A world of difference

"Dazzling and fun, from the memorial to the formidable (or should I say notorious?) Paul de Man, which introduces the possibility of feminist deconstruction, to the revisions and re-readings of motherhood as a nearly untenable discursive position."--'Voice Literary Supplement.'

Is a willingness to carry an inquiry to the point of undecidability necessarily at odds with political engagement? In A World of Difference Barbara Johnson extends and rethinks the theoretical perspectives on literature opened up by her earlier book, The Critical Difference. Through subtle and probing analyses of texts by Wordsworth, Poe, Baudelaie, Mallarme, Thoreau, Mary Shelley, Zora Neale HUrston, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others, she attempts to transfer the analysis of "difference" from the realm of linguistic universality or deconstructive allegory into contexts in which difference is very much at issue in the world. New to the paperback edition is a preface that readdresses the question of the politics of deconstruction in the context of current discussion about the life and works of Paul de Man.

Preface to the Paperback Edition Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. The Fate of Deconstruction Chapter 1. Nothing Fails Like Success Chapter 2. Rigorous Unreliability Chapter 3. Is Writerliness Conservative? Chapter 4. Gender Theory and the Yale School Chapter 5. Deconstruction, Feminism, and Pedagogy Part II. Significant Gaps Chapter 6. A Hound, a Bay Horse, and a Turtle Dove: Obscurity in Walden Chapter 7. Erasing Panama: Mallarme and the Text of History Chapter 8. Teaching Ignorance: L'Ecole des femmes Part III. Poetic Differences Chapter 9. Strange Fits: Poe and Wordsworth on the Nature of Poetic Language Chapter 10. Disfiguring Poetic Language Chapter 11. Les Fleurs du Mal Arme: Some Reflections Part IV. Other Inflections of Difference Chapter 12. Mallarme as Mother Chapter 13. My Monster/My Self Chapter 14. Metaphor, Metonymy, and Voice in Their Eyes Were Watching God Chapter 15. Thresholds of Differences: Structures of Address in Zora Neale Hurston Chapter 16. Apostrophe, Animation, and Abortion Appendix to Chapter 7 Appendix to Chapter 16 Notes Index