The Barbara Johnson Reader: The Surprise of Otherness

by Barbara Johnson, Bill Johnson González (Editor), Melissa Feuerstein (Editor)

This Reader collects in a single volume some of the most influential essays written by Barbara Johnson over the course of her thirty-year career as a pioneering literary theorist and cultural critic. Johnson achieved renown early in her career, both as a brilliant student of the Yale School of literary criticism and as the translator of Jacques Derrida's Dissemination . She went on to lead the way in extending the insights of structuralism and poststructuralism into newly emerging fields now central to literary studies, fields such as gender studies, African American studies, queer theory, and law and literature. Stunning models of critical reading and writing, her essays cultivate rigorous questioning of universalizing assumptions, respect for otherness and difference, and an appreciation of ambiguity.

Along with the classic essays that established her place in literary scholarship, this Reader makes available a selection of Johnson's later essays, brilliantly lucid and politically trenchant works exploring multilingualism and translation, materiality, ethics, subjectivity, and sexuality. The Barbara Johnson Reader offers a historical guide through the metamorphoses and tumultuous debates that have defined literary study in recent decades, as viewed by one of critical theory's most astute thinkers.  
 

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Literary Criticism

488 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Librarian note: There are other authors with the same name

Barbara Johnson was an American literary critic and translator. She was a Professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society at Harvard University. Her scholarship incorporated a variety of structuralist and poststructuralist perspectives—including deconstruction, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and feminist theory—into a critical, interdisciplinary study of literature. As a scholar, teacher, and translator, Johnson helped make the theories of French philosopher Jacques Derrida accessible to English-speaking audiences in the United States at a time when they had just begun to gain recognition in France. Accordingly, she is often associated with the "Yale School" of academic literary criticism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara...

Reviews

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Queen of nothing.

[Harris]

Stellar! Johnson is one of the best readers and writers I’ve been lucky enough to encounter.

[Leyla Zebda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not going to be able to write a decent review, mainly because it took me so fucking long to read because I rarely read essays I am very lazy. Apart from the fact I felt major fomo throughout because I hadn't read a single one of the texts she mentions or explores in her essays, I really fell in love with the way that Barbara's mind worked. I generally feel I learn a lot from her perspective and it was incredibly beautiful

[Kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing.