The Debacle or The Real Under Reduction: The “Scene of Alençon”

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter I
2. Open Access Transformation in Jewish Studies V
3. Contents VII
4. Introduction: Levinas and Literature, a Marvellous Hypocrisy IX
5. The Anarchy of Literature 1
6. Part I: Eros
7. Eros, Emmanuel Levinas’s Novel? 21
8. Eros, Once Again: Danielle Cohen-Levinas in Conversation with Jean-Luc Nancy 37
9. The Debacle or The Real Under Reduction: The “Scene of Alençon” 47
10. From Eros to the Question of the Death of God 63
11. Part II: Biblical Texts
12. Languages of the Universal. Levinas’ (scandalous) Doctrine of Literature 77
13. The Genesis of Totality and Infinity: The Secret Drama 93
14. Literature as a Burning Bush 117
15. Part III: Poetry
16. Levinas and the Poetic Word: Writing with Baudelaire? 133
17. “Lès-Poésie?”: Levinas Reads La folie du jour 147
18. Poetic Language and Prophetic Language in Levinas’s Works 165
19. The Poem, the Place, the Jew: Emmanuel Levinas on Paul Celan 175
20. Part IV: Novel Writers
21. The Literary Instant and the Condition of Being Hostage: Levinas, Proust, and the Corporeal Meaning of Time 195
22. Ideology, Literature, and Philosophy: Levinas as a Reader of Léon Bloy 209
23. Goodness without Witnesses: Vasily Grossman and Emmanuel Levinas 223
24. Reading Fiction with Levinas: Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement 239
25. Part V: Literary Theory
26. Emmanuel Levinas: Metaphor without Metaphysics 259
27. Apparition: Aesthetics of Disproportion in Levinas and Adorno 281