Memoires for paul de man3/14/2023 In 1947, while de Man was a partner in a struggling publishing venture, he resorted to some ''shady financial dealings.'' When he left Belgium a year later, Goriely declared, gazing out sternly over an audience that included de Man's cousin, friends of his youth and daughter, he was about to be brought to trial. Why did de Man immigrate to the United States after the war? It had nothing to do with politics, said the professor, nothing to do with the allegations chronicled in newspapers all over the world that de Man had concealed a dark secret in his past - a secret that threatened to destroy his reputation. Jean Stengers, a historian at the Free University of Brussels, would address a topic pointedly titled: ''Paul de Man, a Collaborator?'' Georges Goriely, professor emeritus at the Free University of Brussels and an eminent sociologist, would deliver ''A Personal Testimony.'' ![]() ![]() Only the last session, scheduled for Saturday afternoon, intimated that there might be some unliterary matters on the agenda. After all, it was in the United States that the Belgian-born de Man had made his name as the pre-eminent interpreter of deconstruction, which teaches that literature is essentially ''undecidable,'' beyond interpretation, and which is still a popular critical method in English departments across the land. The roster of participants - Sjef Houppermans from the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, Novica Milic from the Institute for Literature in Belgrade - gave a distinctly European air to the proceedings. You wouldn't have known from the sessions listed in the program - ''Paul de Man and the Contingency of Intention,'' ''Anthropomorphism and Tropes in de Man'' - that they had come for any purpose other than to celebrate the memory of a local boy made good. ![]() There were also a few prosperous-looking older men, who turned out to be childhood friends of Paul de Man - the focus of an international conference held last June at the university. THE BAR IN THE AUDITORIUM lobby at the University of Antwerp was crowded with scholars in baggy suits, itinerant students, assorted hangers-on.
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