Sublime failures

David Martyn argues in this text that a return to Kant's latent Sadianism helps to confront the unresolved question of agency - or how to formulate an ethic after the deconstruction of the subject - in cultural studies theory. Acknowledging allegations of Kant's empty formalism and even of his proximity to a certain Sadianism, Martyn argues that Kant's ethics are valid not despite but because of their similarity to those of Sade. In close readings that address the historical and material conditions of the composition of their work, Martyn argues that the efforts of Kant and Sade to totalize systems - of ethics, philosophy, pleasures, crimes - must fail, but that the failure leads to important insights about ethics. The book offers philosophical and rhetorical analyses of the two authors' major works, and focuses on two related thematic fields: the economy of the gift and the materiality of writing.