Description:
Dubreuil explores the power-language phenomenon in the context of European and, particularly, French colonialism and its aftermath.
Brief description: Laurent Dubreuil is Professor of Romance Studies and Comparative Literature, Director of the French Studies Program, and member of the cognitive science program and graduate field at Cornell University. He is the editor of the journal diacritics and the author of several books including, most recently, Le Refus de la politique.
Review Quotes:
"Empire of Language covers a broad span of time and subject matter: all the way from the seventeenth century to the present; from the texts of Christopher Columbus to those of Spinoza and Sartre; from racist treatises to major texts denouncing colonialism; and from little-known eighteenth-century Haitian historians to contemporary institutions. This brief sampling gives but a small idea of the extraordinary richness and magnitude of this book, and especially of its critical impact. With great vigor and lively intelligence, Laurent Dubreuil gives readers a new understanding of the hold language exercises in the colonial model of power. This is obviously a very innovative book."
--Jacques Neefs, James M. Beall Professor in French Literature, The Johns Hopkins University