Co-Winner of the 2024 ACLA Renè Wellek Prize for Monograph 

The emergence of the alphabet in ancient Greece, usually heralded as the first step in the inexorable march toward reason and progress, in fact signaled the introduction of a chance technology that hijacked the future, with devastating consequences for humanity. By investigating an array of cultural artifacts, ranging from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey to the Oracle at Delphi to Luther's challenge to the Church, this book demonstrates how the apparently benign emergence of writing made possible far-ranging systems of organized domination and unprecedented levels of violence. The Violence of the Letter considers how a twenty-six-letter code changed the face of the world, and not always for the better.

Melanie McMahon has a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from King's College London and a Master's degree in History from Washington University in St. Louis. Her articles have appeared in Irish Studies Review, Textual Practice, and Angelaki. Her current project is about Jacques Derrida and settler colonialism. The Violence of the Letter is her first book.

Prelude
Introduction
Chapter 1. A Brief Technical Detour
Chapter 2. The Trauma of Literacy
Chapter 3. The Alphabet and Reproduction
Chapter 4. Plato and the Forms of Alphabetic Writing
Chapter 5. The Alphabet and Money
Interlude
Chapter 6. Letters of Fire and Blood
Chapter 7. The Subject Is Always Alphabetized
Bibliography
Index