Blind reading
This paper asks whether it is possible to read ethically. An ethical reading, if there is such a thing, would entail a response to the text that is not determined by any prior knowledge. Only under this condition can reading be open to the possibility of encountering what is genuinely new. But the r...
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| Format: | Theses and Dissertations |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2009
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10356/18843 |
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| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | This paper asks whether it is possible to read ethically. An ethical reading, if there is such a thing, would entail a response to the text that is not determined by any prior knowledge. Only under this condition can reading be open to the possibility of encountering what is genuinely new. But the reader’s prior knowledge is also a condition of the possibility of reading. I will argue that the consequence of this double bind is that a certain blindness is a necessary part of any putative ethical reading. Such blindness makes every reading contingent, but perhaps what an ethical reading should first acknowledge is the ultimate unknowability of the text. |
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