Against Transgression
Critical Quarterly Book Series
Both a controversial account of the transgressive turn in critical thought characteristic of the moral turmoil of the Twentieth Century, and a provocative study of maternal transfiguration in the author's own turn from Transgression, Against Transgression poses an urgent question for the current generation of literary critics.
* Studies the origins of the contemporary proliferation of 'Transgression' in the compelling thought experiments of Georges Bataille, and follows its inauguration as a mode of legitimate critical practice via Michel Foucault.
* Tracks the author's rejection of Transgression as a legitimate critical methodology following her mother's death and her own maternal transfiguration.
* Shows how the po-faced claims of critical methodology can be exploded by genuinely personal reflection.
* Considers the place of grief in the transformation of thought.
* Argues against the model of the 'death of god' that underpins the transgressive turn in critical thought, and for a more courageous account of the inevitable return of numinous desires.
* Considers the moral responsibility of the critical writer.
* Traces the transfiguration of the author from transgressive daughter to maternal agent.
maternal transfiguration.
1. Preface Against Transgression: Bataillean transgression and
its resonance in contemporary critical thought.
2. Minerva's Owl: the quest for feminine agency and the
freedom of constraint.
3. 'A Serious and Dangerous Matter':
'Transgression' and the death of god.
4. Preface to Compassion.
Index.
