Besinnung and What May the Century Amount To: On or About or Because of Marc Angenot as Goad and Stimulus

This is an article in two parts. Part 1, "Besinnung: Remembrance, Recollection, Reasoning Again," approaches, starting from Augustine's Confessions, Marc Angenot's "social discourse theory" and his article "Pour en finir avec les études littéraires." In the spirit of Nietzsche's maxim "You should be closest to a friend with your heart when you resist him," the great strengths of Angenot's approaches are pointed out, as well as limits of and reservations about a Foucauldian discourse theory that cannot accommodate fiction. Part 2, "What May the Century Amount to," is a set of independent theses in a sustained dialogue with Angenot's work.