Synopsis
The most current multidisciplinary and multivocal engagement with Sade’s enduring influences on modernism and the philosophical need for continued analysis of his work and the questions it raises. From Lacan to Dalí, through Simone de Beauvoir, Beckett, Horkheimer, Burroughs, Pasolini, Foucault, Deleuze, up to Žižek, the Marquis de Sade’s influence and impact on modernism and modern thinking is hard to measure. Understanding Sade, Understanding Modernism presents its readers with a chance to reflect on the importance of this radical oeuvre from different perspectives. Contributors examine Sadean literature and thought through some of its main texts (including 120 Days of Sodom, History of Juliette, The Crimes of Love, and Philosophy in the Boudoir) in a series of comparative essays that not only examine Sade’s influence in French, European, and American thought, but also critique it in the context of some of modern philosophy’s most relevant subjects: ecology, nature, universalism, and the links between ethics and aesthetics. The final section identifies key concepts and notions within Sade's corpus in a series of entries offering context and a discussion of their relevance for current thought.
About the Authors
James Martell is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Lyon College, USA. He is the author of Modernism, Self-Creation, and the Maternal: The Mother's Son (2019) and Beckett and Derrida (2024). He is the co-editor of Samuel Beckett and the Encounter of Philosophy and Literature (2013), Tattooed Bodies: Theorizing Body Inscription Across Disciplines and Cultures (2021), and Beckett and Nature (2025). His two current book projects are called Thinking Surfaces in French Contemporary Thought and Foiled Reflections: Philosophy, Literature, and Psychoanalysis during Stupid Times.
Paul Ardoin is Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas at San Antonio, USA.
S. E. Gontarski is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University, USA. He is the author or editor of 29 books and, with Paul Ardoin and Laci Mattison, he is series editor of the Bloomsbury series, Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism. The serie editors were also volume editors for the initial books in that series: Understanding Bergson, Understanding Modernism (Bloomsbury, 2013) and the follow-up, Understanding Deleuze, Understanding Modernism (Bloomsbury, 2014). Gontarski's recent books are: Beckett's “Happy Day”: A Manuscript Study (2017) and Revisioning Beckett: Samuel Beckett's Decadent Turn (Bloomsbury, 2018).
Laci Mattison is Assistant Professor of 20th Century British Literature at Florida Gulf Coast University, USA.
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