Product Description

Crimes of Writings examines questions surrounding subjectivity, authenticity, and writing. First, Stewart examines cases of forgery, literary imposture, pornography and graffiti, and the development, from the early eighteenth century onward, of the laws articulating such crimes. Second, she uses `crimes of writing' to connote the ways in which such practices are in fact inversions or negations of cultural rules. Finally, she claims that crimes of writing are delineated by law because they specifically undermine the status of the Law itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2988838 in Books
• Published on: 1992-07-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Review
"It has become an article of faith in history and literary studies that the best way of understanding the text is to look at the margins, the best way to understand the norm is to look at that which is designated abnormal, deviant and reprehensible. The difficulty with applying this article of faith, is that it requires an extraordinary patience and skill with texts and historical records if it is not to be a justification for self-indulgent grotesquerie. In this book, Susan Stewart shows how fascinating this technique can be when applied by a careful and lucid scholar. In a series of meticulously researched essays, she helps us to understand authorship and text by focusing on a variety of "crimes of writing"--graffiti, pornography, forgery and literary imposture. At the same time, she shows how law is both implicated in and threatened by "the containment of representation."--James Boyle, Washington College of Law, American University
"Susan Stewart is one of the most extraordinary cultural critics writing in America today. Her rich and detailed accounts of the symbolic texture of cultural life are at once always surprising and unfailingly persuasive."--Stanley Fish, Duke University
"Stewart's work provides an oasis in contemporary criticism, a place where theory and poetry, systematic reflection and the essayistic plunge into particular cases, come together in a refreshing synthesis. Crimes of Writing is a worthy successor to Nonsense and On Longing.--W.J.T. Mitchell
"Stewart's formidable scholarship enables her to range over a broad range of case studies without losing theoretical substance or analytical depth."--Canadian Folklore
"Stewart's formidable scholarshipenables her to range over a broad range of case studies without losing theoretical substance or analytical depth."--Comptes Rendus