The Tombs of Guy Debord

"The way [Guy Debord] used détournement in those years confirms what we already suspected about the deeper roots of his being: he needed others, he needed those marble statues, in order to make himself known, both as one and many. Détournement was a ritual through which images of others magically made the self visible." --Jean-Marie Apostolidés, from The Tombs of Guy Debord (translated by Laure Katsaros and René Kooiker)

In The Tombs of Guy Debord, Jean-Marie Apostolidés explores the life of Guy Debord, French Marxist theorist, philosopher, and filmmaker, through his theory of détournement, originally a form of literary communism that later defined Debord's persona as a scholar and a person.

Jean-Marie Apostolidès is the William H. Bonsall Professor of French at Stanford University He was educated in France, where he received a doctorate in literature and the social sciences. He is also a playwright, whose work has been staged in Paris, Montreal, and New York.His literary criticism focuses on the place of artistic production in the French classical age and in modern society. His most recent books are Sade in The Abyss, Héroïsme et victimisation, and Hergé et le mythe du Surenfant.

Laure Katsaros teaches nineteenth-century French literature and culture at Amherst College, where she is also affiliated with the program in Architectural Studies. She has published two books: Un nouveau monde amoureux: prostituées et célibataires au dix-neuvième siècle; and New York-Paris: Whitman, Baudelaire, and the Hybrid City. In 2014, she received a New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation which supported a year of study in the History and Philosophy of Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Having majored in French and English at Amherst College, René Kooiker is the French department's 2018-2019 Exchange Fellow at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He is studying francophone Caribbean literature and contemporary critical theory, and hopes to continue his studies with a PhD in Comparative Literature.

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