Most Interesting: Derrida & the Interest(s) of Literature.

This article homes in on the adjective 'interesting' in Derrida's assertion that 'literature is the most interesting thing in the world, maybe more interesting than the world'. While this claim is often quoted, and glossed, what Derrida means by 'interesting' has gone unexamined in the critical lite...

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Publicado en:Derrida Today Vol. 18; no. 2; pp. 123 - 142
Autor principal: Connors, Clare
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Edinburgh University Press Jun2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        au: Connors, Clare
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        Literature
        Derrida, Jacques, 1930-2004
        Literary theory
        Aesthetics
        Poststructuralism
        Curiosity
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          Literature
          Derrida, Jacques, 1930-2004
          Literary theory
          Aesthetics
          Poststructuralism
          Curiosity
      keyword:
        Given Time
        interest
        Jacques Derrida
        literature
        Sianne Ngai
        the gift
      ab: This article homes in on the adjective 'interesting' in Derrida's assertion that 'literature is the most interesting thing in the world, maybe more interesting than the world'. While this claim is often quoted, and glossed, what Derrida means by 'interesting' has gone unexamined in the critical literature on this interview. This is the more interesting insofar as 'interest' is often a category that seems to be deprecated in Derrida's work. Drawing on Sianne Ngai's illuminating work on interestingness as a specifically aesthetic category, the article explores why and how it might be that literature is superlatively and exorbitantly interesting for Derrida. In doing so, it focuses in particular on the thinking of interest in Given Time, which text – it argues – is at least as interested in interest as it is in the impossible gift, offers the most thorough-going thinking of literary interest in Derrida's work, and posits such interest as itself a gift.
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