Literature, Philosophy, Nihilism

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction: What’s in a Name?

   • Shane Weller

   Pages 1-10

3. Absolute Devaluation: Friedrich Nietzsche

   • Shane Weller

   Pages 11-34

4. Homelessness: Martin Heidegger

   • Shane Weller

   Pages 35-62

5. Fatal Positivities: Theodor Adorno

   • Shane Weller

   Pages 63-85

6. The Naïve Calculation of the Negative: Maurice Blanchot

   • Shane Weller

   Pages 86-110

7. Bad Violence: Jacques Derrida

   • Shane Weller

   Pages 111-136

8. The Fracture: Giorgio Agamben

   • Shane Weller

   Pages 137-162

9. Distortions, or Nihilism Against Itself: Gianni Vattimo

   • Shane Weller

   Pages 163-185

10. The Denial of (Greek) Thought: Alain Badiou

    • Shane Weller

    Pages 186-211

11. Conclusion: Nihilism at the Door

    • Shane Weller

    Pages 212-215

12. Back Matter

    Pages 216-234

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This book charts the history of the concept of nihilism in some of the most important philosophers and literary theorists of the modern and postmodern periods, including Heidegger, Adorno, Blanchot, Derrida, and Vattimo. Weller offers the first in-depth analysis of nihilism's key role in the thinking of the aesthetic since Nietzsche.

• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Jacques Derrida
• Martin Heidegger
• philosophy

SHANE WELLER is Reader in Comparative Literature in the School of European Culture and Languages 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 The Flesh in the Text (2007, co-edited with Thomas Baldwin and James Fowler).

Policies and ethics