People like Maurice Blanchot

Maurice Blanchot ( blan-SHOH, French: [blɑ̃ʃo]; 22 September 1907 – 20 February 2003) was a French writer, philosopher and literary theorist. His work, exploring a philosophy of death alongside poetic theories of meaning and sense, bore significant influence on post-structuralist philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy.

Blanchot was born in the village of Quain (Saône-et-Loire) on 22 September 1907.

Blanchot studied philosophy at the University of Strasbourg, where he became a close friend of the Lithuanian-born French Jewish phenomenologist Emmanuel Levinas. He then embarked on a career as a political journalist in Paris. From 1932 to 1940 he was editor of the mainstream conservative daily the Journal des débats. In 1930 he earned his DES (diplôme d'études supérieures), roughly equivalent to an M.A. at the University of Paris, with a thesis titled "La Conception du Dogmatisme chez les Sceptiques anciens d'après Sextus Empiricus" ("The Conception of Dogmatism in the Ancient Sceptics According to Sextus Empiricus").