ABSTRACT
In recent years, the work of Derrida, Lacan and others has reminded us that thought and writing of compelling originality may go hand in hand with the scrupulous reading of the work of others. Indeed, such work has given rise to a revision of the very notion of reading, a revision in which the work of Maurice Blanchot holds a privileged place. One might say, summarily, that this is a notion of reading which involves an infinite attention to the Dire, the Saying of the other which resists the homogeneity of the Said. To put it in such terms is, of course, to evoke the figure of Emmanuel Levinas, who may be said to participate with Blanchot and others-such as Bataille, Derrida, Jabès, Lacoue-Labarthe, Nancy-in a heteronomous community, the sort of community described at various times by Bataille, Nancy, and of course by Blanchot.1
