Since the second half of the twentieth century, trauma, ethics, and hermeneutics have flourished as conceptual and critical tools for literary, cultural, and philosophical analysis. Authors, filmmakers, and philosophers have aspired to depict the ever-changing meshwork of experiences, memories, and histories while readers, viewers, and scholars have endeavored to seek out conclusive and comprehensive understandings of both the work and the world. These at once complementary and conflicting relationships are addressed throughout the exceptionally lucid work of Colin Davis, which, from French literature to trauma studies and Levinasian ethics, has engaged with the linked questions of alterity and interpretation.

Trauma, Ethics, Hermeneutics brings together twelve essays written in honour of the remarkably rich and diverse scholarly achieve-ment of Colin Davis on the occasion of his retirement as Research Chair in French at Royal Holloway, University of London and receipt of the prestigious title of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques. Taken together, these essays celebrate and extend Davis's contribution to the study and teaching of literature, cinema, and philosophy today.