In this important book of essays by a new voice in French philosophy and literary theory, Christophe Bident reflects on the complex meanings of the word recognition, pondering the mystery inherent in acts of acknowledgement, as well as the need to be acknowledged, “not as self-aggrandizement or gratification” but “in a spirit of justness and justice.” Examining this ongoing theme in works by Maurice Blanchot, Robert Antelme and Gilles Deleuze, he delves deeply into the questions raised by each. For Bident, the choice of authors is clear: Blanchot, “because he explores in all literary works our desire, always thwarted, never achieved, for acknowledgement”; Antelme, because “his experience of the Nazi war camps rendered him non-existent or unacknowledgable to the eyes of the S.S., an experience he later recounted in his most celebrated work, The Human Race”; Deleuze, finally, “because he sought the way to acknowledgement in his writings and philosophy through works spanning the history of human thought.” Reconnaissances constitutes not only a penetrating study of a common thread permeating the works of these authors, but a pivotal examination of the forces at work in our society today.