Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care

\"Beyond Feminist Aesthetics\" has a dual focus. First, Rita Felski gives a critical account of current American and European feminist literary theory, and second, she offers an analysis of contemporary fiction by women, drawing in particular on the genres of the autobiographical confession and the novel of self-discovery, in order to show that this literature raises questions for feminism that cannot be answered in terms of a purely gender based analysis.Felski argues that the idea of a feminist aesthetic is a nonissue that feminists have needlessly pursued; she suggests, in contrast, that it is impossible to speak of \"masculine\" and \"feminine,\" \"subversive\" and \"reactionary\" literary forms in isolation from the social conditions of their production and reception. The political value of such works of literature from the standpoint of feminism can be determined only by an investigation of their social functions and effects in relation to the interests of women in a particular historical context. This leads her to argue for an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of literature which can integrate literary and social theory, and to develop such an approach by drawing upon the model of a feminist counter-public sphere.Rita Felski has produced a closely reasoned, stimulating book that creates a new framework for discussing the relationship between literature and feminist politics. It will interest students and teachers of women's studies, comparative literature, cultural studies, and fiction.

Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change

~%%iiEORDON S. HAIGHT'S long-awaited edition of The George Eliot Letters,' of which the first three of an expected six volumes are now published, fully satisfies one's impatience. In the completed edition there will be I,9I8 letters by George Eliot and 75I about her; two thirds of the text is hitherto unpublished. The recovery of so many words by a major novelist would in any case constitute an occasion for tossing one's cap in the air, but to learn, as we do, a great deal more about the inner life of George Eliot is particularly gratifying. She was not a chatty correspondent, and her letters, though always sincere and often eloquent, will not take rank with those of Thackeray and Stevenson for charm and wit; but the inner drama of her life was so intense that readers will be fascinated to watch it unfold. George Eliot was never a gregarious person and rarely confided in even her few close friends. The circumstances of her life promoted reticences which her husband J. W. Cross not only honored in his official biography but compounded by suppressions of his own. He admittedly printed no single letter entire from beginning to end. Surprisingly enough, however, the full texts do not materially alter one's concept of George Eliot's character. She becomes less coldly intellectual and more warmly domestic, less forbiddingly sibylline and more morbidly shy and sensitive. But the outlines of her character, long generally understood, need not be drastically revised. Nevertheless, there is a great deal in these first three volumes

The George Eliot Letters

The Politics of Home: Postcolonial Relocations and Twentieth-Century Fiction

Amongst intellectuals and activists, neoliberalism has become a potent signifier for the kind of free-market thinking that has dominated politics for the past three decades. Forever associated with the conviction politics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the free-market project has since become synonymous with the 'Washington consensus' on international development policy and the phenomenon of corporate globalization, where it has come to mean privatization, deregulation, and the opening up of new markets. But beyond its utility as a protest slogan or buzzword as shorthand for the political-economic Zeitgeist, what do we know about where neoliberalism came from and how it spread? Who are the neoliberals, and why do they studiously avoid the label? Constructions of Neoliberal Reason presents a radical critique of the free-market project, from its origins in the first half of the 20th Century through to the recent global economic crisis, from the utopian dreams of Friedrich von Hayek through the dogmatic theories of the Chicago School to the hope and hubris of Obamanomics. The book traces how neoliberalism went from crank science to common sense in the period between the Great Depression and the age of Obama. Constructions of Neoliberal Reason dramatizes the rise of neoliberalism and its uneven spread as an intellectual, political, and cultural project, combining genealogical analysis with situated case studies of formative moments throughout the world, like New York City's bankruptcy, Hurricane Katrina, and the Wall Street crisis of 2008. The book names and tracks some of neoliberalism's key protagonists, as well as some of the less visible bit-part players. It explores how this adaptive regime of market rule was produced and reproduced, its logics and limits, its faults and its fate. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/management/9780199580576/toc.html

Constructions of Neoliberal Reason

The article explores Margaret Atwood’s engagement with the ethics of hospitality as manifested in her novel The Blind Assassin (2000) and the short story “The Art of Cooking and Serving” (2006). It claims that these works point to an ethical vision which is best understood in light of the philosophical ideas of radical hospitality suggested by Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida but with an important feminist revision. Focusing on allusions to an inspiring cookbook, prominent in the two works by Atwood, the article analyzes the works’ appropriation and reformulation of the feminine myth of gracious housewifery for signifying both the subject’s obligation to the other and the ideal of generous giving and attentive care. It addresses the conflict that Atwood stages between a feminist critique of the duty of hospitality imposed on women and the ethical view of the subject’s un-chosen and absolute responsibility to another.

Margaret Atwood's Feminist Ethics of Gracious Housewifery

Zadie Smith's NW: Unsettling the Promise of Empathy

This paper seeks to place the explosion of popular interest in empathy within a specific historic context: the financial crisis of 2008. The financial crisis, and the years of economic recession th...

The rise and fall of empathy in an era of financial crisis: rethinking the neoliberal imaginary

George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss has often been read as a dual Bildungsroman that traces the diverging coming-of-age stories of the Tulliver siblings, Maggie and Tom.1 1 Jerome Hamilton Buckley...

“The Ugly Duckling” and The Mill on the Floss: A Fairy-Tale Rewriting of the BildungsromaN

This essay reads Ian McEwan’s Children Act (2014) as a literary tragedy that is in dialogue with the classical form and the philosophical discourse that surrounds it. Of particular relevance is George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s definition of tragedy as a collision between two valid but limited articulations of justice. The essay argues that McEwan’s contemporary tragedy enacts such a collision by intensifying the polarization between two competing systems of values: modern reason and religious faith. The novel depicts a complex entanglement between the two paradigms while exploring the limitations of modern reason and its unresolved tensions with faith. Moreover, in highlighting where the clash between reason and faith turns destructive, McEwan also implicitly points to other possibilities, to paths not taken. The Children Act indicates that conflict turns to tragedy when the two sides attempt to disentangle from what seems like threatening “otherness.” Throughout there are hints that if the adversaries could instead endorse their essential interlinkage, could admit to the irresolvable contradictions of each position, then the tragic denouement could be avoided. The novel thus calls for a more holistic response to cultural conflicts while inviting readers to reflect on the contradictions and repressions of modern reason.

Tammy Amiel Houser

Papers

Margaret Atwood's Feminist Ethics of Gracious Housewifery

Zadie Smith's NW: Unsettling the Promise of Empathy

The rise and fall of empathy in an era of financial crisis: rethinking the neoliberal imaginary

“The Ugly Duckling” and The Mill on the Floss: A Fairy-Tale Rewriting of the BildungsromaN

Tragedy in Ian McEwan’s "The Children Act"