Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 04:58:56 -0500
Subject: Re: MB: Academics



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Well, I would never refer to it an 'obsession' (obsession is, to my mind, much
more serious than was intended at the outset - the 'obsession' seems to be much
more deeply scored in the rather defensive replies this mail received) - it
was/is, simply: a point. Nonetheless, I very much like and appreciate your
insight - I think, finally, that someone wrote who actually read (i.e.;
understood and heard the actual query not their own ...) what my original mail
was all about.Thanks.

Claire

steve m wrote:

> >
> >I find this obsession with the academic and non-academic divide
> >troubling.
>
> So do I, but 'obsession' is what those of us outside academia suffer from,
> otherwise we would read the Reader's Digest, not Blanchot!  As for the
> specific point, the essays I have read by academics TEND to understand the
> 'creative' thing only rhetorically. One senses the pressure behind
> Blanchot's words yet not in the very similar ones used to frame him for
> seminars. No matter how much I respect the rigour with which those work in
> the academy approach Blanchot's work, it tends to lack the very thing that
> makes Blanchot compelling (apart from his fiction, which I find mortifyingly
> dull).
>
> I say tend: in the book of essays published by Yale French Studies, 'The
> Place of MB', Denis Hollier stands out from the rest, so I recommend that to
> Claire Dinsmore.  The editor of the book, Thomas Pepper, also seems
> interesting but I get lost when reading him.
>
> steve m
>
> http://www.spikemagazine.com/

--
"We live in the dark.  We do what we can. We give what we have.
Our doubt is our passion.  Our passion is our task.  The rest of the madness is
art."
- Henry James
http://www.StudioCleo.com


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HTML VERSION:

Claire

steve m wrote:

>
>I find this obsession with the academic and non-academic divide
>troubling.

So do I, but 'obsession' is what those of us outside academia suffer from,
otherwise we would read the Reader's Digest, not Blanchot!  As for the
specific point, the essays I have read by academics TEND to understand the
'creative' thing only rhetorically. One senses the pressure behind
Blanchot's words yet not in the very similar ones used to frame him for
seminars. No matter how much I respect the rigour with which those work in
the academy approach Blanchot's work, it tends to lack the very thing that
makes Blanchot compelling (apart from his fiction, which I find mortifyingly
dull).

I say tend: in the book of essays published by Yale French Studies, 'The
Place of MB', Denis Hollier stands out from the rest, so I recommend that to
Claire Dinsmore.  The editor of the book, Thomas Pepper, also seems
interesting but I get lost when reading him.

steve m

http://www.spikemagazine.com/

--
"We live in the dark.  We do what we can. We give what we have.
Our doubt is our passion.  Our passion is our task.  The rest of the madness is art."
- Henry James
http://www.StudioCleo.com
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