“Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man’s War,” Critical Inquiry 14 (Spring 1988): pp. 590-652.
Excerpt:
“The title names a war. Which war? Do not think only of the war that broke out several months ago around some articles signed by a certain Paul de Man, in Belgium between 1940 and 1942. Later you will understand why it is important to situate the beginning of things public, that is the publications, early in 1940 at the latest, during the war but before the occupation of Belgium by the Nazis, and not in December 1940, the date of the first article that appeared in Le Soir, the major Brussels newspaper that was then controlled, more or less strictly, by the occupiers…”