The first in a landmark three-volume series gathering the complete writings of an indispensable voice in contemporary thought and aesthetics.
For over three decades, Jalal Toufic has written across disciplines and traditions, producing a body of work that eludes categorization as part philosophical inquiry, part metaphysical treatise, part experimental literature. Collected Writings (1994–2024) of a Mortal to Death: Jalal Toufic, Volume I brings together the long out-of-print books Distracted, (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film, and Over-Sensitivity with the lesser-known film script Jouissance in Postwar Beirut and the new text The Unreviewed Writings of a Peerless Thinker, 2020–2022. This volume charts the evolution of Toufic’s thought as he meditates on the undead, disaster, withdrawal of tradition, and messianism. Through his engagement with issues of memory, trauma, and diaspora, Toufic offers poignant reflections, constructed with philosophical rigor and poetic intensity, on the complexities of living in a fragmented, postcolonial world.
Jalal Toufic is a Lebanese thinker, writer, and artist. His work spans philosophy, film theory, and visual art, often exploring themes of tradition, mortality, and the metaphysical. He is the author of Distracted (1991), (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film (1993), Forthcoming (2000), and What Was I Thinking (2017), among others. He has also created over 20 films and videos, and his work has been featured in Documenta 13, the Sharjah Biennials, the Shanghai Biennale, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, and MoMA PS1. Currently, he is a professor of film studies at The American University in Cairo.
The first in a landmark three-volume series gathering the complete writings of an indispensable voice in contemporary thought and aesthetics.
For over three decades, Jalal Toufic has written across disciplines and traditions, producing a body of work that eludes categorization as part philosophical inquiry, part metaphysical treatise, part experimental literature. Collected Writings (1994–2024) of a Mortal to Death: Jalal Toufic, Volume I brings together the long out-of-print books Distracted, (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film, and Over-Sensitivity with the lesser-known film script Jouissance in Postwar Beirut and the new text The Unreviewed Writings of a Peerless Thinker, 2020–2022. This volume charts the evolution of Toufic’s thought as he meditates on the undead, disaster, withdrawal of tradition, and messianism. Through his engagement with issues of memory, trauma, and diaspora, Toufic offers poignant reflections, constructed with philosophical rigor and poetic intensity, on the complexities of living in a fragmented, postcolonial world.
Author
Jalal Toufic is a Lebanese thinker, writer, and artist. His work spans philosophy, film theory, and visual art, often exploring themes of tradition, mortality, and the metaphysical. He is the author of Distracted (1991), (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film (1993), Forthcoming (2000), and What Was I Thinking (2017), among others. He has also created over 20 films and videos, and his work has been featured in Documenta 13, the Sharjah Biennials, the Shanghai Biennale, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, and MoMA PS1. Currently, he is a professor of film studies at The American University in Cairo.
