Patrick Ffrench | King's College London (original) (raw)
Books by Patrick Ffrench
Georges Bataille hat philosophische Texte ebenso geschrieben wie Romane und Gedichte, er verfasst... more Georges Bataille hat philosophische Texte ebenso geschrieben wie Romane und Gedichte, er verfasste Studien über Kunst und Literatur ebenso wie über gesellschaftliche, politische und wirtschaftliche Themen. Im Brotberuf biederer Bibliothekar und Gründer mehrerer Zeitschriften mit wissenschaftlichem Anspruch, darunter der durch und durch seriösen und hoch renommierten Critique, zeichnete Bataille zugleich verantwortlich – teilweise unter Pseudonym – für höchst anstößige literarische Texte an der Grenze zwischen Obszönität und Pornographie.
Philosophisch zeigt sich Bataille die Welt weniger als eine Welt der Gründe als vielmehr der Abgründe, der Mensch als »unhaltbares Wesen« und die Vernunft in der Gestalt des Schlafes. Für ihn kann gelten, was Heidegger mit Bezug auf Hölderlin gesagt hat: Er sei »einer unserer größten, d. h. unser zukünftigster Denker, weil er unser größter Dichter ist«. Dieser französischen Variante des Dichter-Denkens widmen sich die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes aus vielfältigen philosophischen, kunstwissenschaftlichen wie soziologischen Aspekten.
Der vorliegende Band versammelt wichtige internationale Stimmen zu Bataille, darunter Jean-Luc Nancy und Michel Maffesoli.
Author of the obscene narrative Story of the Eye and of works of heretical philosophy such as Inn... more Author of the obscene narrative Story of the Eye and of works of heretical philosophy such as Inner Experience, Georges Bataille (1897-1962) is one of the most powerful and secretly influential French thinkers of the last century. His work is driven by a compulsion to communicate an experience which exceeds the limits of communicative exchange, and also constitutes a sustained focus on the nature of this complusion. After Bataille takes this sense of compulsion as its motive and traces it across different figures in Batailles thought, from an obsession with the thematics and the event of sacrifice, through the exposure of being and of the subject, to the necessary relation to others in friendship and in community. In each of these instances After Bataille is distinctive in staging a series of encounters between Bataille, his contemporaries, and critics and theorists who extend or engage with his legacy. It thus offers a vital account of the place of Bataille in contemporary thought.
The Tel Quel Reader presents for the first time in English many of the key essays that played an ... more The Tel Quel Reader presents for the first time in English many of the key essays that played an instrumental role in shaping the contours of literary and cultural debate in the 1960s and 1970s. Tel Quel was a French journal and publishing team that printed some of the earliest work by Derrida, Bataille, Kristeva, Barthes, Foucault and Deleuze.
From its beginning in 1960 to its closure in 1982, TQpublished some of the key essays of major poststructuralist thinkers. The Readerincludes essays available in English for the first time by Kristeva and Foucault, and a fascinating interview with Barthes. It provides a unique insight into the poststructuralist movement and presents some of the pioneering essays on literature and culture, gender, film, semiotics and psychoanalysis. Although articles included here cover diverse areas--from the semiology of paragrams to the readability of Sade, a common perspective runs through them: the recognition of excess and the seduction of writing.
Papers by Patrick Ffrench
Textual Practice, 2013
In the book Intimacies, which features responses from psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, Leo Bersani ex... more In the book Intimacies, which features responses from psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, Leo Bersani explores the possibility of telling a different story about intimacy from that based on the premise of individual difference. This project draws on Bersani's previous writing on psychoanalysis, literature and film, which critically addresses the model of the ego as bound to its own aggressive assertiveness and to its own sexual shattering. The ethical thrust of Bersani's work, particularly recent work on the visual and on cinema co-authored with Ulysse Dutoit, is towards forms of movement in the world which would ‘non-sadistic', and would thus operate differently from the appropriative desire of the ego tied to its own intermittent annihilation. The aesthetic field, and that of film in particular, can, in Bersani's terms, draw the spectator away from their hermeneutic and thus appropriative desire, away from identification, and into their dissemination in a ‘variation of forms'. This article explores these concerns via a consideration of Antonioni's film The Passenger (1975), and of its key motif, in which one character takes on the identity of another. The ‘other' intimacy Bersani and Phillips pursue is addressed through attention to the existential drama of ‘being another', and through the visual style of Antonioni's film.
Modern & Contemporary France, 2017
STRANDS book series A strand is a thread, a trajectory, a train of argument or thought. It is als... more STRANDS book series A strand is a thread, a trajectory, a train of argument or thought. It is also a road, a promenade, the place where beach meets cityscape. It is a limit as well as a line. It is the site of encounter, conflict and confrontation. As borders are reinforced and sea levels rise, spaces of inclusion become those of exclusion. The strand gives way to the stranded, marooned, isolated, imprisoned and alienated. This series presents a range of perspectives and critical methodologies aimed at questions of space and our sociocultural engagement with it. As such it incorporates studies and approaches from cultural studies, literature, film and media studies, anthropology, political science, architecture and human geography.
The Comparatist, 2017
If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.
Film-Philosophy
Jean-Louis Schefer's newly translated The Ordinary Man of Cinema (2016), originally published... more Jean-Louis Schefer's newly translated The Ordinary Man of Cinema (2016), originally published in 1980, proposes a singular account of the experience of cinema which departs from the principal tendencies of film theory. It has nevertheless had a profound if somewhat invisible influence in film philosophy and theory since its publication, notably in the work of Gilles Deleuze. This essay proposes a synthetic discussion of Schefer's work on film up to The Ordinary Man, arguing that Schefer's work, which draws on his earlier work on painting, construes film as radically non-representational, and as bringing into being, in the spectator, a virtual affectivity corresponding to the distorted and disproportionate bodies and aberrant movements that it presents. I argue that in its recurrent emphasis on the “inchoate” elements in film, and on the “inceptions” of movements that it provokes, Schefer's thought draws implicitly on the Bataillean notion of the informe (formlessness...
French Studies a Quarterly Review, 2011
... ELISHA FOUST ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON doi:10.1093/fs/knq195 ... work can be seen ... more ... ELISHA FOUST ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON doi:10.1093/fs/knq195 ... work can be seen as taking place at the confluence of two factors: the influence of the structuralist or post-structuralist discourses of Althusser, Foucault, Barthes, Lévi-Strauss, Derrida, and ...
Sartre Studies International, 2013
Http Dx Doi Org 10 3366 Prg 2007 0005, Jan 8, 2008
... But on its own, 'theory', like other proper nouns, is a word which has lost ... con... more ... But on its own, 'theory', like other proper nouns, is a word which has lost ... content, like 'poststructuralism', or in connec-tion with a series of names (variously, in ... under consideration here: Althusser, Barthes, Derrida, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Levinas, Kristeva, ...
The Modern Language Review, 2002
... d'ouverture du magasin: Du mardi au vendredi, de 09h30 à 18h30 sans interruption Le Same... more ... d'ouverture du magasin: Du mardi au vendredi, de 09h30 à 18h30 sans interruption Le Samedi, de 10h00 à 18h00 sans interruption. ... were deeply influential over some of the best-known intellectual figures of the late 20th century, including Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Liotard ...
The Modern Language Review, 2002
... Georges Bataille and the mysticism of sin. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Connor, Pete... more ... Georges Bataille and the mysticism of sin. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Connor, Peter Tracey. PUBLISHER: Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 2000. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 080186268X ). VOLUME/EDITION: ...
Georges Bataille hat philosophische Texte ebenso geschrieben wie Romane und Gedichte, er verfasst... more Georges Bataille hat philosophische Texte ebenso geschrieben wie Romane und Gedichte, er verfasste Studien über Kunst und Literatur ebenso wie über gesellschaftliche, politische und wirtschaftliche Themen. Im Brotberuf biederer Bibliothekar und Gründer mehrerer Zeitschriften mit wissenschaftlichem Anspruch, darunter der durch und durch seriösen und hoch renommierten Critique, zeichnete Bataille zugleich verantwortlich – teilweise unter Pseudonym – für höchst anstößige literarische Texte an der Grenze zwischen Obszönität und Pornographie.
Philosophisch zeigt sich Bataille die Welt weniger als eine Welt der Gründe als vielmehr der Abgründe, der Mensch als »unhaltbares Wesen« und die Vernunft in der Gestalt des Schlafes. Für ihn kann gelten, was Heidegger mit Bezug auf Hölderlin gesagt hat: Er sei »einer unserer größten, d. h. unser zukünftigster Denker, weil er unser größter Dichter ist«. Dieser französischen Variante des Dichter-Denkens widmen sich die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes aus vielfältigen philosophischen, kunstwissenschaftlichen wie soziologischen Aspekten.
Der vorliegende Band versammelt wichtige internationale Stimmen zu Bataille, darunter Jean-Luc Nancy und Michel Maffesoli.
Author of the obscene narrative Story of the Eye and of works of heretical philosophy such as Inn... more Author of the obscene narrative Story of the Eye and of works of heretical philosophy such as Inner Experience, Georges Bataille (1897-1962) is one of the most powerful and secretly influential French thinkers of the last century. His work is driven by a compulsion to communicate an experience which exceeds the limits of communicative exchange, and also constitutes a sustained focus on the nature of this complusion. After Bataille takes this sense of compulsion as its motive and traces it across different figures in Batailles thought, from an obsession with the thematics and the event of sacrifice, through the exposure of being and of the subject, to the necessary relation to others in friendship and in community. In each of these instances After Bataille is distinctive in staging a series of encounters between Bataille, his contemporaries, and critics and theorists who extend or engage with his legacy. It thus offers a vital account of the place of Bataille in contemporary thought.
The Tel Quel Reader presents for the first time in English many of the key essays that played an ... more The Tel Quel Reader presents for the first time in English many of the key essays that played an instrumental role in shaping the contours of literary and cultural debate in the 1960s and 1970s. Tel Quel was a French journal and publishing team that printed some of the earliest work by Derrida, Bataille, Kristeva, Barthes, Foucault and Deleuze.
From its beginning in 1960 to its closure in 1982, TQpublished some of the key essays of major poststructuralist thinkers. The Readerincludes essays available in English for the first time by Kristeva and Foucault, and a fascinating interview with Barthes. It provides a unique insight into the poststructuralist movement and presents some of the pioneering essays on literature and culture, gender, film, semiotics and psychoanalysis. Although articles included here cover diverse areas--from the semiology of paragrams to the readability of Sade, a common perspective runs through them: the recognition of excess and the seduction of writing.
Textual Practice, 2013
In the book Intimacies, which features responses from psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, Leo Bersani ex... more In the book Intimacies, which features responses from psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, Leo Bersani explores the possibility of telling a different story about intimacy from that based on the premise of individual difference. This project draws on Bersani's previous writing on psychoanalysis, literature and film, which critically addresses the model of the ego as bound to its own aggressive assertiveness and to its own sexual shattering. The ethical thrust of Bersani's work, particularly recent work on the visual and on cinema co-authored with Ulysse Dutoit, is towards forms of movement in the world which would ‘non-sadistic', and would thus operate differently from the appropriative desire of the ego tied to its own intermittent annihilation. The aesthetic field, and that of film in particular, can, in Bersani's terms, draw the spectator away from their hermeneutic and thus appropriative desire, away from identification, and into their dissemination in a ‘variation of forms'. This article explores these concerns via a consideration of Antonioni's film The Passenger (1975), and of its key motif, in which one character takes on the identity of another. The ‘other' intimacy Bersani and Phillips pursue is addressed through attention to the existential drama of ‘being another', and through the visual style of Antonioni's film.
Modern & Contemporary France, 2017
STRANDS book series A strand is a thread, a trajectory, a train of argument or thought. It is als... more STRANDS book series A strand is a thread, a trajectory, a train of argument or thought. It is also a road, a promenade, the place where beach meets cityscape. It is a limit as well as a line. It is the site of encounter, conflict and confrontation. As borders are reinforced and sea levels rise, spaces of inclusion become those of exclusion. The strand gives way to the stranded, marooned, isolated, imprisoned and alienated. This series presents a range of perspectives and critical methodologies aimed at questions of space and our sociocultural engagement with it. As such it incorporates studies and approaches from cultural studies, literature, film and media studies, anthropology, political science, architecture and human geography.
The Comparatist, 2017
If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.
Film-Philosophy
Jean-Louis Schefer's newly translated The Ordinary Man of Cinema (2016), originally published... more Jean-Louis Schefer's newly translated The Ordinary Man of Cinema (2016), originally published in 1980, proposes a singular account of the experience of cinema which departs from the principal tendencies of film theory. It has nevertheless had a profound if somewhat invisible influence in film philosophy and theory since its publication, notably in the work of Gilles Deleuze. This essay proposes a synthetic discussion of Schefer's work on film up to The Ordinary Man, arguing that Schefer's work, which draws on his earlier work on painting, construes film as radically non-representational, and as bringing into being, in the spectator, a virtual affectivity corresponding to the distorted and disproportionate bodies and aberrant movements that it presents. I argue that in its recurrent emphasis on the “inchoate” elements in film, and on the “inceptions” of movements that it provokes, Schefer's thought draws implicitly on the Bataillean notion of the informe (formlessness...
French Studies a Quarterly Review, 2011
... ELISHA FOUST ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON doi:10.1093/fs/knq195 ... work can be seen ... more ... ELISHA FOUST ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON doi:10.1093/fs/knq195 ... work can be seen as taking place at the confluence of two factors: the influence of the structuralist or post-structuralist discourses of Althusser, Foucault, Barthes, Lévi-Strauss, Derrida, and ...
Sartre Studies International, 2013
Http Dx Doi Org 10 3366 Prg 2007 0005, Jan 8, 2008
... But on its own, 'theory', like other proper nouns, is a word which has lost ... con... more ... But on its own, 'theory', like other proper nouns, is a word which has lost ... content, like 'poststructuralism', or in connec-tion with a series of names (variously, in ... under consideration here: Althusser, Barthes, Derrida, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Levinas, Kristeva, ...
The Modern Language Review, 2002
... d'ouverture du magasin: Du mardi au vendredi, de 09h30 à 18h30 sans interruption Le Same... more ... d'ouverture du magasin: Du mardi au vendredi, de 09h30 à 18h30 sans interruption Le Samedi, de 10h00 à 18h00 sans interruption. ... were deeply influential over some of the best-known intellectual figures of the late 20th century, including Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Liotard ...
The Modern Language Review, 2002
... Georges Bataille and the mysticism of sin. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Connor, Pete... more ... Georges Bataille and the mysticism of sin. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Connor, Peter Tracey. PUBLISHER: Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 2000. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 080186268X ). VOLUME/EDITION: ...
The Modern Language Review, 2000
... Since the figure of Bergson is so deeply (and broadly) embedded in the French cul-tural conte... more ... Since the figure of Bergson is so deeply (and broadly) embedded in the French cul-tural context, the effacement of this discourse poses interesting ... It also returns to Bataille to recontextualize the figure I take primarily as a theorist in the opening chapter, and to situate him in ...