Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface: For Sandy… (Robert Harvey & Patrice Nganang) -- 1. The Present King of France Is Bald (John Krapp) -- Notes -- 2. Sandy Petrey's Unacknowledged Contribution to Historical Materialism (David Anshen) -- Introduction: Let Them Eat Realist Cake -- Petrey's Historical Account of Social Performance: History Is Representational and Representations are Historical -- A Petreyan Reading of Kate Chopins' "Désirée's Baby" with a Splash of Marxism -- Notes -- 3. Revolution and God (Thomas J. J. Altizer) -- 4. Victor Hugo as Realist in Notre-Dame de Paris (Kathryn M. Grossman) -- The Play's the Thing -- Gringoire and Frollo: Two (Mis)Takes on Reality -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 5. Legality, Narrative Order, and Vagabondage in Balzac's Ferragus (Armine Kotin Mortimer) -- Notes -- 6. André Gorz and the Philosophical Foundation of the Political (Dick Howard) -- Remembering Past Times -- Biographical Introduction -- The First Clues -- Realizing Philosophy: The Traitor -- Ecology As Philosophy -- The Critique of Normativity -- Return to The Traitor -- Notes -- 7. Sontag Between America and Europe (E. Ann Kaplan) -- The Making of a European Intellectual in Reborn (1947-1963) -- The Making of a Film Director-the "European" Sontag -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 8. Ministering to the Culture (Herman Lebovics) -- Notes -- 9. Desperate Artist (Claire Burrows) -- The Desperate Artist: Narrative Devices and Silence -- Formal Techniques of Silence -- The Discourse of Silence -- Speaking of Trauma with Silence -- Notes -- 10. A Note on English Loan Words in American Italian and Standard Italian (Lori Repetti) -- Introduction -- Extra Vowels -- Consonant Length -- Stressed Vowel Position -- Conclusions -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Contributors.