Description: A state-of-the-art overview and reappraisal of the literary and philosophical origins of theory and, in particular, of modern subjectivity.
Brief description: Claudia Brodsky is Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, USA, and ancien Directeur de Programme at the Collège International de Philosophie, Paris, France. Her publications include The Imposition of Form (1987), Lines of Thought (1996), Birth of a Nation'hood (co-edited with Toni Morrison, 1997), In the Place of Language (2009), Inventing Agency (co-edited with Eloy LaBrada, Bloomsbury, 2017), and The Linguistic Condition (forthcoming Bloomsbury, 2020).
Review Quotes: Inventing Agency, Essay on the Literary and Philosophical Production of the Modern Subjectoffers an admirable examination of the multiple ways the capacity to think and act, to reflect or negate have been both re-defined and questioned in the modern era. The authors gathered in this volume engage in a productive dialogue, focusing on distinctive works and critical perspectives. The question of agency is approached through a variety of texts that focus on aesthetics, philosophy, painting, narrative strategies and historical singularities. Knowledgeable and provocative, Inventing Agency goes far beyond the terms with which, from Descartes to Kant, the question of the authority and status of the subject have been framed, raising important questions regarding communicability and current forms of critical thought in its relationship to history.
Marie-Hélène Huet, M. Taylor Pyne Professor of French and Italian, Princeton University, USA