Dictations: On Haunted Writing

by Avital Ronell

Goethe, the great master of German literary and scientific works, populated his writing with ghosts and, long after his own demise, went on to haunt others. Ronell (German, comparative literature, German, New York U.) argues that Goethe is the undead core of German literary and theoretical production and the basis of a poignant code of symptoms. She finds her hero of haunted writing in Johann Eckermann, who recorded Goethe's last thoughts about art, poetry, politics and religion in Conversations with Goethe. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Genres: Philosophy

202 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1993

About the author

Avital Ronell is Professor of German, comparative literature, and English at New York University, where she directs the Research in Trauma and Violence project, and has also written as a literary critic, a feminist, and philosopher.

Ronell to Israeli diplomats and was a performance artist before entering academia.

She gained a B.A. from Middlebury College and studied with Jacob Taubes at the Hermeneutic Institute at the Free University of Berlin. She received her Ph.D. under the advisement of Stanley Corngold at Princeton University in 1979, and then continued her studies with Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous in Paris.

She joined the comparative literature faculty at the University of California, Berkeley before moving to NYU. She is also a core faculty member at the European Graduate School.