Michel Leiris

Writing the Self

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by Sean Hand

Cambridge University Press

Due/Published September 2002, 250 pages, cloth

ISBN 0521495741

This is the first full-length study in English of the work of Michel Leiris, a central figure in contemporary French culture. It explores Leiris's participation in some of the most striking intellectual and artistic movements of the twentieth-century: surrealism, ethnography and existentialism. Comparing his writing to the major artistic, political and philosophical concepts of the period, Hand asserts that Leiris's multi-volume autobiography remains as the model form of twentieth century self-inquiry.

Contents

List of abbreviations; Introduction: the deaths of Michel Leiris; Part I. Texts and Contexts: 1. Unities and identities: Leiris and surrealism; 2. Recasting the self: from surrealism to ethnography; 3. Autobiographical frameworks: from ethnography to L'Age d'homme; 4. Positional play: La Regle du jeu; 5. Secreting the self: Journal 1922-1989; Part II. The Quest for Presence in La Regle du jeu: 6. Excess of joy: the beginnings of presence in 'Reusement!' 7. Organs of learning: sensing presence in Biffures; 8. The act of union: being-in-the-world in La R�gle du jeu; 9. Thanatography: non-being as the limit of autobiography; Conclusion: locating Leiris.