Modernism and Nihilism

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Modernity, Modernism, Nihilism

   1. Introduction: Modernity, Modernism, Nihilism

      • Shane Weller

      Pages 1-14

3. Philosophical Modernism and Nihilism

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-15

      PDF

   2. From the French Revolution to Nietzsche

      • Shane Weller

      Pages 17-41

   3. Nietzsche’s Long Shadow

      • Shane Weller

      Pages 42-73

4. Aesthetic Modernism and Nihilism

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 75-75

      PDF

   2. From Flaubert to Dada

      • Shane Weller

      Pages 77-101

   3. Kafka and After

      • Shane Weller

      Pages 102-136

5. Postmodernism and Nihilism

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 137-137

      PDF

   2. Our Only Chance?

      • Shane Weller

      Pages 139-165

6. Back Matter

   Pages 166-182

   PDF

Focusing on a wide range of philosophers and writers, from Nietzsche to Derrida and Flaubert to Borges, this book charts the history of the deployment of the concept of nihilism within the discourses of philosophical and aesthetic modernism and considers the similarities and differences between modernist and postmodernist approaches to nihilism.

• Friedrich Nietzsche
• history
• philosophy
• postmodernism
• revolution

SHANE WELLER  is Professor of Comparative Literature and Co-Director of the Centre for Modern European Literature at the University of Kent, UK. His publications include A Taste for the Negative: Beckett and Nihilism (2005), Beckett, Literature, and the Ethics of Alterity (2006), and Literature, Philosophy, Nihilism: The Uncanniest of Guests (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

Policies and ethics