Beckett and Dialectics: Be it Something or Nothing

Beckett and Dialectics offers a fresh perspective on Samuel Beckett's work by exploring how he exposes and challenges essential dialectical concepts through his use of negativity. It includes contributions from prominent scholars and examines how negativity structures various phenomena in Beckett's work, such as voice and silence, space and void, movement and stasis, the finite and the infinite, and repetition and transformation.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 208 pages
Publication date: 25 August 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Samuel Beckett's work has been extensively analyzed from existentialist and post-structuralist perspectives, but a new volume challenges this approach by exploring how Beckett's work engages with dialectics. The book brings together contributions from renowned scholars such as Alain Badiou, Mladen Dolar, and Rebecca Comay, who examine how Beckett exposes and challenges essential dialectical concepts such as objectivity, subjectivity, exteriority, interiority, immanence, transcendence, and negativity. The chapters explore how Beckett uses negativity to shape and form his works, including the all-pervasive figures of "nothing," "no," "null," and "not." They also examine how negativity structures various phenomena throughout Beckett's work, such as the relationships between voice and silence, space and void, movement and stasis, the finite and the infinite, and repetition and transformation. This original analysis offers a significant new perspective on Beckett studies and dialectics, shedding light on the ways in which Beckett's work engages with and challenges these fundamental concepts.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350214361