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In these
two essays, two of the most important French thinkers of our time
reflect on each other’s work. In so doing, novelist/essayist
Maurice Blanchot and philosopher Michel Foucault develop a new perspective
on the relationship between subjectivity, fiction, and the will
to truth. The two texts present reflections on writing, language,
and representation that question the status of the author/subject
and explore the notion of a “neutral” voice that arises
from the realm of the “outside.” This book is crucial
not only to an understanding of these two thinkers, but also to
any overview of recent French thought.
“In the first of this book’s two dense essays, Foucault
links the neutral space of Blanchot’s fiction to a line of
thought extending from Sade to Artaud, Nietzsche, and Bataille....
In the second essay, Blanchot mines Foucault’s excavation
of the social practices underpinning prisons, the courts, and the
medical establishment.”
— Publishers Weekly
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