A tour of reading : "The Man of the Crowd"

Abstract

There are many different gifts many of us owe to Professor Tadeusz Sławek. The one which stands out for me is the practice of reading, such reading that takes its time, that is patient and respectful of details, but which also takes risks in making unconventional connections, that negotiates between the inside and the outside of a literary text. And which does not have to arrive to a conclusion to make sense. Hence the following piece which engages, along these very lines, with Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Man of the Crowd,” once given such prominence through Walter Benjamin’s writings[…]