The question of ethics has dominated recent developments within the humanities. This volume brings together the most recent theories of ethics and reading and applies them to a wide variety of literary texts. Ethical and literary issues explored by the contributors include biography, sensibility, national identity, feminism, postcolonialism, religion, subjectivity and stylistics. Literary authors and philosophers/theorists discussed range from Shakespeare and Mary Shelley to Michele Roberts and Salman Rushdie, and from Kant and Coleridge to Derrida and Levinas.

JANIS MCLARREN CALDWELL Assistant Professor of English at Wake Forest UniversityORTWIN DE GRAEF Lecturer in English and Literary Theory at Katholiecke Universiteit LeuvenRICHARD FREDMAN Professor of English and Director of the Unit for Studies in Biography and Autobiography at La Trobe UniversityANDREW GIBSON Reader in English at Royal Holloway, University of LondonDAVID P. HANEY Associate Professor of English at Auburn University, AlabamaREBECCA HUGHES Deputy Director of the Centre for English Language Education at the University of NottinghamTERRY KEEFE formerly Head of French and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Leicester UniversityRUTH KOLANI recently received her doctorate from the University of Texas at DallasIAN MACKILLOP Reader in English Literature at the University of SheffieldCHRIS MCNAB PhD student in the Department of English at the University of Wales, AberystwythCRISTINA MEJIA obtained her BA in Art History from McGill UniversityKIERON O'HARA Researcher in the Artificial Intelligence Group at the Department of Psychology, Nottingham UniversityNORMAN RAVVIN works as a critic, novelist and teaches at the University of New BrunswickSUSAN ROWLAND Lecturer in English in the School of Humanities at the University of GreenwichVALERIA WAGNER gained her PhD from the University of Geneva