Is a willingness to carry an inquiry to the point of undecidability necessarily at odds with political engagement? In A World of Difference Barbara Johnson extends and rethinks the theoretical perspectives on literature opened up by her earlier book, The Critical Difference. Through subtle and probing analyses of texts by Wordsworth, Poe, Baudelaie, Mallarme, Thoreau, Mary Shelley, Zora Neale HUrston, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others, she attempts to transfer the analysis of "difference" from the realm of linguistic universality or deconstructive allegory into contexts in which difference is very much at issue in the world. New to the paperback edition is a preface that readdresses the question of the politics of deconstruction in the context of current discussion about the life and works of Paul de Man.

About the Author

Barbara Johnson is professor of French and comparative literature at Harvard University. She is author of Defigurations du langage poetique and translator of Jacques Derrida's La Dissemination.

Reviews
Dazzling and fun, from the memorial to the formidable (or should I say notorious?) Paul de Man, which introduces the possibility of feminist deconstruction, to the revisions and re-readings of motherhood as a nearly untenable discursive position. Voice Literary Supplement Dazzling and fun, from the memorial to the formidable (or should I say notorious?) Paul de Man, which introduces the possibility of feminist deconstruction, to the revisions and re-readings of motherhood as a nearly untenable discursive position. Voice Literary Supplement



Book Information
ISBN 9780801837456
Author Barbara Johnson
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 340g