Understanding Nancy, Understanding Modernism

Over the past three decades, Jean-Luc Nancy has become one of the most celebrated contemporary philosophers. His remarkably diverse body of work, which deals with such topics as post-Heideggerian ontology, Christian painting, the experience of drunkenness, heart transplants, contemporary cinema and the problem of freedom, is entirely ＂immersed＂ in modernity, as he puts it. Within this plural framework, art - which he explicitly defines as a modern construct - plays a singular role in that it is the very prism through which he explores the problems of sense and feeling in general, particularly as they relate to ＂our＂ experience of modernity.

The contributors to Understanding Nancy, Understanding Modernism fully delve into the heretofore under-acknowledged and under-explored modernism of Nancy’s writings on philosophy and the arts through close readings of his key works as well as broader essays on the relationship between his thought and aesthetic modernity. In addition to an interview with Nancy himself, a final section consists of an extended glossary of Nancy’s signature terms, which will be a valuable resource for students and experts alike.

Cosmin Toma is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford, St Hugh’s College, UK. He has primarily published on modern and contemporary French literature, critical theory, music, and aesthetics. His first book, Neutraliser l’absolu. Blanchot, Beckett et la chose littéraire (2019) is an inquiry into what remains of what Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe called ＂the literary absolute＂ when it is neutralized by modernity. He has also worked extensively as an academic translator.