The Ethics of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, 1998-2007

by Hayden White, Robert Doran (Editor), Judith Butler (Foreword by)

Overview

Hayden White is widely considered to be the most influential historical theorist of the twentieth century. The Ethics of Narrative brings together nearly all of White's uncollected essays from the last two decades of his life, revealing a lesser-known side of White: that of the public intellectual. From modern patriotism and European identity to Hannah Arendt's writings on totalitarianism, from the idea of the historical museum and the theme of melancholy in art history to trenchant readings of Leo Tolstoy and Primo Levi, the first volume of The Ethics of Narrative shows White at his most engaging, topical, and capacious.

Expertly introduced by editor Robert Doran, who lucidly explains the major themes, sources, and frames of reference of White's thought, this volume features five previously unpublished lectures, as well as more complete versions of several published essays, thereby giving the reader unique access to White's late thought. In addition to historical theorists and intellectual historians, The Ethics of Narrative will appeal to students and scholars across the humanities in such fields as literary and cultural studies, art history and visual studies, and media studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501764745
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2022
Pages:	282
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Hayden White (1928–2018) was Professor Emeritus of the History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His books include Metahistory, Tropics of Discourse, The Content of the Form, Figural Realism, and The Practical Past.

Robert Doran is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Rochester, the author of The Ethics of Theory and The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant, and the editor of Hayden White's The Fiction of Narrative.

Judith Butler is the Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Hayden White, History, and the Ethics of Narrative
1. The Problem with Modern Patriotism
2. Symbols and Allegories of Temporality
3. The Discourse of Europe and the Search for a European Identity
4. Catastrophe, Communal Memory, and Mythic Discourse: The Uses of Myth in the Reconstruction of Society
5. Figura and Historical Subalternation
6. The Westernization of World History
7. On Transcommunality and Models of Community
8. Anomalies of the Historical Museum or, History as Utopian Space
9. Figural Realism in Witness Literature: On Primo Levi's Se questo è un uomo
10. The Elements of Totalitarianism: On Hannah Arendt
11. The Metaphysics of Western Historiography: Cosmos, Chaos, and Sequence in Historiological Representation
12. Historicality as a Trope of Political Discourse: Rhetoric, Ethics, Politics
13. Exile and Abjection
14. The Dark Side of Art History: On Melancholy
15. Against Historical Realism: A Reading of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace

What People are Saying About This

Dominick LaCapra

Hayden White made a difference—not only in history but across the humanities and interpretive social sciences. He was also an important public intellectual, as the essays in this book make evident. Whether you agreed with him or not, he made you think more searchingly and pointedly, at times provoking you to explore unanticipated avenues of thought or even to reconsider long-held views. This excellent and timely collection gives the reader a sense of the extent of his erudition, his wit, his concern for the relation between the past and the present, and his ability to think through complex problems.

Gabrielle M. Spiegel

One hardly needs to stress the critical importance of Hayden White's work to the development of historical thought and writing since the mid-sixties. This volume covers a period that saw a notable shift in Hayden White's focus, from narrativity as such to what he called 'the practical past.' It includes an insightful introduction by Robert Doran that makes an important contribution to our knowledge and understanding of White's theoretical and historiographical progression over the course of his career.

Editorial Reviews

The Ethics of Narrative is a significant posthumous collection of Hayden White's writings. Those of us who care about White will be grateful to Doran for so conscientiously undertaking this legacy groundwork.

-- "American Literary History"

From the Publisher

The Ethics of Narrative is a significant posthumous collection of Hayden White's writings. Those of us who care about White will be grateful to Doran for so conscientiously undertaking this legacy groundwork.

American Literary History