Using Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy's groundbreaking study of the persistence of German Idealist philosophy as his starting point, Justin Clemens presents a valuable study of the links between Romanticism and contemporary theory. The central contention of this book is that contemporary theory is still essentially Romantic - despite all its declarations to the contrary, and despite all its attempts to elude or exceed the limits bequeathed it by Romantic thought. The argument focuses on the ruses of 'Romanticism's indefinable character' under two main rubrics, 'Contexts' and 'Interventions'. The first three chapters investigate 'Contexts', examining some of the broad trends in the historical and institutional development of Romantic criticism; the second section, 'Interventions', comprises close readings of the work of Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Ian Hunter and Alain Badiou. This study will be of interest to literary theorists, philosophers, political theorists, and cultural studies scholars.

Justin Clemens teaches in psychoanalysis and literary studies at Deakin University, Australia. He has published scholarly articles in a number of fields, as well as poetry and short-fiction.

Contents: Introduction: the embryonic remains; Contexts: The institution of Romanticism; Universal anaesthesia; Nihilism, aesthetics, and institutions; Interventions: Sex, formalization, and Jacques Lacan; Aesthetic multiplicity in the work of Gilles Deleuze and FélixGuattari; Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and the family romance of queer theory; Cultural studies, cultural policy, and the professed anti-Romanticism of Ian Hunter; Alain Badiou, or: From the sublime to the infinite; Index.