Lamentation and Modernity in Literature, Philosophy, and Culture

Saunders analyzes the ideological uses of loss in literary, philosophical, and social texts from the late 19th and 20th centuries through the lens of women’s lament traditions and includes philosophical texts by Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida; as well as literary works by William Faulkner, Stéphane Mallarmé, Dimitris Hatzis, and Tahar Ben Jelloun.

Examining modernity’s pervasive rhetoric of loss and crisis from the unique perspective of women’s lament traditions, Lamentation and Modernity analyzes the ideological uses of loss in literary, philosophical, and social texts from the late 19th and 20th centuries. A significant reassessment of conceptions of modernity, At God’s Funeral contains studies of the lament tradition and the history of trauma; of philosophical texts by Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida; of literary works by William Faulkner, Stéphane Mallarmé, Dimitris Hatzis, and Tahar Ben Jelloun, and of relevant cultural contexts, including the American “New South,” French nationalism of the 1880s, the Greek independence struggle, and the (de)colonization of Morocco.

Rebecca Saunders is the author of numerous articles on late 19th and 20th century literatures and culture; the editor and co-author of The Concept of the Foreign: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (2002); and has served for five years as co-editor of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, where she has co-edited a number of special issues. She is Associate Professor in the department of English at Illinois State University.

“Through a series of probing theoretical reflections and incisive close readings, ranging over important texts of both critical theory and literature, Saunders’s book explores the haunting role of lamentation in modernity. She sees lamentation as an aesthetic and political form interacting with traumatic loss and traversing various genres, discourses, and rhetorical traditions. Transnational and interdisciplinary in scope, this excellent study offers sustained insight into crucial components of contemporary thought and culture.”–Dominick LaCapra, Cornell University
 
“This is a scholarly and intellectually ambitious work. Saunders employs a daunting range of theoretical sources to support her convincing argument. A real contribution to the study of lamentation and the literature of modernism.”–Gail Holst-Warhaft, Cornell University

Heavy Losses: Modernity, Trauma, Philosophy * “And the Women Wailed in Answer”:  The Lament Tradition * Lamentation and (Dis)Possession: Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! and the New South * Lamentation and Purity: Mallarmé’s “Hommage,” wagnérisme, and French Nationalism of the 1880s * Lamentation and National Identity: Hatzis’s To diplo biblio and the (De)Construction of Modern Greece * Lamentation and Gender: Ben Jelloun’s L’Enfant de Sable and the (De)Colonization of the Body