Alterity Politics: Ethics and Performative Subjectivity

In conventional identity politics, subjective differences are understood negatively, as gaps to be overcome or as incomplete unity. This book argues instead for a concrete and ethical understanding of community, one that requires response, action and performance. The author argues that ethics is constituted as inexorable affirmative responses to different identities, and combines this theoretical itinerary with discussions of specific and diverse sites of literary and cultural production. In the process, the author takes on a wide variety of issues including white male anger, the ethical questions raised by drug addiction, the nature of literary meaning and the concept of becoming black .