The possibility of literary theory has been repeatedly put at risk by the apparently simple question 'What is a literary text?' Throughout the twentieth century the epistemological status of literature, the problem of language's claim to true representation, has challenged our received notions of ontology and being. Thus the question 'What is literature?' has frequently sponsored highly philosophical interrogations of our inherited ways of comprehending the external world. In Singularities, Thomas Pepper addresses the relationship between textuality, value, and critical difficulty. In a rich sequence of nuanced close readings of especially demanding philosophical and literary texts, Singularities addresses key moments in Adorno, Blanchot, de Man, Derrida, Foucault, Althusser, Levinas and Celan. By offering a critique of the very process of thematic reading, this book addresses the whole question of truth and being, language and value, in a series of readings of sustained critical power.

Throughout the twentieth century, the epistemological status of literature, the problem of language's claim to true representation, has challenged our received notions of ontology and being itself. In Singularities, Thomas Pepper addresses the relationship among text, philosopical value and critical difficulty through a rich sequence of nuanced close readings of especially demanding texts. Singularities addresses key moments in the work of seminal twentieth-century theorists, and by offering a critique of the very process of thematic reading, questions the whole direction of contemporary theory through a series of readings of sustained critical power.