Literature Suspends Death: Sacrifice and Storytelling in Kierkegaard, Kafka and

Description: Literature Suspends Death by Dr. Chris Danta Shows how Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot develop heretical accounts of the sacrifice of Isaac in order to illuminate the sacrificial situation of the literary writer. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description This is the first book-length study of how three important European thinkers—Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot—use the Binding of Isaac to illuminate the sacrificial situation of the literary writer. Danta shows that literature plays a vital and heretical role in these three writers highly idiosyncratic accounts of the Akedah. His claim is twofold: firstly, that all three authors choose to respond to the Genesis narrative by manifesting literature; and, secondly, that each heretically endows literature—or fiction—with the power to suspend the sacrifice.Abrahams near-sacrifice of Isaac is traditionally read as the story of faith in action. But what does it mean to play the game of not-quite-belief with the story of religious faith? By examining the literary and heretical treatments of Isaacs sacrifice in the work of Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot, this book develops an original account of literature as a form of sacrificial thinking. For each, writing acts, like Gods sacrificial demand of Abraham, to suspend the writers usual relation to his daily and earthly responsibilities. Author Biography Chris Danta is Senior Lecturer in English in the School of English, Media and Performing Arts at the University of New South Wales. He has published essays in New Literary History, Textual Practice, Modernism/Modernity, Sub-Stance and Literature and Theology. Table of Contents Acknowledgments / 1. Testing the Tested / 2. The Melancholic Imagination: Kierkegaards Abraham / 3. Sarahs Laughter: Kafkas Abraham / 4. "The absolutely dark moment of the plot": Blanchots Abraham / 5. Coda: Agnes and the Merman / Works Cited / Index Review "With exemplary precision Literature Suspends Death demonstrates how the enigmatic account of the binding of Isaac in Kierkegaards Fear and Trembling spurs a series of radical reflections on the interconnection among narrative, sacrifice, and mortality. Danta identifies a blind-spot in Kierkegaards work that Kafka and Blanchot do not so much illuminate as make into the ethical content of literature." -- Peter Fenves, Joan and Sarepta Harrison Professor of Literature, and Professor of German, Comparative Literary Studies, and Jewish Studies, Northwestern University, USA"Abraham haunts the Western religious imagination and its many embodiments in literature. Chris Danta is an acute and eloquent witness to this haunting. His remarkable study, Literature Suspends Death, is a must read book for anyone interested in religion and literature." -- Kevin Hart, Edwin B Kyle Prof of Christian Studies & Chair, Department of Religious Studies, The University of Virginia, USA"Chris Danta brings to bear his remarkably alert and thoughtfully deployed reading skills on the story of Abraham and Isaac as refashioned by Kierkegaard, Kafka, and Blanchot. While riveting attention on the exchange that narrative negotiates, Scheherazade-like, with the lethal knife, he sustains with patient, passionate argument the assertion, set here in epigraph, that literature is indeed the foe of death. Reading this book is an absorbing experience." -- Peggy Kamuf, Marion Frances Chevalier Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Director, Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture Doctoral Program, University of Southern California, USA"The logic of sacrifice is among one of the most powerfully overdetermined topoi in Western literature, philosophy, and religion, bearing powerfully on issues of cultural significance and value, human loss and suffering, flesh and text, authority and resistance, secrecy and communicability, the possibility and impossibility of justice, the aporetics of decision-making, and much else besides. In this book, Chris Danta goes to the core of one of the Western traditions most revealing stories of sacrifice, the story of Abraham and Isaac, and studies in closely argued and wide-ranging detail its treatment in the literary and other works of Kierkegaard, Kafka, and Blanchot, engaging too with an impressive quantity of philosophical and other sources, from commentaries on the Bible and on the Talmud to the work of Derrida. The result is a subtle, incisive, and original account of literatures complex displacement and reworking of the logic of sacrifice." -- Leslie Hill, Professor of French, University of Warwick, UKLiterature Suspends Death shows convincinglythat the combined perspective of Kafka and Blanchot offers a valuable alternative to Kierkegaards focus on Abrahams willingness to sacrifice Isaac. -- Radical Philosophy Promotional Shows how Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot develop heretical accounts of the sacrifice of Isaac in order to illuminate the sacrificial situation of the literary writer. Review Quote "With exemplary precision Literature Suspends Death demonstrates how the enigmatic account of the binding of Isaac in Kierkegaards Fear and Trembling spurs a series of radical reflections on the interconnection among narrative, sacrifice, and mortality. Promotional "Headline" Shows how Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot develop heretical accounts of the sacrifice of Isaac in order to illuminate the sacrificial situation of the literary writer. Feature Examines the interrelation between Kierkegaard, Kafka, Blanchot and Derrida on the question of literary sacrifice. Details ISBN1623560454 Short Title LITERATURE SUSPENDS DEATH Pages 176 Language English ISBN-10 1623560454 ISBN-13 9781623560454 Media Book Format Paperback Year 2013 Publication Date 2013-05-23 Subtitle Sacrifice and Storytelling in Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot DOI CBID180308 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States DEWEY 809.933822211 Illustrations black & white illustrations Imprint Bloomsbury Academic USA UK Release Date 2013-05-23 NZ Release Date 2013-05-23 US Release Date 2013-05-23 Translator Sandra Kingery Edited by Claire Webster Birth 1948 Affiliation Winchester College, UK Position Classics Teacher Qualifications R.N., B.S.N., Ocn Author Dr. Chris Danta Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Audience General AU Release Date 2013-05-22 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! 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