Marquis de Sade and Continental Philosophy
Author | : Lauwaert Lode Lauwaert |
Publisher | : Edinburgh University Press |
Total Pages | : 229 |
Release | : 2019-03-21 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781474430722 |
ISBN-13 | : 1474430724 |
Rating | : 4/5 (22 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: He might be best known for sex and violence, but Lode Lauwaert shows that the Marquis du Sade sits at a crossroads of surprisingly disparate branches of western culture: abstract art, Tom and Jerry, gnosticism, Kant's moral philosophy, romanticism, scholasticism, stoicism and more. To explore these links, Lauwaert reads six interpretations of Sade in French postwar philosophy - looking specifically at Pierre Klossowski, Maurice Blanchot, Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes and Gilles Deleuze. Lauwaert shows how these interpretations of de Sade can be read as a lively introduction to a postmodern way of thinking that is often considered inaccessible, but which dominated the French intellectual scene after the Second World War.