Other Others: Levinas, Literature, Transcultural Studies

by Shankman, Steven

• ISBN13: 9781438430843
• ISBN10: 1438430841
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-01-02
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

In literary and cultural studies today, the term ôthe Otherö appears to have largely lost its moorings in the primacy of the intersubjective encounter, focusing rather on the social construction of the Other. For Emmanuel Levinas, in contrast, the Other is precisely that which eludes construction and categorization. In a study that ranges from literature of ancient China, Greece, and Israel to modern Egypt, Italy, West Africa, and America, Steven Shankman tests Levinas's ideas by reading literary works from outside the Judeo-Christian orbit for figurations equivalent to Levinas's notion of the Other. He also places ethics at the center of intercultural-or, in his words, ôtransculturalö-comparative literature. In contemporary literary and cultural studies, it is often assumed that culture has the last word. However, as Levinas insists-and as Shankman argues throughout this book-it is ethics that is the ôpresupposition of all Culture,ö that is situated ôbefore Culture.ö Book jacket.

Author Biography

At the University of Oregon, Steven Shankman is UNESCO Chair in Transcultural Studies, Interreligious Dialogue, and Peace and Distinguished Professor of English and Classics. His books include Early China/Ancient Greece: Thinking through Comparisons, also published by SUNY Press, and The Siren and the Sage: Knowledge and Wisdom in Ancient Greece and China.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
ôThe Road to Bauskaö	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
ôOn Rembrandt's Sacrifice of Isaac (1635) in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russiaö	p. xix
Introduction: Rembrandt's The Sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham's Suspended Knife, and the Face of the Other	p. 1
The Promise of Language in the Depths of Hell: Primo Levi's ôCanto of Ulyssesö and Inferno 26	p. 23
The Difference between Difference and Otherness: Il milione of Marco Polo and Calvino's Le cittá invisibili	p. 37
Traces of the Confucian/Mencian Other: Ethical Moments in Sima Qian's Records of the Historian	p. 57
War and the Hellenic Splendor of Knowing: Euripides, Hölderlin, Celan	p. 75
The Saying, the Said, and the Betrayal of Mercy in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice	p. 93
ôNom de Dieu, quelle race!ö: The Saying, the Said, and the Betrayal of Charity in Mongo Beti's Le pauvre Christ de Bomba	p. 107
Transcendent Divinity and Human Responsibility in Mahfouz: ôZaabalawiö and Children of our Alley	p. 121
ôThat You Might Have My Witness in Your Poemö: Valéry, the Symbolist Tradition, and Edgar Bowers's Later Blank Verse	p. 135
Conclusion: The Saying and the Said/Representation and Interruption	p. 155
Notes	p. 163
Index	p. 201
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