The Phenomenology of Love and Reading

The current revival of interest in ethics in literary criticism coincides fortuitously with a revival of interest in love in philosophy. The literary return to ethics also coincides with a spate of neuroscientific discoveries about cognition and emotion. But without a philosophical grounding this new work cannot speak convincingly about literature's relationship to our ethical lives. Jean-Luc Marion's articulation of erotic phenomenon provides this philosophical grounding.

The Phenomenology of Love and Reading accepts Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenological argument that love matters for who we are more than anything-more than cognition and more than our own concept of being. Engaging new approaches to literature based on cognitive science as well as ethical literary criticism from the end of the twentieth century, Falke suggests that reading literature can contribute to our existence as lovers because it gives us practice in love's habits-attention, empathy and a willingness to be overwhelmed. This is the first book to introduce Marion's important work in phenomenology to a discussion of literary theory.

Introduction
1 Phenomenology and Literature
2 The Erotic Reduction
3 The Lover's Advance
Interlude
4 Empathy
5 Attention
6 Being Overwhelmed
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

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