Embodying Ethics: At the Limits of the American Literary Subject

In Levinas's early works, the 'body as subjectivity' is the focus of research bearing significant implications for his later philosophy of the body. How this is achieved becomes the thrust of this article. We analyze how the existent, through hypostasis, emerges hic et nunc, and explores further its effort to exist is effected in its relation to existence. In delineating this, we argue that the existent does not emerge from the il y a as an idealistic subject, but rather is born as a natural subject. This is arguably the most remarkable aspect of Levinas's analysis of the dawn of the bodily subject. However, the subjectivity of the subject is to be found in the inescapable selfpossession of its embodiment. The body, in turn, is a conditional possibility for being a corporeal subject. We argue that the subject as a being in the flesh is the meaning of the embodied human subject, and it bears fertile implications for the ethical signification of the body. In re-conceiving the meaning of the 'body as subjectivity' to 'ethical signification of the body' against the odds of the traditional dichotomies, we argue that Levinas tries to overcome the bio-political understanding of racist conception of the body subject. Given this ethical meaning beyond materiality we reconsider how the embodied subject is a radical passivity as a 'here I am' (me voici). In suggesting the implication of this claim with Levinas we find how the ethical subjectivity is beyond dualistic assertions and racist conceptions.

This paper is a presentation of Emmanuel Levinas’ notion of corporeality that shows struggling dialectic from a phenomenology of a sensiblesubjecttowardsanethicsoftranscendence. Withtheauthor’s attempt to show that the Good is given and received through sensibility held by the body dwelling in the world, she proposes that the seeming conflict between the seeming corporeal pull to dwelling as against the Desire to take an ethical flight can be settled when one courageously confronts the following truths about humanity: that human beings are, 1) more than their thoughts, as 2) they are made of flesh and blood and that 3) they are in and thus influenced by the world. Through the work of corporeality, the subject is weakened by pain despite virility, suffers despite being at home and longs for a sublime unknown in the face of plenitude. By the stern conviction that existence can also be obscure and indefinite for consciousness to old, Levinas is able to explain how an egoistic subject is humbled and prepared to welcome the Other. Key words: Levinas, coroporeality, alterity, phenomenological ethics

Hypatia, 2011

Over the years, feminist scholars have developed a multifaceted analysis of what it means to embody (or to fail to embody) a given gender, race, and social class. They have examined the price people and groups pay when their bodies are seen as transgressing social norms. They have analyzed how people's bodily differences, including differences in comportment, styles of dress, and ways of speaking, mark them for oppression. In addressing these issues, feminist philosophers have alerted us to the ethical meanings of embodiment-to the ways that our bodies function as grounds for ethical theorizing, as the subjects of ethical demands, and as the means by which these demands are articulated. Entering this conversation, the essays in this Special Issue introduce paradigms of embodiment that expose the blind spots of prevailing ethical norms. Collected under the title ''Ethics of Embodiment,'' they pursue the implications of situating bodies at the center of ethical theory. Drawing from diverse philosophical traditions, they problematize the ways our bodies are currently valued and lived. They deal with such questions as: How does bodily vulnerability inform ethical demands? How does a focus on embodiment realign existing ethical theories and practices (for example, medical practices and public policy)? What current bodily norms are challenged by an ethics of embodiment? How does an embodied ethics contribute to new ways of thinking about space, time, and intersubjectivity? Attending to these questions and the issues they raise, we have arranged this body of work into four sections: Erotic Ethical Encounters; Creating Ethical Spaces; Freedom, Dependency, and Vulnerability; and Confronting DisAbling Norms. Each section highlights the different directions an ethics of embodiment may take. Reading the sections together, we discover the limitations of any single perspective. Placing the sections in dialogue with each other, we hope to show that an ethics of embodiment must be open to disparate voices, concerns, and challenges. EROTIC ETHICAL ENCOUNTERS In Phenomenology of Perception, Maurice Merleau-Ponty asserts that there is an ''interfusion between sexuality and existence, which means that existence permeates sexuality and vice versa, so that it is impossible to determine, in a given

Modern Philology, 2020

2016

of ethics in their works. Questions regarding right and wrong, what the good life might be or what makes a person good or bad have been played out in fiction as diverse as Aesop's fables, Shakespeare's tragic heroes, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mister Pip and uncountable others. The question of the ethical and its relation to literature continued to be relevant at least up until the 1960s. As deconstructive and post-modern criticism developed and scholars became interested in 'theory' in the 1970s and 80s, ethics seemed to be conspicuously absent. David Parker, in his introduction to Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy, and Theory claims that the book 'starts from the perception that in "advanced" literary circles for most of the 1970s and 1980s, few topics could have been more uninteresting, more dépassé, less likely to attract budding young theorists, than the topic Ethics and Literature.' 5 Although Parker does go on to suggest that ethics never stopped being significant to literary studies his summary of the perception of ethics and literature seems apt. Robert Eaglestone also points to this, at least perceived, omission of ethics in literary studies during this time period. He claims that 'an explicit concern for ethics has been at the heart of literary criticism since its inception in a modern and modernist form at around the time of the First World War,' but that this 'ethical grounding has become insecure.' 6 Eaglestone claims that 'theory', and especially deconstructive theory, faces accusations of 'lacking an ethics, of being amoral.' 7 Geoffrey Galt Harpham identifies the 'Theoretical Era (c. 1968-87)' as a time in which ethics was not deemed relevant to literary thought. He claims that the various schools of thought arising during this time ('semiotics, deconstruction, feminism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis') defined themselves against Enlightenment ideals such as '"the universal subject," the "subject of humanism," the "sovereign subject," the "traditional concept of the self."' He argues that ethics, as the discourse which enumerates and comments on the various deeds of

Filozofija i drustvo

The question posed by this text is: can we use Levinasian ethics in the field of literary studies? In order to provide the answer, Levinas?s attitude toward art will need to be analyzed. His work contains numerous scattered remarks about literature and other arts, but the most explicit statement on the relationship between art and ethics can be found in his essay ?Reality and Its Shadow?. Since Levinas?s view on art in this essay is predominantly negative, it poses a significant problem for the application of his theory in the field of literary studies. In order to overcome this difficulty, I use Blanchot?s reworking of Levinasian ethics, and open the possibility of a different relation between literature and ethics than the one originally suggested by Levinas.

Austl. Feminist LJ, 2008

JTL - Journal of Literary Theory 8:1, 2014

»So – ethical criticism is back«, declares Marshall W. Gregory in his contribution to the debate initiated by the Journal of Literary Theory concerning the long-term relations between literature and ethics (Gregory 2010, 282). Gregory argues that ethical criticism has received a »second chance« after being »killed, crushed, annihilated« throughout the 20th century (ibid., 274). To avoid squandering this opportunity, he suggests, it is crucial to identify »what’s at stake in ethical criticism« (ibid., 282). In this article, we join Gregory and subsequent contributors in the effort to rethink the role of ethical criticism in the context of contemporary literary scholarship (Rabinowitz 2010; Groeben 2011; Titzmann 2012). We wish to turn attention to an issue that has thus far been largely ignored in this debate: the role of postmodern criticism in shaping the new face of ethical criticism. In particular, we challenge the concept of empathy and the assumption that empathy is a fundamental element of ethical reading. The first three studies in the JLT controversy (Gregory 2010; Rabinowitz 2010; Groeben 2011) share a prominent assumption: that postmodern thinking has turned its back on ethics.*1 Gregory presents a historical account that aims to explain the various circumstances that »swept ethical criticism away« (Gregory 2010, 273) and the gradual changes that later led to its partial revival. He suggests that 20th-century »theory« is responsible for the fall of ethical criticism: enumerating various theoretical movements such as Marxism, Freudianism, post-colonial studies and deconstruction, he specifically notes »New Criticism« and »postmodernism« as critical approaches that »did more than merely discredit ethical criticism of the arts; they tended to discredit ethics as a general human enterprise« (ibid., 274). Indeed, the 20th-century legacy of critical thinking, highly influenced by the historical developments of this era – two world wars, a surge in capitalism, a technological revolution, the dynamic forces of globalization and mass immigration – brought a great measure of instability and uncertainty to the discourse of ethics. This uncertainty has been discussed extensively by postmodern thinkers who, since the last decades of the previous century, have pointed out different aspects of »crisis« in Western philosophy, art and politics and the consequent dissolution of traditional forms of ethical thinking.*2 Our article sets out to explore the implications of this uncertainty for ethical literary criticism: Does the insecure grounding of ethics make ethical criticism impossible? Can ethical criticism exist in a postmodern era, sharing in postmodern discourse? Contrary to Gregory’s claim, we argue that postmodern thinking has actually played – and continues to play – an important role in the renewed interest in the field of ethics and in ethical criticism,*3 although this approach has unsettled the established doctrines of modern ethical thinking.*4 Specifically, postmodern thinking motivates us to challenge the idea of empathy as a basis for ethical reading, a notion that has overshadowed both the theory and the practice of modern ethical criticism. We argue that, to be a relevant approach in the study of literature today, ethical criticism must extend its scope beyond the ethics of narrative empathy. Looking at what we believe to be the most influential and interesting stream in postmodern ethical thinking – Emmanuel Levinas’s conceptualization of the infinite responsibility towards the inaccessible other – we identify the major problems of the concept of empathy. We then offer an alternative way of thinking about ethical criticism as involving an attentive response to the representation of suffering while deconstructing the empathetic position of the reader. We illustrate our suggestion through a reading of Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace (1996).