Death and Responsibility

Richly informed by readings of Heidegger, Derrida, and Blanchot, the author argues that the notion of responsibility at the heart of Levinas's notion of ethics is intimately dependent upon his account of death.

The work of Levinas has, for the most part, been too easily read. Levinas's use of words like "responsibility" and "God" gives some readers reason to dismiss his work as insufficiently attentive to the whispered suspicions of our times, while giving others reason to accept his work as a clarion call guiding them out of this wilderness of disorienting whispers. Richly informed by readings of Heidegger, Derrida, and Blanchot, Keenan argues that the notion of responsibility at the heart of Levinas's notion of ethics is intimately dependent upon his account of death.