ABSTRACT
This essay proposes ‘lingophobia’ as a neologistic term engaging with two interrelating senses: fear of language and fear of the tongue. In the process Royle explores some of the most troubling misunderstandings of ‘theory,’ especially in the context of the so-called ‘linguistic turn.’ He takes issue with François Cusset’s French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States (2008), both in terms of its representation of what Cusset calls the ‘Derrida mystery’ and in terms of its near-complete elision of a discussion of the work of Hélène Cixous. The essay gives particular attention to the ways in which Derrida and Cixous are concerned not simply with language but rather with the body (especially the mouth, lips, and tongue), with the ‘other’ of language, and with the ‘experience of the impossible.’
