Andrew Gibson is Research Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a member of the Conseil scientifique of the College international de philosophie in Paris. He is the author of Beckett and Badious: The Pathos of Intermittenccy (Oxford University Press, 2006), James Joyce: A Critical Life (Reaktion, 2006) and Towards a Postmodern Theory of Narrative (EUP, 1996).
This book is to my knowledge the most subtle and original study of a crucial orientation in French philosophy that took place after the heyday of the best-known great masters, now dead (Althusser, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan etc.), but which refused to ally itself with the nouvelle philosophie (Levy, Finkielkraut and their followers). Gibson clarifies what the principal representatives of this orientation have in common, what separates them, and why thought must set out from them today, even if it preserves ? as Gibson does ? a real critical distance from them. The book is without equal or rival anywhere, including France. -- Alain Badiou Gibson is not merely a skilful interpreter of texts, not merely a passeur, who enables us to discover new vistas in contemporary French philosophy, but also a philosopher in his own right...the book you are going to read is not merely a book, it is a landmark. -- Jean-Jacques Lecercle This book is to my knowledge the most subtle and original study of a crucial orientation in French philosophy that took place after the heyday of the best-known great masters, now dead (Althusser, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan etc.), but which refused to ally itself with the nouvelle philosophie (Levy, Finkielkraut and their followers). Gibson clarifies what the principal representatives of this orientation have in common, what separates them, and why thought must set out from them today, even if it preserves ? as Gibson does ? a real critical distance from them. The book is without equal or rival anywhere, including France. Gibson is not merely a skilful interpreter of texts, not merely a passeur, who enables us to discover new vistas in contemporary French philosophy, but also a philosopher in his own right...the book you are going to read is not merely a book, it is a landmark.