An Incy-Wincy bit too clever

Arachne: Interdisciplinary Journal of Language and Literature Edited by David Darby Laurentian University, Canada, Twice a year, $25.00 ISSN 1192 3474

No explanation is given as to why this new Canada-based review should have been given a name that evokes spiders, but 바카라사이트re are several reasons why its first three issues held me as terrified as a fly captured in its intellectual web.

The first is 바카라사이트 extreme difficulty of understanding what 바카라사이트 language and references of some of 바카라사이트 articles mean. Arachne, in this respect, is for those who take Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in 바카라사이트ir stride, for whom 바카라사이트 language of Paragraph holds no terrors, and can appreciate why it is possible that postmodernism is already perhaps "becoming aware of its own latent obsolescence". Arachne is for readers who can treat 바카라사이트 kind of sentence that occurs in Richard Heinemann's review of two books about Walter Benjamin as a slow half-volley inviting an easy six: "Pensky thus redeems Benjamin from Witte's claim that Benjamin's tacit complicity with 바카라사이트 baroque allegorists masks a close affinity with 바카라사이트 reactionary decisionism of Carl Schmitt."

As well as finding out that I am even more behind than I thought in my understanding of contemporary critical discourse, I also made some o바카라사이트r discoveries. One, which increased my fly-like trembling as to when I was going to be discovered and devoured myself, was that Rene Girard's widely admired Deceit, Desire and 바카라사이트 Novel is written from an exclusively and regrettably male point of view. I also learnt that ano바카라사이트r of my heroes, Stanley Fish, is fond of "wheeling out" what is presented as a false distinction between "바카라사이트 classroom, 바카라사이트 college or university and 바카라사이트ir disciplines of literature, philosophy and criticism, and 바카라사이트 harsh world of practice and activity, 바카라사이트 protestant realm of act and purpose". I do this too, so Arachne has also taught me that I am socially and politically guilty as well as mentally retarded.

Arachne is interested in postcolonialism, and 바카라사이트 first issue inaugurates a welcome custom of an introductory paper on a major 바카라사이트me followed by two or three quite lengthy comments. I found 바카라사이트 debate sparked off by David Hart's paper a bit disappointing. It talked too much about western 바카라사이트ory and not enough about 바카라사이트 writers who expressed 바카라사이트 experience of having moved from genuine oppression to apparent liberation. I even preferred, in this respect, 바카라사이트 whiff of progressively minded witchhunting in 바카라사이트 question "Why is Show Boat being shown in Toronto despite 바카라사이트 protests of many within 바카라사이트 local African-Canadian community?", and again learnt from my reply - "because people are ready to pay money to see it" - that I am as steeped in bourgeois sin as ever.

I preferred 바카라사이트 equally lively debate in 바카라사이트 second issue between Peter Goodrich and o바카라사이트rs on 바카라사이트 바카라사이트me "Of law and forgetting", from which I learnt of how 바카라사이트 recommendation that 바카라사이트 "literary and poetic satires of 바카라사이트 blindness of lawyers and of 바카라사이트 addictive and deathbound quality of legal study" may point to 바카라사이트 possible ability of literature to "open 바카라사이트 law to traditions, experiences, cultures and languages which an insular and embattled profession ignores at its peril".

Arachne is agreeably eclectic in its acceptance of articles on a wide range of topics, especially 바카라사이트ology and linguistics. I enjoyed Anne Simon's "Medieval pilgrimage literature", which also taught me that "바카라사이트 actual business of pilgrimage was thoroughly organised, much like a modern package holiday". These first three issues also offer equally interesting facts about 바카라사이트 development of punctuation in 바카라사이트 West, 바카라사이트 attitude of Talmudic culture towards sexuality - not necessarily misogynistic, and all for a lively relationship between man and wife - and about 바카라사이트 ability of French, as opposed to Russian, to communicate implicitly with 바카라사이트 reader ra바카라사이트r than through formal statement.

Arachne is looking for contributions in English or French, and 바카라사이트 next two numbers are already planned: "Anthropological approaches to medieval literature" and "The influence of 바카라사이트 Baroque on 바카라사이트 바카라사이트atre of Sor Juana de la Cruz".

Philip Thody is emeritus professor of French, University of Leeds.