Proposes to rethink the ontological and ethical dimensions of language by rereading Heidegger's work and by engaging Levinas' ethics and contemporary poetics.

While the questions of ethics have become increasingly important in recent years for many fields within the humanities, there has been no single volume that seeks to address the emergence of this concern with ethics across the disciplinary spectrum. Given this lack in currently available critical and secondary texts, and also the urgency of the issues addressed by the critics assembled here, the time is right for a collection of this nature.

This book presents the concept of ‘unstaging’ war as a strategic response to the failure of the discourse and institutions of peace. This failure is explained by exploring the changing character of conflict in current and emergent global circumstances, such as asymmetrical conflicts, insurgencies, and terrorism. Fry argues that this pluralisation of war has broken the binary relation between war and peace: conflict is no longer self-evident, and consequentially the changes in the conditions, nature, systems, philosophies and technologies of war must be addressed. Through a deep understanding of contemporary war, Fry explains why peace fails as both idea and process, before presenting ‘Unstaging War’ as a concept and nascent practice that acknowledges conflict as structurally present, and so is not able to be dealt with by attempts to create peace. Against a backdrop of increasingly tense relations between global power blocs, the beginnings of a new nuclear arms race, and the ever-increasing human and environmental impacts of climate change, a more viable alternative to war is urgently needed. Unstaging War is not claimed as a solution, but rather as an exploration of critical problems and an opening into the means of engaging with them.

Since at least the time of Plato’s Republic, the relationship between poetry and ethics has been troubled. Through the prism of what has been called the “new” ethical criticism, inspired by the work of Emmanuel Levinas, G. Matthew Jenkins considers the works of Objectivists, Black Mountain poets, and Language poets in light of their full potential to reshape this ancient relationship. American experimental poetry is usually read in either political or moral terms. Poetic Obligation, by contrast, considers the poems of Louis Zukofsky, Charles Reznikoff, George Oppen, Edward Dorn, Robert Duncan, Susan Howe, and Lyn Hejinian in terms of the philosophical notion of ethical obligation to the Other in language. Jenkins's historical trajectory enables him to consider the full breadth of ethical topics that have driven theoretical debate since the end of World War II. This original approach establishes an ethical lineage in the works of twentieth-century experimental poets, creating a way to reconcile the breach between poetry and the issue of ethics in literature at large. With implications for a host of social issues, including ethnicity and immigration, economic inequities, and human rights, Jenkins's imaginative reconciliation of poetry and ethics will provide stimulating reading for teachers and scholars of American literature as well as advocates and devotees of poetry in general. Poetic Obligation marshals ample evidence that poetry matters and continues to speak to the important issues of our day.

This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Heidegger's Philosophy examines the development of Martin Heidegger's thought in all its nuances and facets. It also casts light on the historical influences that shaped the thinker himself and his era. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, and a bibliography that includes key books on Heidegger in several languages, including German, French, Italian, and English. The appendixes offer a comprehensive list of all of Heidegger's writings and lectures courses, along with their corresponding English translations, and the dictionary offers more than 600 cross-referenced entries on concepts, people, works, and technical terms This resource is invaluable for students and scholars. Book jacket.

Possessing a singular musical gift, David Shapiro problematizes self and culture and challenges conventional notions of fixed and commodified identity in work that discovers and resists meaning. This title features essays that illuminate a useful range of Shapiro's major texts through diverse critical approaches.

How South Asian American women have found expression and power in festival dances and theater