TheCounterTextInterview: Simon Critchley

Abstract

At the end of November 2009, Simon Critchley had been due to fly out to Malta to deliver a keynote address at the ‘Style in Theory / Styling Theory’ Conference. In the event, Critchley was unable to travel. Not that the conference was short of keynote speakers – besides Critchley, there was Catherine Belsey, Douglas Burnham, Stefan Herbrechter, Fiona Hughes, Laurent Milesi, Jean-Michel Rabate, and Stuart Sillars. Critchley’s work, however, had seemed particularly relevant to the concerns of the conference. His experiments with style had always appeared pointedly directed towards bringing out the literary in the philosophical and the philosophical in the literary. So, to ensure that Critchley would still be part of the conversation about style and theory despite him not being physically present at the conference, the next best thing was arranged – a live videolink interview. The text presented here is an edited version of that interview and the question-andanswer session that followed, all of which took place on Friday 27 November 2009. The interview carries a fascinating historical situatedness, and it frames a particular moment in Critchley’s intellectual development and in the evolution of ‘theory’ more broadly. It also offers far-reaching and insightful reflections on style in philosophy and literature that render it strikingly relevant to the concerns of CounterText.