On Pain of Speech: Fantasies of the First Order and the Literary Rant (Volume 1) (FlashPoints)

On Pain of Speech tracks the literary rant, an expression of provocation and resistance that imagines the power to speak in its own name where no such right is granted. Focusing on the "politics of address," Dina Al-Kassim views the rant through the lens of Michel Foucault's notion of the biopolitical subject and finds that its abject address is an essential yet overlooked feature of modernism. Deftly approaching disparate fields--decadent modernism, queer studies, subjection, critical psychoanalysis, and postcolonial avant-garde--and encompassing both Euro-American and Francophone Arabic modernisms, she offers an ambitious theoretical perspective on the ongoing redefinition of modernism. She includes readings of Jane Bowles, Abdelwahab Meddeb, and Oscar Wilde, and invokes a wide range of ideas, including those of Theodor Adorno, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler, Jean Laplanche, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. "On Pain of Speech tracks the literary rant, an expression of provocation and resistance that imagines the power to speak in its own name where no such right is granted. Focusing on the "politics of address," Dina Al- Kassim views the rant through the lens of Michel Foucault's notion of the biopolitical subject and finds that its abject address is an essential yet overlooked feature of modernism." "Deftly approaching disparate fields - decadent modernism, queer studies, subjection, critical psychoanalysis, and the postcolonial avant-garde - and encompassing both Euro-American and Francophone Arabic modernisms, Al- Kassim offers an ambitious theoretical perspective on the ongoing redefinition of modernism. She includes readings of Jane Bowles, Abdelwahab Meddeb, and Oscar Wilde, and invokes a wide range of ideas, including those of Theodor Adorno, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler, Jean Laplanche, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick." --Book Jacket Tracks the literary rant, an expression of provocation and resistance that imagines the power to speak in its own name where no such right is granted. This title views the rant through the lens of Michel Foucault's notion of the biopolitical subject and finds that its abject address is an essential yet overlooked feature of modernism. University of California Press Contents 8 Illustrations 10 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction: The Politics of Address 14 1. On Being Stubborn 74 2. "The Bar Was Not Vey Gay" 132 3. "A Long Tirade for a Direct Interjection" 191 Notes 246 Bibliography 284 Index 294 ISBN-13:,9780520259256 Introduction: The politics of address On being stubborn : Oscar Wilde and the modern type "The bar was not very gay" : new kinship and the serious writer's block "A long tirade for a direct interjection" : Talismano rebukes the oriental tale in Jacques Lacan's Séminaires. The politics of address On being stubborn: Oscar Wilde and the modern type "The bar was not very gay": new kinship and the serious writer's block "A long tirade for a direct interjection": Talismano rebukes the oriental tale in Jacques Lacan's Seminaires.