What Do We Do When the Other Speaks Her Own Language: Returning to the Ethics of Comparativism
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the ethical dimensions of the Other, as it is configured in the discipline of Comparative Literature, particularly as it is practiced in the US in the recent proliferation of critical schools that claim to engage alterity in a respectful and inclusive fashion. It begins with a summary of the philosophical employments of the Other dating from the Greeks through Existentialism. It then investigates the role of the Other in the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur and the historiography of Michel de Certeau. Examining how these conceptions of alterity have impacted upon literary studies, attention is then turned to the work of Emmanuel Levinas. How can the thoughts of these various thinkers contribute to and/or reanimate current theoretical approachs to “reading” the Other that appear to have become the goal of literary studies today?
Source: Rocznik Komparatystyczny
Author: Dorothy Figueira
Institution: University of Georgia
Language: Polish
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2617092661