Against Transgression

Both a controversial account of the transgressive turn in critical thought characteristic of the moral turmoil of the Twentieth Century, and a provocative study of maternal transfiguration in the author’s own turn from Transgression, Against Transgression poses an urgent question for the current generation of literary critics.

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• Studies the origins of the contemporary proliferation of ‘Transgression’ in the compelling thought experiments of Georges Bataille, and follows its inauguration as a mode of legitimate critical practice via Michel Foucault.
  
• Tracks the author’s rejection of Transgression as a legitimate critical methodology following her mother’s death and her own maternal transfiguration.
  
• Shows how the po-faced claims of critical methodology can be exploded by genuinely personal reflection.
  
• Considers the place of grief in the transformation of thought.
  
• Argues against the model of the ‘death of god’ that underpins the transgressive turn in critical thought, and for a more courageous account of the inevitable return of numinous desires.
  
• Considers the moral responsibility of the critical writer.
  
• Traces the transfiguration of the author from transgressive daughter to maternal agent.