Badiou and Deleuze Read Literature

by Jean-Jacques Lecercle

Why do philosophers read literature? How do they read it? Does their philosophy derive from their reading of literature? If so, to what extent? Anyone who reads contemporary European philosophers has to ask such questions. Lecercle considers the 'strong readings' that Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze imposed on the texts they read. He demonstrates that philosophers need literature, as much as literary critics need it is an exercise not in the philosophy of literature, where literature is a mere object of analysis, but in philosophy and literature, a heady and unusual mix.

Genres: Philosophy

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 26, 2010

About the author

Jean-Jacques Lecercle is Professor of English at the University of Paris at Nanterre. He has published widely in the fields of philosophy of language and literary theory, and is the author of The Violence of Language, Philosophy of Nonsense, Interpretations of Pragmatics and Deleuze and Language.