The Anguish of Thought

2017
Author:

Évelyne Grossman
Translated by Matthew Cripsey and Louise Burchill

A groundbreaking inquiry into modernist thinkers, anxiety, and writing

Anxiety is the obligatory gateway into writing: one’s confrontation with powerlessness and anguish when faced with the task of thinking. By exploring these pathways, twentieth-century thinkers such as Artaud, Blanchot, Derrida, Beckett, and Levinas set out to create new modes of thinking, all evoking the remarkable creative force residing at the heart of this negative anxiety.

Anxiety is the obligatory gateway into writing: one’s confrontation with powerlessness and anguish when faced with the task of thinking.

This is not the familiar anxiety of our most intimate fears, however violent they might be. Yet by exploring these same pathways twentieth-century thinkers such as Artaud, Blanchot, Derrida, Beckett, and Levinas set out to create new modes of thinking. All evoke the remarkable creative force residing at the heart of this negative anxiety. The anguish of thought thus denotes this experience of writing—as joyful as it is maddening—wherein I think outside Myself.

Evelyne Grossman has written on modernist thinkers, including the books La défiguration: Artaud, Beckett, Michaux and Artaud, L’aliéné authentique. She is a professor at University of Paris VII.

Matthew Cripsey studied philosophy and French. He has a degree in translation studies.

Évelyne Grossman has written on modernist thinkers, including the books La défiguration: Artaud, Beckett, Michaux and Artaud, L’aliéné authentique. She is a professor at University of Paris VII.

Matthew Cripsey studied philosophy and French. He has a degree in translation studies.

Louise Burchill‘s translations include three books by Alain Badiou and a number of texts by Julia Kristeva.

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