Description: "Adds a new layer of argument to the postmodern debate. . . . [Baker's] studies of individual theorists make clear and fascinating reading, particularly the elegant chapter on Kristeva. The thesis is compelling."--Raylene Ramsay, Simmons College "Baker elucidates, in clear language and sophisticated ways, that the locus of ethics has shifted from knowing, judging, and action to the site of discourse itself, where the subject cannot help being implicated in differences that create justice and injustice. . . . Includes a highly sophisticated sense of feminism's place in the ethics of contemporary theory as intrinsic rather than peripheral to the theoretical debates."--Margot Norris, University of California, Irvine Deconstruction and the Ethical Turn demonstrates the continuing importance of deconstruction and other related movements for current literary theory, insisting on the seriousness of the deconstructive enterprise, its philosophical background, and its possible usefulness for negotiating the political terrain of the postmodern university. Peter Baker deals with the theories of such major figures as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Emmanuel Levinas, and Julia Kristeva. He concentrates on the ways that deconstruction allows for an increased understanding of the ethical reading of texts and disputes the view that it places all decision making in the realm of the text. Deconstruction and related types of critical thinking have real-world effects, he argues, and they offer ways of understanding and resisting intersubjective violence. Thus he sees important connections between deconstruction and "ethical feminism," as well as the cultural studies movement. He also examines recent work on deconstruction by the prominent critics Robert Scholes and Christopher Norris. At a time when many are pronouncing postmodern theory at an end, Baker maintains that it remains vital to the current discourses on theory and interpretation.

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