Stupidity

Front Cover
University of Illinois Press, 2002 - Literary Criticism - 366 pages
"Avital Ronell's work studies the fading empire of cognition, modulating stupidity into idiocy, puerility, and the figure of the ridiculous philosopher instituted by Kant. Investigating ignorance, dumbfoundedness, and the limits of reason, Stupidity probes the pervasive practice of theory-bashing and related forms of paranoid aggression. A section on prolonged and debilitating illness pushes the text to an edge of a corporeal hermeneutics, "at the limits of what the body knows and tells.""--BOOK JACKET.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Slow Learner
1
The Question of Stupidity Why We Remain in the Provinces
35
The Politics of Stupidity Musil Dasein the Attack on Women and My Fatigue
61
The Rhetoric of Testing
95
Kierkegaard Satellite
164
The Disappearance and Returns of the Idiot
169
The Idiot Boy
246
Notes
311
Index
353
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2002)

Avital Ronell is a professor of German, comparative literature, and English at New York University, where she directs the Research in Trauma and Violence project. She is the author of The Telephone Book, Dictations, Crack Wars, and other books.

Bibliographic information