Robert Antelme
Humanity, Community, Testimony

Martin Crowley

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Research Monographs in French Studies 15

Legenda

1 May 2003  •  124pp

ISBN: 1-900755-80-7 (paperback)  •  RRP £75, $99, €85

ModernFrenchLife-Writing

Best known for his 1947 memoir L'Espèce humaine, Robert Antelme (1917-1990) is a central figure in the history of the European response to the Nazi concentration camps. In this first study in any language to be devoted to Antelme's work, Martin Crowley reveals the author's vital yet insufficiently recognized influence on recent thought in France and elsewhere about such questions as the nature of community and the indivisibility of humanity. He explores the conclusions Antelme drew from his deportation and his involvement with the post-war French left, and provides the first detailed textual criticism of L'Espèce humaine. Examining the responses to the author's writing by such figures as Blanchot, Perec, Agamben, Nancy and Derrida, Crowley demonstrates Antelme's key contribution to the development of modern European thought.

Martin Crowley is Lecturer in French at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Queens' College. He has also written on Marguerite Duras.

Reviews:

  • ‘A sensitive and timely account... Crowley’s challenging and detailed study shows vitally that if Antelme is ultimately and necessarily writing within the limits of his own period, none the less he makes an urgent, ethical, and highly politicized challenge to the reader which may never be realized, yet which remains all the more pressing at the beginning of the twenty-first century.’ — Kathryn Robson, Modern Language Review 100.1, January 2005, 220-21 (full text online)
  • ‘Martin Crowley's concern, in this thought-provoking study of the text and the readings to which it has given rise, is to elucidate the dynamics of Antelme's thought firstly by focusing specifically on Antelme, rather than on Antelme as approached from Marguerite Duras, and secondly by situating Antelme's writings historically, philosophically and, to a certain extent, politically.’ — Margaret Atack, French Studies 58.4, 2004, 574

Bibliography entry:

Crowley, Martin, Robert Antelme: Humanity, Community, Testimony, Research Monographs in French Studies, 15 (Legenda, 2003)

First footnote reference: 35 Martin Crowley, Robert Antelme: Humanity, Community, Testimony, Research Monographs in French Studies, 15 (Legenda, 2003), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Crowley, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Crowley, Martin. 2003. Robert Antelme: Humanity, Community, Testimony, Research Monographs in French Studies, 15 (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Crowley 2003: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Crowley 2003: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

This Legenda title was first published by European Humanities Research Centre, University of Oxford but rights to it are now held by Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge.

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www.mhra.org.uk/publications/Robert-Antelme
www.mhra.org.uk/publications/rmfs-15