Critical Ethics Text, Theory and Responsibility

The current resurgence of ethics in the beleaguered humanities reflects an increasing anxiety about the value and utility of critical/philosophical debate in the wake of poststructuralism. This book addresses this 'return to ethics' in relation to a wide variety of theories and texts. It covers substantial areas of ethical debate, particularly in relation to queer politics, biography, history, postmodernism, atrocity literature, utilitarianism, pedagogy and the philosophy of science. Theorists discussed in the volume include Rorty, Heidegger, Levinas, Mill, Lyotard, Leavis, Kuhn, Davidson, Nussbaum and Freud.

Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: Ethics and Intellectuals; D. Rainsford and T. Woods PART I: THE POLITICS OF ETHICS What Price Collaboration? The Case of F.R.Leavis; M. Bell Imagining the Centre; G. Harpham PART II: ETHICS AND HISTORY Ethics, Hermeneutics and Philosophy of Science; C. Norris Flaws: James, Nussbaum, Miller, Levinas; R. Eaglestone The Original Traumatise: Levinas and Psychoanalysis; S. Critchley Spectres of History: Ethics and Postmodern Fictions of Temporality; T. Woods PART III: THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY The Ethics of Biography and Autobiography; L. Lockridge The Ethics of Queen Theory; C. Lamos Ethics, Value, and the Politics of Recognition; D. Parker Moral Synonymy: John Stuart Mill and the Ethics of Style; D. Burnstone PART IV: ETHICS AND THE STATE OF THE HUMANITIES The Benefit of the Doubt: The Ethics of Reading; L. West Care of the Self or Care of the Other? Towards a Poststructuralist Ethics of Pedagogy; M. Toye The Ethics of the Voice; S. Connor PART V: BOSNIA AND THE GULAG: LITERATURE AS WITNESS Testimony as Art: Varlam Shalamov's 'Condensed Milk'; L. Toker Cosmopolitanism as Resistance: Fragmented Identities, Women's Testimonial and the War in Yugoslavia; A. Cubili?elect Bibliography Index

MICHAEL BELL Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick DAN BURNSTONE Lecturer at the University of Cambridge STEVEN CONNOR Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College SIMON CRITCHLEY Reader in Philosophy at the University of Essex ANNE CUBILIÉ Assistant Professor, Department of English, Georgetown University, Washington DC ROBERT EAGLESTONE Lecturer, Royal Holloway, University of London GEOFFREY GALT HARPHAM Professor and Chair of the Department of English, University of Tulane COLLEEN LAMOS Associate Professor of English, Rice University LARRY LOCKRIDGE Professor of English, New York University CHRISTOPHER NORRIS Professor of Philosophy, University of Wales, Cardiff DAVID PARKER Head of English, Australian National University LEONA TOKER MA in English from Vilnius University, Lithuania MARGARET TOYE completing her PhD at the University of Western Ontario LORI BRANCH WEST PhD student in the Department of English at Indiana University