Writing Against Time

"Michael W. Clune's book is about how artists have found ways to stop the mind in its tracks, to suspend it in a state of ongoing presence. There are many shoots to his argument, but at its core is a romantic, optimistic, even brave commitment to the power and danger of aesthetic forms." - Blakey Vermule, Stanford University, Nonsite "Clune's exquisite new book asks how literature might arrest time's erosion of perceptual vivacity. He moves beyond the historicist orthodoxy that has so dominated literary study for the past twenty years." - Jonathan Kramnick, Johns Hopkins University, Nonsite "This book reminds readers that the purpose of reading is to live outside of time, but also to enter a story that allows one to remember those moments when time seemed to stop ... Summing Up: Recommended." - K. Gale, CHOICE "What is striking about this book is the combination of enormous ambition and economical exposition. Its questions are big and its answers are provocative. Even better: we have the chance to see the world for a while through an enchanting mind. Thinking with Clune is sheer pleasure." - Amy Hungerford, Yale University "Clune makes a powerful argument for how the literary critic, if properly aware of the literary subject's uniquely antagonistic relation to time and actuality, might contribute something new to other disciplines as opposed to remaining parasitic on their methods." - Sianne Ngai, Stanford University