Recognition and Ethics in World Literature : Ibidem : 9783838208473 : 3838208471 : 01 Jul 2016 : Recognition and Ethics in World Literature is a critical comparative study of contemporary world literature, focused on the importance of the ethical turn (or return) in literary theory. It considers the shape and development of the ethical engagement of the novels of Amitav Ghosh, Chimamanda Adichie, Caryl Phillips, Kazuo Ishiguro, Zadie Smith, and JM Coetzee, exploring the overlaps and divergences between Levinasian/Derridean and Aristotelian ethics as they are brought to bear on literature. The characters' recognitions and emotional responses in these texts are integral to the unfolding of their ethical concerns, and the ethics thus explored is often marked by the complexity and impurity characteristic of the tragic. A view of recognition is advanced that shifts it from the more usual political understanding in the field towards seeing it as a formal device used to unfold an ethical know