Francois Cusset’s recently translated book, French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze & Co Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States, has been reviewed in the NDPR by Ethan Kleinberg.
Kleinberg is appreciative (yet with a dash of the critical) – as is expected in any good review. He’s disappointed with the lack of substantial analysis, as opposed to historical contextualisation (that old dichotomy in intellectual history), and suspicious of the hint of dialectic in Cusset’s ultimate argument. Moreover, he’s a bit miffed about the references to Marx, it would seem, pointing out that “obviously” it is for a French market. Well, of course, given it was published there in 2003.
Also, given Kleinberg’s recent article in History and Theory on the reception of Derrida, I would have expected a little more appreciation on his part of Cusset’s thesis that a thorough, more faithful appropriation of the French authors in question is still on its way. Kleinberg’s theory had been that Derrida ‘haunted’ historiography, a deconstructive history still to come, that does not seem to me to be so dissimilar from Cusset’s broad argument.
October 3, 2008 at 5:50 am
Thanks for the review review. I guess I’d like to suggest that my criticism of Cusset is focused on precisely the deployment of a logic of mastery of the text (“more faithful appropriation”) is at odds with what I see as some of the greatest gains achieved by “French Theory.” The Marx reference is not so much about the use of Marx but the ways that Cusset suggests Americans are not in a position to use/understand/deploy Marx as opposed to the French who are.
October 3, 2008 at 8:39 am
Dear Ethan, many thanks for stopping by, and thanks for narrowing the focus here. My apologies, I collapsed the difference somewhat between Cusset’s dialectic, and your logic of haunting.
The reception of Derrida is a fascinating thing – and things happen not at all for the reasons that are commonly given – something like historiographic folklore. It’s proving, for me at least, a terribly fun area for the intersection between history and philosophy, and approaches to intellectual history.
October 3, 2008 at 10:12 am
No apologies necessary. I appreciate the discussion and the criticisms. To my mind it moves the discourse in productive ways.