Ethics of Exile

Introduction

The book investigates the problem of how narrative, normally conceived of temporally, encodes its relation to space, especially the territorial space that is the subject of colonial possession and dispossession.

Approach

The book approaches this problem by, first, providing a theoretical framework derived from the work of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas on the ethical and political implications of human dwelling, and, second, by using this framework to examine cultural forms in two historical periods, colonial America and postcolonial South Africa--the primary interest being the works of Charles Brockden Brown and J. M. Coetzee.

Unique Contribution

This book is unique in its elaboration of a spatial--or more exactly, territorial--conception of narrative form.