Dorothy Figueira* 
(Universidade de Geórgia - EUA)

23 de maio 2016 | 17h30
Sala do Departamento de Filosofia (Torre B - Piso 1)

The Problem of Religion and the Need for an Ethical Component in Reading the Other

This talk examines the ethical dimension of the Other, as it is configured in the discipline of Comparative Literature, particularly as it is practiced in the US in the recent proliferation of critical schools that claim to engage alterity in a respectful and inclusive fashion. It begins by discussing the liminal position of the study of religion in literary studies in the US, tracing it back to a Protestant strain in New Criticism and American nativism with respect to the immigrant Other. I then look at various philosophical emplotments of the Other dating from the Greeks through Existentialism. Finally, I focus on the role of the Other in the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur and the historiography of Michel de Certeau. By examining how these conceptions of alterity have impacted upon literary studies, I then turn attention to the work of Emmanuel Levinas. How can the thoughts of these various thinkers contribute to and/or reanimate current theoretical approaches to "reading" the Other that appear to have become the goal of literary studies today?

* Dorothy Figueira é especialista em Literatura Comparada e em História da Religião e Teologia. Professora na Universidade de Geórgia (EUA), Presidente Honorária da Associação Internacional de Literatura Comparada, é autora de Translating the Orient (1991), The Exotic: A Decadent Quest (1994), Aryans, Jews and Brahmins (2002) e Otherwise Occupied: Theories and Pedagogies of Alterity (2008), entre muitos outros estudos sobre relações interculturais, linguagem e ética.

Imagem: Ronnie Landfield, Untitled (1969)

Organização:
Research Group Raízes e Horizontes da Filosofia e da Cultura em Portugal
Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade do Porto - FIL/00502
Mestrado em História, Relações Internacionais e Cooperação
Departamento de História e de Estudos Políticos e Internacionais - FLUP

Financiamento: FCT