Levinas, Storytelling and Anti-StorytellingThe telling of tales is always a troubling business, and the way in which we tell stories about ourselves and about others always involves a degree of ethical risk. Levinas, Storytelling and Anti-Storytelling explores the troubling nature of storytelling through a reading of the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas is a thinker who has a complex relationship with literature and with storytelling. At times, Levinas is a teller of powerful tales about ethics; at other times, on ethical grounds, he disavows storytelling altogether. Levinas, Storytelling and Anti-Storytelling explores the tensions between philosophy and storytelling that run throughout Levinas's work. By asking about how Levinas tells and untells his stories, and by risking the telling of tales that Levinas himself does not dare to tell, this book opens up new ways of thinking about Levinas's ethics of responsibility. It may be, as Levinas often insists, that storytelling presents us with ethical dangers; but Levinas, Storytelling and Anti-Storytelling makes the case that an ethics of responsibility may demand that, whilst mindful of these dangers, we nevertheless continually seek out new stories to tell about ourselves, about others and about the world. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Part One Philosophers and Storytellers | 11 |
Part Two Stories | 51 |
Part Three AntiStories | 107 |
Part Four Otherwise | 143 |
Notes | 159 |
| 169 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
absolute anonymity appears argument attempt become beginning Bernasconi Blanchot Buber Calvino claim claustrophobia concerned death Derrida Descartes drama dream dwelling element Emmanuel Levinas encounter Epicurus equivocation essay essence ethics Existence and Existents experience explore face fact fecundity feminine Fisher King grail Hegel Heidegger Heidegger’s Husserl Husserlian hypostasis I-Thou idea ifwe Jonathan Rée journey Khan kind language Levinas calls Levinas writes Levinas’s book Levinas’s thinking live Marco Marco Polo means metaphysical quest narrative nevertheless notion object ofbeing ofthe one’s oneself ontological Otherwise perhaps Phenomenology of Spirit philosophical Plato poetry possible precisely problem question reading relation relationship representation responsibility Rosenzweig 1971 Rosenzweig writes Sambatyon seems sense silence speak speech thinking Star stories that Levinas storytelling strange stranger telling temporal things thinker Totality and Infinity transcendence transcendental ego trauma turn violence words