Talk:Paul de Man
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Lots to be said. Not a lot of information on the kind of thing most people want to know about from de Man: the wartime journalism. I reckon a reading of "The Resistance to Theory" would be a reasonable start.Buffyg 13:21, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Contents which put De Man in the controversy has no source. I added "Advocate/defender of De Man claim that" to make it bit more NPOV. Darida's deconstruction of anti semetic writing is a well known fact. So I don't think it is NPOV to say Darida did not try to excuse DeMan's anti semetism.Vapour
As wikipedia'sverifiability policy states: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." The point is that verifiability is not simply that someone said such and such but whether the claims that one reproduces are themselves verifiable and are untrue by implication. To be excluded from the article, one needn't evaluate the second claim, as the first suffices. Credulous treatment of sources is not NPOV, particularly where the result is to introduce claims and a tone that strongly favours a particular point of view. In particular: "Notable among those essays was Derrida's attempt to deconstruct de Man's anti-semitic writing to suggest an alternative interpretation that was not anti-semitic; that effort was derided by many critics, some suggesting that it showed how "Mein Kampf" could be rehabilitated with the same approach." As well as: "His defenders replied that secrecy was not the same as deceit." I see a lot of claims that I view as POV pushing because the attribution is imprecise and makes characterisations about the motives of the sources that are not themselves given to verifiability. I have added tags accordingly and brought the matter to the attention of the editor who made these changes. I'm away from home for another two weeks and therefore can't pull sources myself, but it is the responsibility of those who have introduced these edits to show that their claims can be verified and to present them in a genuinely neutral voice.Buffyg03:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that most of the requests for citation of specific claims were not inserted by me, so it's not a matter of "statements tagged by BuffyG".
In any case, the more controversial the claims, the higher the burden for verification and attribution. The section on academic work offers summaries of clearly identified essays, so verification and attribution is less of a problem in such cases because they refer to a more precisely specified work rather than to a list of sources. That's not nearly the same problem for citation, attribution, or verification as is presented by a claim like "His defenders replied that secrecy was not the same as deceit" (as I've asked you on your talk page: which defenders? replying to whom? what exactly is the charge of deceit?). Verification is far more difficult when it isn't clear what sources you are using or how you are weighting them. To be frank, having consulted those sources extensively (I've read much of that material several times over the course of more than a decade), I don't believe many of the claims you've added can in fact be verified or need to be evaluated far more rigourously as to their credibility.Buffyg22:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So the Wikipedia entry for Paul de Man was cleansed of any references to his wartime writing. His students and defenders apparently don't want readers to find out about that. They could have corrected errors or added alternative interpretations or provided missing citations--but they prefer to conceal this part of de Man's life and work. Let's see if my new effort is deleted like the old one was.Jonwiener19:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
degenerés et décadents, parce que enjuivés is translatedas degenerate and decadent because they are [enjewished]. What do the brackets aroundenjewished mean?enjewished is a very uncommon word, most Google hits refer to de Man. Butenjuivé is part of the standard vocabulary of antisemites, the exact equivalent of Nazi Germanverjudet. Wouldn'tjewified be a better translation?--92.78.102.204 (talk)17:49, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The "Territorial Solution to the Jewish Question" was the Nazi scheme to deport the European Jews to some colony, like Madagascar -- not in the hopes of their thriving or even surviving, but a step shy of genocide per se.
I've edited the article to remove the false claim that de Man "endorsed" such a program in "The Jews in Contemporary Literature." What he actually said was this:
Furthermore, one sees that a solution of the Jewish problem that would aim at the creation of a Jewish colony isolated from Europe would not entail, for the literary life of the west, deplorable consequences.
(Martin McQuillan transl., in McQuillan,Paul de Man (Routledge 2001).
The actual statement is obnoxious enough without exaggerating it into an "endorsement" when it's no such thing. Depending on the syntax, one could even argue that de Man concedes "deplorable consequences" for the Jews themselves, though that is a stretch. ----Andersonblog18:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically, do you drop the 'n'?—Precedingunsigned comment added byCritic9328 (talk •contribs) 01:39, 7 April 2008 (UTC) No. Rhymes with "the man".195.1.61.80 (talk)21:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Paul de Man, it should be noted, always pronounced the name Man as the Flemish do, which uses a flat syllable similar to the English wordman.
— Evelyn Barish, The Double Life of Paul de Man, p. 7
Choor monster (talk)13:20, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There was an interesting article byGeoffrey Hartman on de Man at the time, I think in the New Yorker, somewhat similar to Derrida's defense. It might be appropriate to mention it here.Tkuvho (talk)18:51, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The overall tone of this article is harsh, at moments either ironical or using a literary style that evokes that of a tabloid (e.g. the comment about money vanishing like de Man himself). De Man's status as a public figure rests primarily upon a decades of scholarship that had a major impact on North American and European literay studies and philosophy. Following his death his stature lead to the discovery of wartime writings complicit with WW2 occupations to provoke a scandal, and in turn a re-investigation of his work and history. This is an important point -- the stature generated the extreme interest in his wartime writings, and while his influence in literary studies and philosophy abided, a number of re-evaluations were mapped unto his work, which sometimes altered the interpretation of his scholarship, but more often created a set of addendums that exists alongside (or independent of) his schorlarship proper. However, this article focuses largely on the scandals and controversies (much of it based on decades-old allegations, e.g. accusations of theft at Bard). For example, his private life is reduced to a series of excerpts concerning would-be scandals. The larger currents of his life and scholarship are overshadowed almost entirely by these scandals, which today have proven less significant or influential than the scholarship they commented upon. Although the scandals have a place in this article, there should be more balance.
Likewise, an entire section on "criminal history" is bracketed out, singling out, for example, issues surrounding his marriage and re-marriage. If we made a section on criminal history for every individual who somehow violated marriage laws (e.g. adultery, sodomy, bigamy) and/or had financial judgments against them, Wikipedia would look very different.
In its current form, the entry reads like article from a tabloid. Obviously, scandal generates attention and Wikipedia is sometimes at the intersections of science and public interest -- hence, more attention to scandals, etc. Even so, the current composition of this article concentrates on scandals -- many of which remain contentious and debated, not at all settled as "criminal" or otherwise -- while neglecting the substance of the subject's life, research, etc. A substantial revision is in order.Betweenfloors (talk)20:09, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I find the entry not so much "tabloid" but very dense in its composition and could benefit from edits for clarity and continuity. Since his death, de Man's life and scholarship have come under renewed evaluation. Revelations about his personal life, heretofore either dismissed or obscured, have now come to light. These prove to be factual data, outside the category of mere "gossip" requiring inclusion in any comprehensive biography of a noteworthy figure. The private man, however egregious or laudable, and the public figure, however maligned or honored need to be taken together as representing a total life, neither the personal nor public indivisible from the other. Presentation of such a complex personality as de Man's, requires crafting a skillful balance of information. Even when accomplished, there will invariably be individuals who will find fault with the result. We can only continue to give it our best efforts!Betempte (talk)00:17, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
betweenfloors (talk) 11 March 2014 (UTC)
I think that the most significant repercussion of the de Man affair was the consequent fall in prestige suffered by Deconstruction, which then tended to be replaced by the so-called "New Historicism" and various feminist and other identity forms of academic criticism. (Not that these were necessarily an improvement, at least in making the profession attractive to outsiders and undergraduates). I don't think this was due only to de Man's purported anti-Semitism (or even the manifest a-morality of his financial and private life). Deconstructionism aroused a lot of hostility. James Sosnoski'sModern Skeletons in Postmodern Closets: A Cultural Studies Alternative (Knowledge : Disciplinarity and Beyond). 1995, notes how deconstruction was in some ways a but continuation of the New Criticism, in that it purported to be uniquely "scientific" and therefore the only possible valid "professional" academic approach to literary criticism. Sosnoski analyzes at some length the derogatory and even contemptuous language of the deconstructionist toward those who were outside their charmed circle, who were routinely stigmatized and sneered at as passé -- deluded amateurs/or philologists. Sosnoski identifies this phenomenon as a continuation of the authoritarian and totalizing attitude of the New Critics, who likewise acted as though they were supermen at the apex of intellectual evolution and were similarly scornful of their predecessors. Very interesting, if someone wants to pursue it. I will say this, de Man was indeed a close reader with an impressive knowledge of his subject. I don't believe this, at any rate, was fraudulent (so far).173.77.12.210 (talk)21:29, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We can't really omit accusations as "unproven" if they appear in a RS. We can only say that they are contested. Peter Brooks, de Man's colleague at Yale, is inclined to dismiss the accusations -- but was he at Harvard? Harvard professor Louis Menand, on the other hand accepts Barish's research. He says that de Man was told to leave the country by INS officers and that he did so for two years, taking his family with him. His wife and children returned the conventional way, but de Man snuck back on a freighter. Barish also recounts that on multiple occasions de Man would tell stories about having "lost" his passport, usually after losing his luggage after being evicted from hotels for non-payment bills. Menand implies that the traumas of de Man's youth caused him to go off the rails and that he regained his "equilibrium" after being granted tenure.
Menand, an English professor however, takes de Man's literary criticism seriously. Whatever his shortcomings,he de Man was very intelligent and apparently a very inspiring teacher. Here is Menand's version of de Man's adventures as a Harvard grad student:
I.N.S. agents show up again, and tell de Man that he can voluntarily leave the country or be deported. At almost the same time, Harvard’s Society of Fellows, where de Man is a Junior Fellow, receives a mysterious letter recounting some of his Belgian activities. De Man explains that he is being persecuted because he is the son of the “controversial” Henri de Man, and his advisers buy the story.
De Man goes back to Europe voluntarily, with his family, but he manages to return to the United States two years later, by freighter. He is without passport or visa, but enters the country unquestioned when agents in New York are distracted by other passengers. He nearly fails his Ph.D. examinations, and never completes one of the chapters of his dissertation, but he is awarded the degree. Through it all, he has been writing criticism. An article called “The Intentional Structure of the Romantic Image” is published in France, in 1960, and attracts interest. That fall, he is hired at Cornell. And here, regrettably, Barish ends her messy but fascinating book.http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2014/03/24/140324crat_atlarge_menand?currentPage=all
Why is it so hard for some people to believe thata sometimes distinguished professors could also be not quite what they seemed? I think this was the case for more than one professor who was a refugee from Europe. Mircea Eliade (who was in the Arrow Cross) and Bruno Bettleheim spring to mind. Americans in those days had an inferiority complex and tended to be "snowed" by seemingly sophisticated European intellectuals, and there was also a labor shortage (incredible as that may now seem).173.52.247.236 (talk) 22:37, 19 March 2014 (UTC) (edit)173.52.247.236 (talk)22:50, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The critical consensus documenting de Man’s misrepresentation of the authors he interpreted grows steadily. In a collection edited by Luc Herman, Kris Humbeek and Geert Lernout,(Dis)continuities: Essays on Paul de Man (Amsterdam: “Post-modern Studies” 2 [1989]), Ortwin de Graef shows that at a crucial point in his essay on Rousseau’sConfessions de Man quoted Rousseau in French but inserted a "ne" in square brackets, thus adding a negation that is nowhere to be found in Rousseau, the resulting translation giving "the exact opposite of Rousseau’s phrase". This "illegitimate" inversion cannot be accidental, de Graef judges (p. 61), adding other instances “of ‘dubious translation’ or ‘twisted paraphrase’" in De Man, and warning readers “to trace de Man’s quotes to their supposed sources" (p. 71 n. 18). In the same volume Philip Buyck shows how de Man both mistranslated and misrepresented Nietzsche’s work on rhetoric, by which he made "Nietzsche say exactly the opposite of what he actually says" (p. 156). I have given some more details of these misrepresentations in “De Man’s distortions of Nietzsche: Rhetoric against itself”, in Josef Kopperschmidt and Helmut Schanze (eds.),Nietzsche: oder die Sprache ist Rhetoric (Munich: Fink, forthcoming). --- Brian Vickers,Appropriating Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Quarrels (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), p, 490.173.52.249.155 (talk)
The tag above the lede is self-explanatory, when viewed alongside the two added section tags, and the queries added in-line. Many of the citations currently in place appear to have been written sandbox style, by an editor or editor, to remind themselves of source (rather than being complete enough to allow another to followup with the material via the source).
In many cases, there is no way to tell what parts of what paragraphs are taken from a later indicated source—even if thereis an indicated source, and if that source contains a fully specified citation (with page numbers, publisher, date of web access, etc.).
I have marked up the lede and first section to make clear how unverifiable the existing text is;in addition to noting the inline queries, ask yourself as you review, from which reference was this non-common-knowledge factual statement drawn? In most cases, no answer is possible. One simply cannot be expected to doforensic referencing on such a text. To do so would be intellectually sloppy guesswork; the original editors must return to finish the job they began, or the whole of the blocks of unreferenced or partially referenced text are largely a wash.
Note, the "unreferenced" tag was chosen for the first section, instead of the "add references", because of the references appearing, one uses a book review (tertiary source) to provide critical biographic material, and the others are lacking critical information (such as page numbers), preventing the sources from being used to verify content. (I am willing to put in significant work to clean-up another's text, but not when, in toto, the time it would take makes the job more daunting than starting from scratch.)
Besides trying unsuccessfully to verify the information in the lede and opening section, I re-formatted the multiple appearances of Peter Brooks 2014 citation so that they would appear as a single line in the reflist, and I removed red text (broken Wiki links).
Bottom line, this article is "not ready for prime time" until significant work is done toclearly provide the actual sources of the vast troves of currently unverifiable text. Le Prof71.239.82.39 (talk)01:21, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I did some reformatting of these secondary sources, to further complete them (adding some, but not all publishers, publisher locations, ISBNs, and URLs), and make them consistent with one another and with other appearances of the same citations elsewhere in the article.
At the same time, I made the editorial choice to move the list to the more moderngiven name-surname ordering (because the list was not presented alphabetically, so there is no need to reorder the first, and only the first name). At the same time, the year of publication was moved to the alternate position of second in order (because that was the basis of the list order I found appearing). Finally, the "inverse chronological order" was simply chosen because that was the specific ordering the list was in already (or nearly so).
The list of primary sources should be made similar, or this list should be reordered in regular chronological order (and the section heading changed). Le Prof.— Precedingunsigned comment added by71.239.82.39 (talk)06:29, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
