Anthony Uhlmann offers a reading of Beckett in the light of recent French philosophy, particularly the work of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Levinas, and Derrida. Beckett and Poststructuralism is a work of literary criticism that is also an intellectual history of the relationship between Beckett's texts and their French philosophical and cultural context. Uhlmann explores the overlap between Beckett's aesthetic and philosophy, emphasizing how postwar French philosophy was powerfully affected by Beckett's work. This book addresses a wide range of issues in contemporary philosophy and...

Arnold Geulincx (1624-1669) is a key figure in the history of ideas, whose concepts have been seen as precursors to those developed by Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibniz and Kant. His Ethics presents a treatment of virtue from the standpoint of occasionalist metaphysics. The great Irish writer Samuel Beckett stated that Geulincx, with his emphasis on the powerlessness and ignorance of the human condition, was a key influence on his works. This is the first complete version of the text to appear in a modern language. It includes the full text of the Ethics and Beckett's notes to his...

Beckett often made use of images from the visual arts and readapted them, staging them in his plays, or using them in his fiction. Anthony Uhlmann sets out to explain how an image differs from other terms, like 'metaphor' or 'representation', and, in the process, to analyse Beckett's use of images borrowed from philosophy and aesthetics. This study, first published in 2006, carefully examines Beckett's thoughts on the image in his literary works and his extensive notes to the philosopher Arnold Geulincx. Uhlmann considers how images might allow one kind of interaction between philosophy and...

Anthony Uhlmann offers a reading of Beckett in the light of recent French philosophy, particularly the work of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Levinas, and Derrida. Beckett and Poststructuralism is a work of literary criticism that is also an intellectual history of the relationship between Beckett's texts and their French philosophical and cultural context. Uhlmann explores the overlap between Beckett's aesthetic and philosophy, emphasizing how postwar French philosophy was powerfully affected by Beckett's work. This book addresses a wide range of issues in contemporary philosophy and...

Beckett often made use of images from the visual arts and readapted them, staging them in his plays, or using them in his fiction. Anthony Uhlmann sets out to explain how an image differs from other terms, like 'metaphor' or 'representation', and, in the process, to analyse Beckett's use of images borrowed from philosophy and aesthetics. This study, first published in 2006, carefully examines Beckett's thoughts on the image in his literary works and his extensive notes to the philosopher Arnold Geulincx. Uhlmann considers how images might allow one kind of interaction between philosophy and...

Provides a comprehensive exploration of Beckett's historical, cultural and philosophical contexts, offering new critical insights for scholars and general readers.

Since the controversy and acclaim that surrounded the publication of Disgrace (1999), the awarding of the Nobel Prize for literature and the publication of Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons (both in 2003), J. M. Coetzee's status has begun to steadily rise to the point where he has now outgrown the specialized domain of South African literature. Today he is recognized more simply as one of the most important writers in the English language from the late 20th and early 21st century. Coetzee's productivity and invention has not slowed with old age. The Childhood of Jesus,...