The Poetics of Singularity: The Counter-Culturalist Turn in Heidegger, Derrida, Blanchot and the Later Gadamer by Timothy Clark

Abstract

MLR, 101.4, 2oo6 I073 question the implications of these varying constructions of 'representative' feminine types. Her awareness of her problematic position as author of a text on the represen tation of women in collective biographies leads her to question feminist criticism's approach to the past-particularly its emphasis on literary women-forcing the fe minist reader to consider feminism's selectivity and tendency to overlook or dismiss women who do not conform to certain expectations. Feminist criticism has, in a sense, been as selective as the authors of female prosopographies in determining who has 'made it' as awoman. Booth suggests that Virginia Woolf encouraged the trend of dis missing from history certain previously eminent women, a tendency which, the book argues, is continued by feminist critics today. In this respect, Booth's eminently read able and enjoyable narrative not only offers insight intomaterial largely overlooked by previous scholars, but also highlights the need for a new critical perspective that calls into question the process through which women have been defined and labelled, and the problems associated with portrayals of representative types-whether nineteenth century depictions of ideal Victorian womanhood, or more recent portrayals of early feminist heroines. How to Make it as a Woman is thus an important contribution to feminist studies, highlighting the fact that feminist criticism still has some way to go in terms of recovering lost women's voices from the past. UNIVERSITYOFWALES SWANSEA JESSICA COX The Poetics of Singularity: The Counter-Culturalist Turn inHeidegger, Derrida, Blan chot and the Later Gadamer. By TIMOTHY CLARK. (The Frontier of Theory) Edinburgh:EdinburghUniversity Press. 2005. xvi+ i86 pp. ?50. ISBN 0 7486-I929-I. The main aim of The Poetics of Singularity is to redraw the limits of critical reading and move away from the dominant 'culturalist turn' inmodern criticism. The prob lem is indeed acute, as Clark notes: 'Awriter who finds herself describable as, say, "gay", "Iranian" and "Christian" will have critics striving to explain all she writes in terms of the self-making of that identity' (p. I7). The critical bid to define identities with some kind of label, hyphenated or otherwise, often unwittingly undoes the act of authors being 'different' or 'unique'. Clark's analyses of Heidegger, Gadamer, Blan chot, and Derrida usefully point away out of this situation and take readers on an occasionally difficult but always rewarding journey. His link toArendt's concept of 'natality' is innovative inasmuch as this ties the literary into the human in away that does not lapse back into a simple humanism; we read texts for the first time whenever we read them, and limiting them purely to contextual indicators (whether authorial, historical, or cultural) misses the power of literature to awaken a new sense of reality. This sense of looking at the world with fresh eyes is clearly indicated by Clark's readings of the four theorists. He treats their texts delicately, and teases out their sin gular elements while teasing out their relevance to the development of his argument. It is a pleasant change to find readings of Heidegger or Derrida that do not contain certain indicators ('post-structuralism', for example, appears only in counterpoint to Blanchot's hermeneutics), although this is perhaps taken too far by Clark. His brief rejection of Heidegger's nationalism is a case in point: 'the inherent logic of singular ization must lead to the reader's own rejection both of any lingering nationalism in Heidegger but also of studies of his thought that are too hasty to explicate it in terms of the cultural categories it thoroughly undermnines' (p. 6o). His intent is clear, and up to a point Heidegger's texts must be approached as 'texts' rather than, shall we say, 'works', but the imperative 'must' indicates too strenuous a rejection of contextualization. This leads to perhaps the most serious flaw in the book, although it is does not 1074 Reviews significantly affect the overall argument. In his bid tomove away from the 'cultural ist'method of reading, occasionally Clark lapses into a knee-jerk reaction rather than a considered response. For instance, the claim of 'institutional Americanism' in the first chapter is unnecessary and does little to...