Marquis De Sade and Continental Philosophy

Reads six interpretations of the Marquis de Sade in French post-war philosophy: Klossowski, Blanchot, Bataille, Lacan, Barthes, and Deleuze to show how he sits at a crossroads of surprisingly disparate branches of western culture, from Tom and Jerry to Kant's moral philosophy.

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He might be best known for sex and violence, but Lode Lauwaert shows that the Marquis du Sade sits at a crossroads of surprisingly disparate branches of western culture: abstract art, Tom and Jerry, gnosticism, Kant's moral philosophy, romanticism, scholasticism, stoicism and more. To explore these links, Lauwaert reads six interpretations of Sade in French postwar philosophy - looking specifically at Pierre Klossowski, Maurice Blanchot, Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes and Gilles Deleuze. Lauwaert shows how these interpretations of de Sade can be read as a lively introduction to a postmodern way of thinking that is often considered inaccessible, but which dominated the French intellectual scene after the Second World War.