Material Events

Renowned contributors use the late work of this crucial figure to open new speculations on "materiality." A "material event," in one of Paul de Man\u2019s definitions, is a piece of writing that enters history to make something happen. This interpretation hovers over the publication of this volume, a timely reconsideration of de Man\u2019s late work in its complex literary, critical, cultural, philosophical, political, and historical dimensions.A distinguished group of scholars responds to the problematic of "materialism" as posed in Paul de Man\u2019s posthumous final book, Aesthetic Ideology. These contributors, at the forefront of critical theory, productive thinking, and writing in the humanities, explore the question of "material events" to illuminate not just de Man\u2019s work but their own. Prominent among the authors here is Jacques Derrida, whose extended essay \u201cTypewriter Ribbon: Limited Inc (2)\u201d returns to a celebrated episode in Rousseau\u2019s Confessions that was discussed by de Man in Allegories of Reading. The importance of de Man\u2019s late work is related to a broad range of subjects and categories and-in Derrida\u2019s provocative reading of de Man\u2019s concept of "materiality"-the politico-autobiographical texts of de Man himself. This collection is essential reading for all those interested in the present state of literary and cultural theory. Contributors: Judith Butler, UC Berkeley; T. J. Clark, UC Berkeley; Jacques Derrida, \u00c9cole des Hautes \u00c9tudes en Sciences Sociales and UC Irvine; Barbara Johnson, Harvard U; Ernesto Laclau, U of Essex; Arkady Plotnitsky, Purdue U; Laurence A. Rickels, UC Santa Barbara; and Michael Sprinker.