The Scandal of the Speaking Body: Don Juan with J. L. Austin, or Seduction in Two Languages Book

I've been reading (slowly) through different responses to Austin's work, and Felman's book ranks right up there as one of my favorites so far. It's readable, it's interesting, it takes Austin's own body of work as a whole into account, and for the most part, I think she gets Austin right.

The quibble I come up with (that seems right the more I sit with it) is that Felman's reading is influenced by Benveniste (both via Lacan, and Benveniste's response to Austin) and while she's clearly aware of that influence, and even makes an explicit break with Benveniste's reading over the concept of singularity, she still sees Austin as saying that language is self referential and thus generative (as does Benveniste, as does Lacan). But a friend pointed out that Austin never commits ultimately to language as self referential; instead, the generative move in Austin comes out of what he sets in motion with "hereby", and it's generative in the sense of messianic recapitulation rather than fantasy (e.g., the Phallus/phallus of Lacan).

So ... that's more of a note to myself of what I want to keep thinking about and sorting out in Felman's book than it is a review of the book itself.

Anyways, Felman's a brilliant reader, and her readings of Don Juan and Austin are both really well done, and rich. It's a book that will reward re-reading, and re-thinking. Recommended to those interested in the performative, lit theory, philosophy, embodiment.