability of Sade, a common perspective runs through them: the recognition of excess and the seduction of writing. The Tel Quel Readerfills a crucial gap in the English literature on literary and cultural theory and presents a case for the enduring value of the journal's enterprise.

Includes numerous comments about Aborigines, their treatment, mythology and life-style.