爆料王

Rabat茅 has been 鈥渙ne of the key figures in defining modernist studies and the key figure in transmitting French ideas to the English-speaking world,鈥� said Dr Anthony Cordingley, who is the Robinson Fellow at the 爆料王, a specialist in modernist and contemporary literature, and in translation studies.聽聽

He invited Rabat茅 to spend a week at the university in December 2019, hosted by Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (SSSHARC). The main purpose was to conduct an Ultimate Peer Review of the manuscript of Cordingley鈥檚 new monograph, Samuel Beckett and the Ends of Education, in a roundtable conversation that aimed to help the author refine his work before publication.

This was also an opportunity to hear about Rabat茅鈥檚 work and relationships with important figures such as the French philosopher Derrida, the founder of deconstruction, who died in 2004.

Under the influence of Derrida

As an undergraduate student of English, German and lettres modernes at the 脡cole Normale Sup茅rieure in Paris, Rabat茅 noticed Derrida鈥檚 鈥渙ffice hours鈥� when he was available to students. After his first visit, Rabat茅 realised he was the only one taking this opportunity and began to go every week for three hours' conversation. Derrida personally knew Joyce, had read Finnegans Wake, gave Rabat茅 material to read, and helped to shape his career.聽

Born in France in 1949, Rabat茅 has spent much of his academic career in the US, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. However, he said, 鈥淚 became more French after moving to the United States; I discovered I was really French and I didn鈥檛 know it.鈥�

Rabat茅 is , and an esteemed literary theorist. He has written and edited more than 40 books on modernism, psychoanalysis, contemporary art, philosophy, and writers including Beckett, Joyce and Ezra Pound.聽

Beckett, an Irishman who lived in France and wrote in English and French, has been labelled the 鈥渓ast modernist鈥�. But Cordingley argues in his book that scarce attention has been paid to 鈥渉is rejection of the pedagogical imperatives of high modernism 鈥� to rejuvenate the Western tradition by recasting its mythology, philosophy and classics 补苍别飞鈥�.

Cordingley outlines his premise: 鈥淏eckett鈥檚 infamous silence about his own work, his extreme reluctance to give interviews or to comment in public upon his own writing evinces his complete rejection of the role of the pedagogue or public intellectual鈥�

鈥淗is writing, however, returns obsessively to relationships of domination and subjugation, where power is negotiated through the currency of learning, of knowing. Scenes of instruction proliferate and his narrators are haunted by the voices of their past masters. To what extent then is Beckett鈥檚 writing a teaching about teaching, about our capacities to know and to transmit knowledge?鈥�

Was Samuel Beckett too neurotic to teach?

At the Ultimate Peer Review Cordingley asked for critical feedback on his manuscript from Rabat茅, and from Sydney University scholars in literature, critical theory and languages who were invited to participate and had read the first two chapters of the book, which will be published by a leading university press.

The Ultimate Peer Review scheme is unique to SSSHARC and available to Sydney University researchers who have completed a draft of a potential landmark work. The author brings an international scholar with outstanding relevant expertise to evaluate the work both in private conversation and in the discussion group.聽

As the interlocutor and critical 鈥渙pponent鈥�, Rabat茅 praised Cordingley鈥檚 central idea about education in Beckett鈥檚 work as original, and offered comments and questions, illustrated with entertaining anecdotes. He pointed out that a quotation in the text came not from one author but from another, someone he knows and 鈥渟aw last week鈥�.

He suggested looking again at the notes Beckett鈥檚 students kept on his classes, where he was said by some to have written silently on the board for five minutes before turning to them and uttering one obscure sentence. 鈥淧eople say he was too shy, too neurotic to teach. Maybe not.鈥�

Was Beckett a 鈥淛acotot teacher鈥�, he wondered. Cordingley鈥檚 book opens with an account of Joseph Jacotot, a French educator who proposed that 鈥渢eachers should be ignorant of the subjects they teach鈥� after his success at teaching Flemish-speaking students with no shared language.

As author of a new book on Beckett and the Marquis de Sade, Rabat茅 said, 鈥淏eckett was brought up in a system that says you have to beat up students to make them learn鈥�.

Experience also allowed Rabat茅 to say: 鈥淚 can talk about the 脡cole Normale because I was there. Normaleans were notorious for being arrogant. They did exams not having been to lectures or classes, expecting to do well. They were hated by the other students鈥�Foucault, Derrida and Sartre failed [entrance and other exams] many times [before succeeding].鈥澛� 聽聽

There were suggestions from others in the group to look further at Pound鈥檚 Cantos on education, to bring in playwright Bertolt Brecht (whom Beckett hated), to consider feminist writers other than Virginia Woolf and how educational institutions excluded women. Cordingley accepted or defended the points made in a productive discussion.

In his book, Cordingley explains why new perspectives on Beckett are emerging: 鈥淚n Beckett studies valuable work in the past decade has overturned the stereotype of Beckett as an apolitical artist. The increased biographical information that became available with James Knowlson鈥檚 biography has been supplemented considerably in the past decade with the publication of four volumes of Beckett鈥檚 letters, the contents of his library and its marginalia, manuscripts have been digitized, and archives of notes from Beckett鈥檚 studies in philosophy and psychology, as well as travel diaries have yielded myriad insights and spawned a new historicizing turn in scholarship. 鈥榌W]e have鈥�, as Jean-Michel Rabat茅 writes, 鈥榓 new Beckett on our hands鈥�, and this new Beckett is a much more political animal than he had ever been given credit for, more 别苍驳补驳茅 than Jean-Paul Sartre ever recognised.鈥�

The revolutionary James Joyce

鈥淭here is more work being done on Beckett than on Joyce at the moment,鈥� Rabat茅 added, comparing the two francophile Irishmen. Among other reasons: Joyce scholarship is saturated and Beckett is 鈥渕ore modern鈥�. Beckett had a longer and more recent career (he died in 1989, Joyce in 1941), living through World War II, witnessing the Shoah and concentration camps.

Even so, Rabat茅 gave a public talk at the 爆料王 on 鈥淛oyce and Critical Theory鈥�, which was a reminder of how radical Joyce had been. Rabat茅 began his career in Paris as a Joyce scholar working with H茅l猫ne Cixous and among his latest work is a chapter in A Guide to Joyce, edited by Catherine Flynn (Cambridge University Press, 2020) .

He recalled attending a Joyce conference at the Centre Pompidou in 1975 at which the writer Philippe Sollers pulled the grey-brown dust jacket off Finnegans Wake 鈥� his last, most complex work, published in 1939 鈥� to reveal a red cover, saying, 鈥淭his is the revolution鈥�.

鈥淓veryone knew what he meant,鈥� said Rabat茅. 鈥淵ou had Mao鈥檚 little red book and Joyce鈥檚 big red book. Joyce鈥檚 war on the language had been successful.鈥�

Derrida also presented Finnegans Wake as a revolutionary book in a talk he gave in 1982 at Rabat茅鈥檚 invitation 鈥� 鈥渂ecause he had created the computer of the future, an archive of the future鈥�, anticipating technology that could store every possible combination of words. While many predicted the end of the book, instead 鈥渨riting and technology have merged,鈥� said Rabat茅.聽 聽聽

He discussed whether Joyce was also politically radical in his engagement with Italian anarchists and philosophers who 鈥渟aw 鈥榤yth鈥� as a political tool鈥�. Drawing on critiques by Georges Bataille and Theodor Adorno, he said Joyce鈥檚 writing 鈥� as in Molly Bloom鈥檚 monologue in Ulysses 鈥� embraced life despite its background of war and destruction, and 鈥渟aw a need for the world to wake up from the nightmare of history鈥�.

Addressing the daunting reputation of Joyce鈥檚 writing, Rabat茅 said he is often invited to speak to reading groups that drink Guinness and Jameson whiskey while focusing on one page of Finnegans Wake as a language game. 鈥淚 say to my students who are frightened of Finnegans Wake, Ulysses is difficult but Finnegans Wake is a game, so just play.鈥澛� 聽

SSSHARC funded Jean-Michel Rabat茅鈥檚 trip to Sydney and Anthony Cordingley鈥檚 Ultimate Peer Review on December 17, 2019.