Bloomsbury Ordinary Literature Philosophy: Lacanian Literary Performatives between Austin and Rancière

The first extended Lacanian reading of J. L. Austins ordinary language philosophy, this book examines how it has been received in the continental tradition by Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler, Jacques Rancière and Oswald Ducrot. This is a tradition that neglects Austins general speech act theory on behalf of his special theory of the performative, whilst bringing a new attention to the literary and the aesthetic. The book charts each of these theoretical interactions with a Lacanian reading of the thinker through a case study. Austin, Derrida and Butler are respectively read with a Hollywood blockbuster, a Shakespearean bestseller and a globally influential May 68 poster texts preoccupied with the problem of subjectivity in early, high and postmodernity. Hence Austins constatives (nonperformative statements) are explored with Dead Poets Society; Derridean naming with Romeo and Juliet; and Butlerian aesthetic re-enactment with We Are all German Jews. Finally, Rancière and Ducrot enable a return to Austin beyond his continental reception. Austin is valorised with a theory as attractive, and as irreducible, to the continental tradition as his own thought, namely Jacques Lacans theory of the signifier. Drawing together some of the giants of language theory, psychoanalysis and post- structuralist thought, Habjan offers a new materialist reading of the ordinary status of literary language and a vital contribution to current debates within literary studies and contemporary philosophy. Review Ordinary Literature Philosophy is no ordinary book. In Habjans powerful and challenging argument, speech-act theory, from Austin to Butler, is recast as a powerful weapon for thinking subjectivity and institutional politics. This extraordinary book moves from Dead Poets Society to Romeo and Juliet and beyond to reveal the ideological limits we face and suggests how we might overcome them. --Benjamin Noys, Professor of Critical Theory, University of Chichester, UK About the Author Jernej Habjan is Research Fellow at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU), Ljubljana, and Assistant Professor at the Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU,Slovenia. He is the co-editor of Globalizing Literary Genres (2016), Academic Labour, Unemployment and GlobalHigher Education (2016) and (Mis)readings of Marx in ContinentalPhilosophy (2014).