Freedom And Interpretation

Book excerpt: Much of modern thought - philosophical, linguistic, literary, and psychoanalytic - denies the possibility of a unified and whole self. What do such theories imply about how we interpret our freedom? If the self is really as fragmented and fragile as such theories suggest, how can we defend human rights in the world? At a time when these questions are as vital as ever, here is a fascinating series of meditations on human freedom and intellectual responsibility by some of the most challenging thinkers of today. In this first volume of the Oxford Amnesty Lectures, seven leading literary figures - Wayne C. Booth, Helene Cixous, Terry Eagleton, Frank Kermode, Julia Kristeva, Paul Ricoeur, and Edward W. Said - explore the relationship between political freedom and modern conceptions of the self as they address questions of identity, nationalism, politics, ethics, poetic language, and freedom. The speakers represent a comprehensive range of positions in relation to the most vexing ethical issues facing hermeneutic practice today. Taking their inspiration from a variety of perspectives - from psychoanalytic therapy (Kristeva) to women's art (Cixous) to the experience of marginality and dispossession (Said) - each of them seeks in the ashes of the autonomous liberal self a basis for a new ethics from which a new sense of responsibility toward others might be forged. Each tries to construct for him- or herself a way of relating thought and literature to freedom and ethical imperatives in the face of radical questions about the nature of meaning and truth. The volume is a testimony both to the richness of critical thought today and to the commitment of its leading exponents to the issue of humanrights.