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"This timely book argues that the institutionalisation of literary theory, particularly within American and British academic circles, has led to a sterility of thought which ignores the special character of literary art. Mark Edmundson traces the origins of this tendency to the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry, in which Plato took the side of philosophy; and he shows how the work of modern theorists - Foucault, Derrida, de Man and Bloom - exhibits similar drives to subsume poetic art into some 'higher' kind of thought. Challenging and controversial, this book should be read by all teachers of literature and of theory, and by anyone concerned about the future of institutionalised literary studies."

"This book challenges theory's critique of literary art. It argues that the institutionalization of theory, particularly in North American universities over the last quarter century, has led to a pervasive intellectual sterility. Theory's institutional triumph induces critics to offer categorical explanations and demystifying analyses that ignore the actual power and scope of literature. Mark Edmundson traces this tendency to systematize and sterilize literature to Plato's famous quarrel, on behalf of philosophy, against the poets. Edmundson goes on to show how contemporary theorists like de Man, Derrida and Bloom have renewed the philosophical drive to demean poetic art, or to subsume it into some "higher" form of thought. This is not an anti-theoretical book: it acknowledges the value of theory and the intellectual prowess of the theorists it treats. But it is also concerned to recognize theory's limits and to establish the responsibility of literary criticism to do more than theorize: to identify those points at which literature resists being explained away. This book comes to the defence of poetry and of literary art overall, at a time when its cultural status is in doubt."

"This biography of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) tells the story of a Jewish boy from Algiers, excluded from school at the age of twelve, who went on to become the most widely translated French philsopher in the world - a vulnerable, tormented man who, throughout his life, continued to see himself as unwelcome in the French university system."--Back cover.This biography of Jacques Derrida (1930--2004) tells the story of a Jewish boy from Algiers, excluded from school at the age of twelve, who went on to become the most widely translated French philosopher in the world -- a vulnerable, tormented man who, throughout his life, continued to see himself as unwelcome in the French university system. We are plunged into the different worlds in which Derrida lived and worked: pre-independence Algeria, the microcosm of the Ecole Normale Superieure, the cluster of structuralist thinkers, and the turbulent events of 1968 and after. We meet the remarkable series of leading writers and philosophers with whom Derrida struck up a friendship: Louis Althusser, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean Genet, and Helene Cixous, among others. We also witness an equally long series of often brutal polemics fought over crucial issues with thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, John R. Searle, and Jurgen Habermas, as well as several controversies that went far beyond academia, the best known of which concerned Heidegger and Paul de Man. We follow a series of courageous political commitments in support of Nelson Mandela, illegal immigrants, and gay marriage. And we watch as a concept -- deconstruction -- takes wing and exerts an extraordinary influence way beyond the philosophical world, on literary studies, architecture, law, theology, feminism, queer theory, and postcolonial studies. In writing this compelling and authoritative biography, Benoit Peeters talked to over a hundred individuals who knew and worked with Derrida. He is also the first person to make use of the huge personal archive built up by Derrida throughout his life and of his extensive correspondence. Peeters' book gives us a new and deeper understanding of the man who will perhaps be seen as the major philosopher of the second half of the twentieth century."