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9781805965763

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Reviews

'Chaouat’s new book shows how strains of Gnosticism’s repudiation of “this world” have once again emerged to manage cultural and political disorientation—climate change, epidemics, the rapidity of technological change and the increasing obsolescence of human labor. As he shows brilliantly, these repudiations echo quests for authenticity in mid-twentieth-century French literature and thought. The encounters between Gnosticism and the work of thinkers like Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Emmanuel Levinas, and Michel Houllebecque (among others) address what Primo Levi called the “useless suffering” of Auschwitz and Hiroshima and continue to haunt our present. Chaouat’s work has always pushed us to think about literary and philosophical encounters with established traditions in innovative fashion. This book is but one more exemplar of the fruitfulness of his approach.' - Carolyn Dean ‘the author has identified and substantially filled a gap in contemporary studies of modern French writing.' Kevin Hart 'In addressing whether our time is shaped by a new “gnostic ethos,” the force of Out of this World's argument stems from its sustained engagement with Gnostic traditions across a range of well-known French writers rarely discussed in the same context.' Philip Armstrong

Author Information

Bruno Chaouat is Professor of French at the University of Minnesota.

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