Paul de Man: Too Demanding to Dismantle Evelin Barish’s The Double Life of Paul de Man and its US Reception
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6000/2371-1655.2016.02.02Keywords:
Deconstruction, theory, collaborationism, antisemitism, biographyAbstract
What should we think of a biographer who admits inability to understand the ideas of the thinker she writes about? Why write a biography of someone not only dead but also proclaimed forgotten (unless one intends to resurrect him, which is not the case)? Why dig up someone’s bones only to showcase his skeleton amidst the closet’s dirty linen? Why confine oneself to the preliminary part of someone’s life – the one preceding his academic biography?
Paul de Man’s recent biography by Evelin Barish raises these and more questions and eyebrows. Surprisingly, however, it has elicited a largely positive response in the US. Why were intellectuals like Louis Menand, Peter Brooks, Susan Rubin Suleiman and others so cautious and humble in their lengthy reviews?
This text will suggest some possible answers.
References
Agamben, Giorgio.1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford California: Stanford University Press. Originally published as Homo sacer. Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita, © 1995 Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a.
Barish, Evelin. 2014. The Double Life of Paul de Man. New York. London: Liveright Publishing Corporation, A Division of W. W. Norton & Company.
Bartlett, Peter. 2013. Paul de Man’s Many Secrets. The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 21, http://chronicle.com/article/ The-Many-Betrayals-of-Paul-de/142505/?cid=cr&utm_ source=cr&utm_medium=en.
Brooks, Peter. 2014. “The Strange Case of Paul de Man”, New York Review of Books, APRIL 3, 2014 ISSUE http://www.nybooks. com/articles/archives/2014/apr/03/strange-case-paul-de-man/#fnr-1
De Man, Paul. 1964. A Modern Master, NYRB. November 19.
De Man, Paul. 1979. Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke and Proust. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
De Man, Paul. 1986. The Resistance to Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Dirda, Michael. 2014. “Book Review”. Washington Post., March 19, http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-review-the-double-life-of-paul-de-man-by-evelyn-barish/2014/03/19/9b5c42d2-ab8a-11e3-af5f-4c56b834c4bf_story.html
Emmett Tyrrell, R. 2014. “Book Exposes Paul de Man as Academic Fraud”, March 12, 2014 http://www.washingtonexaminer. com/book-exposes-paul-de-man-as-academic-fraud/article/2545560
Field, Suzanne. 2014. “The class of ‘18 and its dreams”, Washington Times, March 19, 2014, http://www.washingtontimes.com/ news/2014/mar/19/fields-the-class-of-18-and-its-dreams/ Lehman, David. 1991. Signs Of The Times: Deconstruction And The Fall Of Paul De Man, New York: Poseidon Press.
Johnson, Paul. 1988. Intellectuals, NY: Harper and Raw Publishers.
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1st, 2014 https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ book-reviews/evelyn-barish/the-double-life-of-paul-de-man/ Review Posted Online: Dec. 14th, 2013
Lehman, David. 2014. “Deconstructing the Deconstructionist”, The Wall Street Journal, March 14th, http://online.wsj.com/news/ articles/SB10001424052702303824204579421241317199208?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2 Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303824204579421241317199208.html
McLemee, Scott. 2014. “De Man Overboard!”. Inside Higher Ed March 19, http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/03/19/ review-evelyn-barish-double-life-paul-de-man
Menand, Louis, “ The De Man: Case Does a Critic’s Past Explain his Criticism?”. New Yorker, March 24, http://www.newyorker. com/arts/critics/atlarge/2014/03/24/140324crat_atlarge_menand?currentPage=1
Mikics, David. 2014. “Shelf Life: How the Literary Critic Paul de Man Turned Evasiveness into Authority”. The Nation, April 8, 2014 http://www.thenation.com/article/179247/shelf-life#
Publishers Weekly. Reviewed on: 11/18/2013 http://www.publishers-weekly.com/978-0-87140-326-1
Romano, Carlin. 2014. “Deconstructing Paul de Man”, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 3rd, https://chronicle.com/article/ Paul-de-Man-Deconstructed/144991/
Schuessler, Jennifer. 2014. “Revisiting a Scholar Unmasked by Scandal”, New York Times, MARCH 9, 2014, http://www. nytimes.com/2014/03/10/books/revisiting-a-scholar-unmasked-by-scandal.html?module=WelcomeBackModal &contentCollection=Sunday%20Book%20Review®ion=FixedCenter&action=click&pgtype=article&_r=1
Smallwood, Christine. 2014. “New Books-56”. Harpers, http://harpers.org/archive/2014/03/new-books-56/
Suleiman, Susan Rubin. 2014. The Deconstructionist Deconstructed, New York Times, March 7. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/ 03/09/books/review/the-double-life-of-paul-de-man-by-evelyn-barish.html?_r=0
Zaretsky, Robert. 2014. “The Fabulist: A Literary Critic’s Ugly Deception”, The American Scholar, http://theamerican-scholar.org/the-fabulist/#.VE0yu4cV0mE
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Policy for Journals/Articles with Open Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post links to their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
