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‘I find Souvenirs d'amour elegant and stunning. I wish I had seen it when I was writing on love and breaking up in Nietzsche! Very beautiful
work.’
Avital Ronell, Professor
of German and Comparative Literature,
New York University
'Souvenirs d'amour constitutes a contribution
to two quite different domains: the study of love and the philosophies that the question
of love
either supports or subverts. Wolfreys ties them together so seamlessly so that, by the end of the book, they have become intimate familiars.
Wolfreys’ elegantly written
little book inserts itself into the romance-language tradition that (from Petrarch and Rousseau to Barthes and beyond) ‘speaks of love’.
At same time his own unique perceptions of the structure of love (he explores love’s relation to the other, to the between, to separation and to
address) becomes a compelling way to read (and critique) philosophical and theoretical lines of thought regarding all these, from Levinas and
Derrida to Agamben,
Badiou, Heidegger and deconstructive literary criticism. To accomplish this so gracefully and with such economy of means is an achievement worthy of his predecessors.'
Juliet Flower MacCannell,
University of California
‘A finely nuanced homage to the philosophy and language of Jacques Derrida; an act of remembrance
which is first and foremost also an act of love.’
Louis Armand, Director of Intercultural Studies at the
Philosophy
Faculty of Charles University, Prague
‘Julian Wolfreys has established himself as a significant
figure in literary theory and Victorian literary criticism, yet in Souvenirs d’amour he finds a new voice, one that will be heartily welcomed both
by all those who have come to admire his work, and by those new readers this volume will certainly attract. Unlike many of those involved in deconstruction
whose ‘mourning’
for Derrida takes
the form of controlling legacies, predicting ‘futures’, or policing faux fidelities, Wolfreys quietly departs into an original
and luminous
exploration of love and mnemotechnics. In this, he begins the movement beyond mourning that is the true burden of the present. The ‘secret’
love of
this book is less
its points of departure (Derrida, Agamben, Cixous) than the dangerous intimacy of style and the contemporary transformation of thought itself.’
Tom Cohen,
Professor of English, University of Albany,
SUNY
‘Seamlessly interweaving the deepest thought of our time‹that of Levinas, Derrida, Agamben, and Cixous,
and George Eliot’s ‘act of literature’ in Daniel Deronda with his own reflections, Julian
Wolfreys offers us a scintillating memoir on memory and love. It will be welcomed by a wide spectrum of readers, from newcomers to long-time
students of these thinkers, who will equally admire and learn from this book.’
Arkady Plotnitsky,
Professor of English and Director of Theory
and Cultural Studies Program, Purdue University
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