In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionEthics and Interdisciplinarity in Philosophy and Literary TheoryMark Sanders (bio)Two questions—the first calls for information, the second for justification. What points of contact, if any, are there between the current investment in ethics in literary theory, and the elaboration of ethics in contemporary philosophy? In other words, does an interdisciplinarity exist? Second, what reasons might literary theorists have, or have they had, to (...) be aware and take stock of developments in philosophical ethics? That is to say, what might be gained from interdisciplinary work? A third question emanates from the first two: where a cross-disciplinary engagement with philosophy has taken place, has there occurred any transformation of literary theory? I hope to show in what follows that, when we consider ethics in literary theory, no less than in philosophy, it is necessary to attend both to method within each discipline and to the nature of relations between them.The first of my questions begs the question of what contemporary philosophy is. Literary theorists entering into ethics have tended to draw on the work of Emmanuel Lévinas, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Luce Irigaray, and more recently that of Giorgio Agamben and Alain Badiou. If the last has, in a spirit of polemic, professed to displace the "other" in the name of the "Same,"1 the dominant paradigm, when it [End Page 3] comes to ethics, remains one of alterity and difference. There are fundamental reasons why this should be the case: operating in figural language, literature, or the literary, differs from itself in response to an other. To borrow, translate, and adapt an Afrikaans term from the South African poet Breyten Breytenbach,2 literature engages in a process of andersmaak, of other-making or making-other: in making-other and, in so doing, inventing others, it makes itself other. Literature is an other-maker. It is to this activity that literary theory must attend. That is why it is natural for it to turn to ethics—not only the nexus Lévinas-Derrida and the other thinkers mentioned above, but also, for instance, to psychoanalysis: what may have begun as the teasing out of hidden meanings (the received idea is that this is what psychoanalysis and literary criticism share) has, following Lacan's "return to Freud," evolved into a consideration of the ethics of psychoanalysis in the context of reading and listening [see, for example, Felman and Laub].Literature may be an other-maker, and reading may be exemplary in the topoi of current theory for responsibility before the other,3 but it is not clear that literary theorists have been equal to setting this responsibility to work fully when it comes to responding to philosophy. There has been relatively little attention among literary theorists to developments in disciplinary philosophy—where, in recent decades, in North America and the Anglophone world generally, the tendency in ethics has been to bring moral reflection to bear on questions in political theory. The pólis in question is, however, no longer only the nation-state; the politics that engages political thought is transnational and global. Whether or not a given thinker subscribes to the idea of world citizenship, the horizon for thought is cosmopolitan.PhilosophyAlthough thinkers have continued to enter into basic questions in ethics,4 the writings of Charles Taylor, Will Kymlicka, Iris Young, Seyla Benhabib, and others attest to a shift from ethics to politics powerfully influenced by John Rawls (1921-2002)—notably in A Theory of Justice (1971) and Political Liberalism (1993)—and the ensuing criticisms of these works. As the weight of the North American debate has moved from liberal multiculturalism and minority rights [see Taylor et al.; Ackerman; Kymlicka; Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference] toward transnationality and globalization, Rawls's more recent critics have come to view his assumption of the nation-state as the basic context of analysis—even in The Law of Peoples (1999), which is devoted to international relations—as a limitation to his thinking of justice.5 These changes in emphasis are a clear sign of how the effects of globalization have begun to draw a response from political theorists.Links between ethics and political... (shrink)

The book presents a comprehensive account of Shusterman's principal philosophical ideas concerning pragmatism, aesthetics, and literary theory (including such themes as interpretation, aesthetic experience, popular art, and human embodiment ...

This collection presents a sort of counter-history or counter-genealogy of the globalization of French thought from the point of view of scholars working in the UK. While the dominating discourse would attribute the US as the source of that globalization, particularly through the 1966 conference on the Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man at Johns Hopkins University, this volume of essays serves as a reminder that the UK has also been a principal motor of that globalization. The essays (...) take into account how French thought and literary theory have institutionally taken shape in the UK from the 70s to today, highlight aspects of French thought that have been of particular pertinence or importance for scholars there, and outline how researchers in the UK today are bringing French thought further in terms of teaching and research in this twenty-first century. In short, this volume traces how the country has been behind the reception and development of French thought in Anglophone worlds from the late 70s to the present. (shrink)

Karl Popper’s philosophy of science provides a foundation for a theory of literary interpretation that avoids the pitfalls of contemporary theories. This study outlines the approach and applies it to challenging works from the Gospel of Mark to Patrick Modiano.

Redrawing the Lines,the first book to focus on that interaction, brings together ten essays by key figures who have worked to connect literary theory and philosophy and to reassess the relationship between analytic and Continental ...

The work of the German philosopher Manfred Frank has profoundly affected the direction of the contemporary debate in many areas of philosophy and literary theory. This present collection, first published in 1998, brings together some of his most important essays, on subjects as diverse as Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, the status of the literary text, and the response to the work of Derrida and Lacan. Frank shows how the discussions of subjectivity in recent literary theory fail (...) to take account of important developments in German Idealist and Romantic philosophy. The prominence accorded language in literary theory and analytic philosophy, he claims, ignores key arguments inherited from Romantic hermeneutics, those which demonstrate that interpretation is an individual activity never finally governed by rules. Andrew Bowie's introduction situates Frank's work in the context of contemporary debates in philosophy and literary theory. (shrink)

This volume forms part of the series of the Princeton Studies in Humanistic Scholarship in America, under the general editorship of Richard Schlatter. Uitti's exposition of theories of language and literature from ancient Greece to contemporary America is oriented toward the proposal for a coordination of studies of language and literature in a sort of modern trivium of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. In the first part of the book, the author concentrates on Platonic "symbolic" and Aristotelian "analytic" ideas about language, (...) and then traces these two currents throughout the Middle Ages, paying special attention to Priscian, Anselm, Abelard, Petrus Hispanus, Dante, and the grammatica speculativa. He then brings the survey up to modern times, examining Descartes, the Port-Royal grammar, Du Marsais, Diderot, and Rousseau. Condillac and Coleridge are treated in detail as representing two modern theories of expression/communication, the one analytic and linguistic, the other synthetic and aesthetic. The second part of this work deals with a history of both linguistics and of American literary criticism, stressing I. A. Richards' descriptivism, new critic theories of metaphor and irony, and Wellek and Warren's Theory of Literature. Uitti singles out Roman Jakobson as being most prophetic in outlining future cooperation of linguistics and literary theory, and in this light analyzes various papers in Style and Language, in particular C. F. Voegelin's and Michel Riffaterre's. This survey of the contemporary American scene points to the fact that ours is a sign-oriented culture, and that recent studies in linguistics and in literary criticism of the poetics type have been sharing the same philosophical assumptions. The author thinks that language and literature studies would function best in the future as disciplines united in the broad matrix of cultural process, and using linguistic categories. He thus shares an oft-expressed hope for a cumulative literary "science," in which individual studies are oriented toward the broader construct. This book is addressed to the nonspecialist, but the expert will profit from Uitti's generous style which opens up new vistas on every page.--C. M. R. (shrink)

Though hints of increasing interest can be discerned here and there within contemporary aesthetic theory, as a whole, pragmatist aesthetics is still very much situated at the outskirts of philosophical aesthetics. Richard Shusterman is basically the only figure who has tried to develop a more systematic aesthetic theory based on pragmatist ideas, and while his work has been addressed and its value acknowledged in various parts of contemporary theory, its impact on what could be called the har...

The principle aim of this book is to explore the relationship between contemporary literary theory and analytic philosophy. The volume addresses this issue in two ways: first, through four exchanges between, on the one hand, proponents of avant-garde literary theory and, on the other, proponents of analytic philosophy (or of related literary critical positions); and second, through three cross-disciplinary essays on the relationship in question. Central topics in the volume include Self, Ethics, Interpretation, (...) Language and characterisations of 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy. (shrink)

Uitti traces here the gradual dissociation of linguistics from both literary theory and the history of literature with the intention of pointing out theoretical aspects of this development and of attracting interested workers in other disciplines. His aim is ‘… to examine the interaction of several methods, the clarification of various materials, and the status of both methods and materials …’. This examination is pursued in three chapters.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LITERARY THEORY, PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AND EXEGESIS XYONE FAMILIAR with the present state of biblical studies is aware that there is a significant shift on the part of many,scholars away from the historical critical method as it was practiced earlier toward methods that are based upon various theories of literature.1 Criteria for judging the aptitude of either the historical or literary method are often established (...) on the ·basis of their practical effectiveness in " yielding a meaning," particularly one that seems to serve the believing community. The difficulty with such an approach is that the philosophical principles latent in and undedying the various methods are not examined directly and are thus left to function unquestioned while the debate centers on results. The purpose of this study is modest. It is to reflect critically on a concrete work of exegesis in order to see how exegesis actually proceeds or might proceed. I a1so wish to question some of the unexpressed epistemological principles that often operate in whrut biblical scholars do. Taking rus a model those historians who have reflected philosophically on what it means to do history, I wish in a similar manner to reflect on what it means to do exegesis·. Such an undertaking, it is hoped, will advance the dialogue between systematic theology and exegesis and indicate further avenues to be explored. We have arrived at a moment when it is in the interest of both disciplines to have a clearer notion of how to assess the results of biblical study. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the central issue in biblical studies is not method as such, though discussion of 1 For a description of more profound aspects of this shift, see: J. P. Martin, "Toward a Post-Critical Paradigm," New Testament Studies 33 (1987) 370-385. 575 576 FRANCIS MARTIN what is called the historical critical method, the literary method, etc. will always have its place. The core problem is that of developing a theology of human communication. This will be a theology that learns from the philosophy of language and literature and yet derives its primary lessons from the unique communication that each theologian experiences in his or her personal contact with the biblical text. The work done by Paul Ricoeur in the field of the philosophy of l1 anguage and literature can provide a, point of departure in the elaboration of such a theology of communication. In addition to reflecting philosophically on many aspects of human communication, Ricoeur has expressed himself from time to time on the relation of his philosophy to biblica,l issues. Thus, in his essay, " Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation," 2 Ricoeur speaks of biblical hermeneutic as being " one regional hermeneutic within a general hermeneutic and a unique hermeneutic that is joined to philosophy as its organon." 3 In discussing the expression of dependence without heteronomy, at the conclusion his essay, Ricoeur goes on to say:... the experience of testimony can only provide the horizon for a specifically religious and biblical experience of revelation, without our ever being able to derive that experience from the philosophical categories of truth as manifestation and reflection as testimony.4 These statements, as we can easily recognize, touch upon a key dimension of the problem facing us as we attempt to locate the human communication of the scriptures in the context of revelation. The question is that of the presence of the unique existing within the common. It is the fact that the particular and irreducible nature of the biblical witness is necessarily made in language common to 1 alL Scripture directs itself, not 2Now found in L. Mudge (ed.), Essays iAi Bibliaal Interpretation (Philadelphia : Fortress, 1980), pp. 73-118. See in addition, "Naming God," Union Seminary Quarterly Review 34 (1979) 215-227. 3" Toward a Hermeneutic," p. 104. 4Jbid., p. 117. LITERARY THEORY, HISTORY AND EXEGESIS 577 to a remote and privileged sphere of " religion," but rather to the marketplace where human thoughts about existence jostle one another in a desire to be heard: Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the open squares she raises her voice. Down the crowded ways she calls out, at the city gates she... (shrink)

There is currently great anxiety among literary critics and theorists about literary criticism’s loss of identity, both as an identifiable, coherent discipline with a recognizable set of problems and as a body of authoritative and well-founded convictions about literature and its history. Part of the reason for this anxiety is that everything that was until recently considered relatively unproblematical has now been rendered problematical. The hermeneutic of suspicion emerges as an interpretative strategy, pitting itself against the hermeneutic of (...) belief; radical indeterminacy of meanings challenges the certainty of traditional epistemology which authorized the objectivity of meaning, text, and context; and the whole of the Western metaphysical tradition is “inscribed” in any piece of writing which undermines the traditional notions of canon-formation, evaluation, and responsible criticism. Traditional literary theory assumes literary works to be structures of determinate meaning accessible by objective critical procedures. It is this assumption, and along with it a number of critical practices, which are challenged by the contemporary interest in the indeterminacy of meaning. In deconstruction, the thesis of indeterminacy takes its most radical and thoroughgoing form, so that all modernist critical stances from new Criticism to phenomenological, psychoanalytical, structuralist, marxist, and reader-response criticisms are put into question. This renders the scene of contemporary criticism and its theory highly volatile, since every theoretical claim or critical practice has become vulnerable to the deconstructive critique, even if this critique itself requires some form of certainty to question any critical theory or practice. (shrink)

Martin argues that literary studies remain mired in the anomalies of a linguistic methodology derived from early 20th-century language philosophy, a view challenged not only by theoretical physics, but also by compelling advances in philosophic semantics.

Ecofeminist philosophy and literary theory need mutually to enhance each other's critical praxis. Ecofeminism provides the grounding necessary to turn the Bakhtinian dialogic method into a critical theory applicable to all of one's lived experience, while dialogics provides a method for advancing the application of ecofeminist thought in terms of literature, the other as speaking subject, and the interanimation of human and nonhuman aspects of nature. In the first part of this paper the benefits of dialogics (...) to feminism and ecofeminism are explored; in the second part dialogics as method is detailed; in the third part literary examples are discussed from a dialogical ecofeminist perspective. (shrink)

This collection of articles from both distinguished and emerging authors working at the intersections of philosophy, literary theory, media, and technology does not intend to fix new moral rules. Instead, the volume explores the ethos of digital environments, asking how we can orient ourselves in them and inviting us to renewed moral reflection in the face of dilemmas they entail.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Absence of the Ethical Reflective Equilibrium Straightness and Surprise Perception and Method Perception and Love Literary Theory and Ethical Theory.

This thesis explores and describes the comic features of Samuel Beckett’s prose works. It explores fundamental questions about Beckett’s humour. On the one hand, it investigates the nature of humour, and, on the other, it investigates what counts as humour in Beckett. This twofold investigation requires ‘attuning’ philosophy and literary criticism, where questions and tools of each discipline mutually sharpen and refine each other. Chapter 1 evaluates philosophical accounts of humour and identifies Incongruity Theory as the (...) class='Hi'>theory offering the best account of humour. According to this theory, a necessary and not sufficient condition for comic amusement is the perception of an incongruity. Chapter 2 starts exploring what counts as humour in Beckett by examining where comic incongruities are located. By doing so, this chapter puts the Incongruity Theory to the test, and, evaluates the analytical tools ordinarily used in describing humour. This exploration uses Ruby Cohn’s seminal description of Beckett’s humour as a springboard. This chapter individuates a comic layer which Cohn’s description has overlooked – the ‘comic of language acts’. Chapter 3 analyses Beckett’s texts in order to describe the comic devices that depend on the performance of language acts. In order to do so, the discussion makes use of Austin’s Theory of Speech Acts. As a result, this chapter develops a set of tools able to capture ‘the comic of language acts’, a comic layer which crucially shapes Beckett’s writing. Chapter 4 demonstrates how to make use of the set of tools developed in Chapter 3 by examining three key works of Beckett – More Pricks than Kicks, Watt, and Molloy. This examination leads to the individuation of three movements at the level of illocutionary acts – ‘twists’, ‘convolutions’, and ‘oscillations’ – which are informative of Beckett’s writing and of the experience of reading these works. (shrink)

Is it possible for postmodernism to offer viable, coherent accounts of ethics? Or are our social and intellectual worlds too fragmented for any broad consensus about the moral life? These issues have emerged as some of the most contentious in literary and philosophical studies. In Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy, and Theory a distinguished international gathering of philosophers and literary scholars address the reconceptualisations involved in this 'turn towards ethics'. An important feature of this has been (...) a renewed interest in the literary text as a focus for the exploration of ethical issues. Exponents of this trend include Charles Taylor, Bernard Williams, Iris Murdoch, Cora Diamond, Richard Rorty and Martha Nussbaum, the latter a contributor and a key figure in this volume. This book assesses the significance of this development for ethical and literary theory and attempts to articulate an alternative postmodern account of ethics which does not rely on earlier appeals to universal truths. (shrink)

Introduction: Humanist Literary Theory -- Structuralism -- Deconstruction -- Psychoanalysis -- Feminist Theories -- Queer Theories -- Ideology and Discourse -- Race and Postcolonialism -- Ecocriticism -- Postmodernism -- Biographies -- Terms.

The concepts of philosophy and imaginative literature have unclear boundaries and blurred edges; they can hardly be defined essentially in any fruitful manner. But we can talk of indicators of a text being philosophical or literary. The concepts of philosophy and literature are contestable. Further, there are no clear‐cut signs of cognitive progress in philosophy and literature. It is also far from certain that there are any philosophical or literary truths. Actually, works of philosophy (...) and literature deal more in possibilities than in actualities. In addition, fictional narratives play an important role in both philosophical and literary texts. Moreover, philosophy and literature share a tendency to thematize themselves, reflect on themselves. If, however, argumentation were to disappear entirely from all philosophical texts, while every literary text is dominated by argumentative discourse, then the concepts of literature and philosophy would become almost devoid of content. Despite this, there is no gap between philosophy and imaginative literature. (shrink)

This article brings together feminist literary theory and law by approaching a number of U.S. Federal cases on sex equality in light of the work of the renowned feminist literary critic Naomi Schor, and shows that literary theory constitutes an under-explored resource for feminist legal critique. Schor’s writings constitute a sustained rumination on the relationship between reading and feminism. Drawing on writings on language and the body by key French feminist theorists, Schor advances a method (...) of interpretation which she terms, provocatively, ‘clitoral reading’, and which focuses on the place of details relating to women’s bodies and desires within literary and cultural discourses. In the course of her career, she analysed texts from domains as diverse as literature, philosophy, visual art, the history of fashion, and photography. I will demonstrate that her work can make a valuable contribution to legal studies by using it as an interpretative lens to re-examine U.S. Federal court judgments. (shrink)

Understanding Literary Theory is the essential guide for every reader looking to understand what literary theory is and why it matters. This concise and accessible text introduces today's foremost schools of literary theory, offering historical background and outlining the important ideas of each. The theories are then applied to a variety of classic short stories, demonstrating how the different theoretical approaches can yield diverse interpretations of the same literary works. This volume separates itself (...) from similar texts by providing clear and accurate explanations of theory's most challenging concepts. It examines all of the major schools of criticism, including ecocriticism, ethnic studies, feminism, formalism, Marxism, narratology, new historicism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, queer theory, reader response, and structuralism. Each chapter begins with a straightforward summary that outlines the focus of the theoretical approach, its notable practitioners, its advantages and disadvantages, and a concise definition. The chapters then delve into each theory by explaining the key concepts and the ideas that led to them. This book is indispensable for anyone intimidated by words like deconstruction, differance, heteroglossia or hyperreality. Understanding Literary Theory shows readers the interpretative possibilities that literary theory can provide. It is the ideal introduction for those who want to get the most out of the literature they read. (shrink)

Wittgenstein is often regarded as the most important philosopher of the twentieth century, and in recent decades, his work has begun to play a prominent role in literary studies, particularly in debates over language, interpretation, and critical judgment. Wittgenstein and Literary Studies solidifies this critical movement, assembling recent critics and philosophers who understand Wittgenstein as a counterweight to longstanding tendencies in both literary studies and philosophical aesthetics. The essays here cover a wide range of topics. Why have (...) contemporary writers been so drawn to Wittgenstein? What is a Wittgensteinian response to New Historicism, Post-Critique, and other major critical movements? How does Wittgenstein help us understand the nature of style, fiction, poetry, and the link between ethics and aesthetics? As the volume makes clear, Wittgenstein's work provides a rare bridge between professional philosophy and literary studies, offering us a way out of entrenched positions and their denials-what Wittgenstein himself called 'pictures' 'that held us captive.'. (shrink)

By examining in particular Augustan notions of probability and the way they provided a framework for thinking about and organising experience, Dr Patey ...

In 2005, Charles Mills published “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology” in Hypatia: a withering critique of much of contemporary political philosophy and ethics. For Mills such work in philosophy failed to attend to the realities of social life and politics, and in remaining silent on actual issues of domination and oppression served an ideological role in supporting the interests of white bourgeois men. Around the time that Charles Mills launched his broadside against ideal theory, trans theorists had (...) been fighting their own battle against the abstraction of theory from the realities of trans lives and oppression. Vivian Namaste (2000) and Jay Prosser (1998) argued that contemporary gender theory failed to justice to the actuality of trans life, retreating instead to understanding trans life through literary archetypes and idealized radical figures. In this chapter I’ll compare Mills’ critique of ideal theory with the transfeminist critique of 1990s gender theory, arguing that they share much in common. Centrally, both critiques share an underlying commitment to theory needing to be grounded in the actuality of oppression and power relations. This common thread, I suggest, must continue to guide transfeminist thought and action: contra Marquis Bey (2022) transfeminist thought and praxis must continue to be about trans lives, about the oppression of trans women, and about ways of actually achieving liberation from our current dire position. (shrink)

Hans-Georg Gadamer, the major proponent of philosophical hermeneutics, reveals himself here as a highly sensitive reader and critic of the German literary tradition. This is not the work of a specialist as narrowly defined in the typical literary study. Although he is a master of the techniques of criticism, Gadamer always sees the study of literature as a fundamentally human activity where human beings, generation after generation, pose their questions to an encroaching darkness that threatens to rob them (...) of their confidence in the meaning of life and death. Never pedantic or antiquarian, these studies show such literary giants of the German past as Goethe and Hölderlin as our contemporaries. Gadamer demonstrates his ability to achieve the creative interplay of literature and philosophy which, in isolation, easily degenerate into sterile academic games. Typical of this dialogue are essays on Rainer Maria Rilke, including an examination of a problem of punctuation in one of his poems. What would be, in less capable hands, one more solution to a literary problem, turns out to be one of Gadamer's creative approaches to the mystery of man's relation to time and death. (shrink)

The philosophy of “presence” seeks to challenge current understandings of meaning and understanding. One can trace its origins back to Vico, Dilthey, and Heidegger, though its more immediate exponents include Jean-Luc Nancy, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, and such contemporary philosophers of history as Frank Ankersmit and Eelco Runia. The theoretical paradigm of presence conveys how the past is literally with us in the present in significant and material ways: Things we cannot touch nonetheless touch us. This makes presence a post-linguistic (...) or post-discursive theory that challenges current understandings of “meaning” and “interpretation.” Presence provides an overview of the concept and surveys both its weaknesses and its possible uses. In this book, Ethan Kleinberg and Ranjan Ghosh bring together an interdisciplinary group of contributors to explore the possibilities and limitations of presence from a variety of perspectives—history, sociology, literature, cultural theory, media studies, photography, memory, and political theory. The book features critical engagements with the presence paradigm within intellectual history, literary criticism, and the philosophy of history. In three original case studies, presence illuminates the relationships among photography, the past, memory, and the Other. What these diverse but overlapping essays have in common is a shared commitment to investigate the attempt to reconnect meaning with something “real” and to push the paradigm of presence beyond its current uses. The volume is thus an important intervention in the most fundamental debates within the humanities today. Contributors: Bill Ashcroft, University of New South Wales; Mark Bevir, University of California, Berkeley; Susan A. Crane, University of Arizona; Ranjan Ghosh, University of North Bengal; Suman Gupta, Open University Ethan Kleinberg, Wesleyan University; John Michael, University of Rochester; Vincent P. Pecora, University of Utah; Roger I. Simon. (shrink)

The essential guide to understanding what literary theory is and why it matters.

_From Romanticism to Critical Theory_ explores the philosophical origins of literary theory via the tradition of German philosophy that began with the Romantic reaction to Kant. It traces the continuation of the Romantic tradition of Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel and Schleiermacher, in Heidegger's approaches to art and thruth, and in the Critical Theory of Benjamin and Adorno. Andrew Bowie argues, against many current assumptions, that the key aspect of literary theory is not the demonstration of (...) how meaning can be deconstructed, but rather the relevation of how questions of language and literature change modern philosophical conceptions of thruth. He shows how the dialogue between literary theory, hermeneutics and analytical philosophy can profit from a re-examination of the understanding of language, thruth and literature in modern German philosophy. _From Romanticism to Critical Theory_ will provide a vital new introduction to central theoretical questions for students of philosophy, literature, German studies, cultural and social theory. (shrink)

Contemporary literary theorists of the deconstructionist bent have often complained about a gulf between philosophy and literary criticism, and they have issued plaintive pleas to bring the two disciplines into closer contact, even if not into complete union. Thus Geoffrey Hartman in his famous deconstructionist manifesto complains: “The separation of philosophy from literary study has not worked to the benefit of either…. If there is the danger of a confusion of realms, it is a danger (...) worth experiencing.”. (shrink)