Paul de Man - literary critic, literary philosopher, "American deconstructionist" - changed the landscape of criticism through his rigorous theories and writings. Upon its original publication in 1988, Christopher Norris' book was the first full-length introduction to de Man, a reading that offers a much-needed corrective to the pattern of extreme antithetical response which marked the initial reception to de Man's writings. Norris addresses de Man's relationship to philosophical thinking in the post-Kantian tradition, his concern with "aesthetic ideology" as a potent force of mystification within and beyond that tradition, and the vexed issue of de Man's politics. Norris brings out the marked shift of allegiance in de Man's thinking, from the thinly veiled conservative implications of the early essays to the engagement with Marx and Foucault on matters of language and politics in the late, posthumous writing. At each stage, Norris raises these questions through a detailed close reading of individual texts which will be welcomed by those who lack any specialised knowledge of de Man's work.

First published in 1992, this book represents the first major attempt to compile a bibliography of Derrida’s work and scholarship about his work. It attempts to be comprehensive rather than selective, listing primary and secondary works from the year of Derrida’s Master’s thesis in 1954 up until 1991, and is extensively annotated. It arranges under article type a huge number of works from scholars across numerous fields — reflecting the interdisciplinary and controversial nature of Deconstruction. The substantial introduction and annotations also make this bibliography, in part, a critical guide and as such will make a highly useful reference tool for those studying his philosophy.

The poetic nightingale is so familiar it seems hardly to merit serious attention. Yet its ubiquity is significant, suggesting associations with erotic love, pathos and art that cross culture and history. This book examines the different nightingales of European literature, starting with the Greek myth of Philomela, the raped girl, silenced by having her tongue cut out, and then transformed into the bird whose name means poet, poetry and nightingale simultaneously. Moving from the classical to the Christian worlds, Jeni Williams discusses nightingales and nature in the early church and sees the emergence of the figure as an emotive emblem of the aristocracy in mediaeval vernacular debate poetry. Her final chapters use the nightingale and the myth to examine Elizabeth Barrett Browning's struggle for an active female voice in Victorian poetry.

Criticizes deconstructionist literary theory because it is anti-humanistic and negates value, historical truth, and the worth of individual experience. Notes that Heidegger embraced Nazism as in tune with his philosophy; that French deconstructionists who experienced the German occupation prefer to repress this memory; that Paul de Man published antisemitic articles in Nazi journals in 1940-41; and that Hans Robert Jauss served throughout the war in the Waffen-SS in Eastern Europe, though he claims to have known nothing of the Holocaust. Argues that deconstructionism's negation of truth, its proposition that language by its very nature serves deception, is convenient for persons with such a background. Points to affinities between deconstructionism and the recontextualization of the Holocaust in revisionist historiography, in which the point of view of the victim is replaced by that of the accused. Asserts that deconstructionist literary critics have ignored Holocaust literature because they devalue the real experience of human beings.

An accessible introduction to the concept of culture in Gramsci focusing on the relevance of Gramscia s approach for anthropologists"