This original and magisterial study focuses on the particular role of Emmanuel Levinas's thought in reasserting the ethical parameters for poststructuralist criticism in the aftermath of the Holocaust. More than simply situating Levinas's ethics within the larger context of his philosophy, R. Clifton Spargo offers a new explanation of its significance in relation to history.

R. Clifton Spargo is an associate professor of English at Marquette University. He is the author of The Ethics of Mourning: Grief and Responsibility in Elegiac Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).