Paul De Man Controversy
After the discovery of Paul de Man's controversial wartime journalism for the collaborationist Belgian newspaper Le Soir, Kaplan wrote a widely cited article about her former teacher titled "Paul de Man, Le Soir, and the Francophone Collaboration" for Responses: On Paul de Man's Wartime Journalism, in which she notes:
- De Man's work in Le Soir is at once a brilliant and banal example of all the cliches of fascist nationalism: brilliant for the way he argues his position, for the logic he brings to bear, and banal because a thousand other intellectuals claimed the same high ground, reached the same conclusions, had essentially the same effect.
She describes this period of her life in a chapter of French Lessons.
Read more about this topic: Alice Kaplan
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