- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804774574
- eISBN:
- 9780804782838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804774574.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter analyzes the works of literary critic Maurice Blanchot. His youthful interwar writings helped shape a discourse of the nation, its substance and borders, haunted by the figure of an ...
More
This chapter analyzes the works of literary critic Maurice Blanchot. His youthful interwar writings helped shape a discourse of the nation, its substance and borders, haunted by the figure of an “other,” and articulated an obsession with the way the subject can emerge undivided and in harmony with the social body—concerns that far-right writers like Thierry Maulnier, Jean–Pierre Maxence, and Jean de Fabrègues also addressed. Politics and literature were the sites where Blanchot worked through his possible answer to the crisis of subjectivity, self, and nation, and his relation to the difference which became associated with Jewishness. Like the Young New Right intellectuals he was close to, Blanchot attempted to find a resolution to a seemingly untenable political situation, that of interwar France perceived to be in the throes of a cultural and moral crisis.Less
This chapter analyzes the works of literary critic Maurice Blanchot. His youthful interwar writings helped shape a discourse of the nation, its substance and borders, haunted by the figure of an “other,” and articulated an obsession with the way the subject can emerge undivided and in harmony with the social body—concerns that far-right writers like Thierry Maulnier, Jean–Pierre Maxence, and Jean de Fabrègues also addressed. Politics and literature were the sites where Blanchot worked through his possible answer to the crisis of subjectivity, self, and nation, and his relation to the difference which became associated with Jewishness. Like the Young New Right intellectuals he was close to, Blanchot attempted to find a resolution to a seemingly untenable political situation, that of interwar France perceived to be in the throes of a cultural and moral crisis.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804774574
- eISBN:
- 9780804782838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804774574.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter discusses how these far-right writers both belonged to the same intellectual and political tradition—that of Maurrassian nationalism and Catholic politics—yet also departed from that ...
More
This chapter discusses how these far-right writers both belonged to the same intellectual and political tradition—that of Maurrassian nationalism and Catholic politics—yet also departed from that tradition in significant ways. Recognizing the networks, affiliations, and affinities of 1930s intellectuals with their elders helps us to grasp the circulation of common themes—dissolution, disgust, abjection—from 1931 to 1936, but also allows us to trace the ideological differences that emerged after 1938, which coalesced around the questions of gender, sex, race, and French civilization. These differences emerged most strikingly around the place and role of anti-Semitism in a larger French ultra-nationalism and in the decision to refute or embrace the title of “French fascists”.Less
This chapter discusses how these far-right writers both belonged to the same intellectual and political tradition—that of Maurrassian nationalism and Catholic politics—yet also departed from that tradition in significant ways. Recognizing the networks, affiliations, and affinities of 1930s intellectuals with their elders helps us to grasp the circulation of common themes—dissolution, disgust, abjection—from 1931 to 1936, but also allows us to trace the ideological differences that emerged after 1938, which coalesced around the questions of gender, sex, race, and French civilization. These differences emerged most strikingly around the place and role of anti-Semitism in a larger French ultra-nationalism and in the decision to refute or embrace the title of “French fascists”.
