“Mallarmé said it all”: these conversations with three of France’s leading philosophers explore the complexity of the poet’s thought, moving from the broadly humanistic to the more overtly political. By tying each interpretation to the personal evolution of each thinker, the two editors enhance our understanding both of these readings of Mallarmé and of the philosophers themselves. ?

Rosemary Lloyd, Rudy Professor Emerita of French, Indiana University Bloomington

The interviews conducted by Robert Boncardo and Christian Gelder with Alain Badiou, Jean-Claude Milner and Jacques Rancière are invaluable, and for more than one reason. They confirm that Stéphane Mallarmé is an unsurpassable figure in the French literary and intellectual field for whoever reflects with even the slightest seriousness on the relations between literature, philosophy, science and politics. They provide a very illuminating overview of the mental universes of some of the greatest contemporary French intellectuals, and prove in passing that, no, they have not yet completely disappeared. And finally, they suffice to show that, in a period of academic regression in literary studies, it is possible to assign this discipline tasks far more exhilarating than what today’s reigning neo-philology can imagine.

Vincent Kaufmann, Director of MCM Institute, Univeristy of St. Gallen, Switzerland

When properly conscious of Mallarmé at all, the Anglophone world has rarely if ever registered the astonishing variety of the thought he has provoked in modern France, and his crucial importance for a range of philosophical, linguistic, political, aesthetic and mathematical debates. With a long and well-informed introduction, these searching and absorbing interviews tell us much, not only about how Mallarmé has mattered and continued to matter to his compatriots, but about why he should matter to ourselves.

Andrew Gibson, former Research Professor of Modern Literature and Theory, Royal Holloway, University of London and member of the Conseil Scientifique of the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris

The interviews with Badiou, Rancière and Milner, as occasioned and recorded in this important new book restore Stéphane Mallarmé to the world of real artistic, political and scientific events and actions, and hopefully contribute towards further emancipating the great poet’s work from perceptions of inaccessibility and obscurity.

Sydney Review of Books

[Le livre] a le grand mérite, d’abord, de rappeler que le poète est encore à l’origine de pensées abstraites, malgré la domination depuis une bonne dizaine d’années, dans un champ toujours en expansion, de l’approche socio-historique.

French Studies