ABSTRACT
This exchange between Sharon Achinstein and the editor began several years ago – viva-voce – when Sharon and I were “down the hall” colleagues at the University of Maryland, and I was at the beginning of what she thought an ill-advised project on the ethics of reading. Sharon’s concern that the turn to ethics would indicate a turn away from politics needs to be addressed, and as the present volume is intended to stimulate a broader conversation on the modes of and implications of an ethical engagement with Renaissance literature, I proposed including our exchange of views on the subject in the volume. When Sharon decamped for Oxford, the exchange continued cyberspatially, punctuated by occasional “in real life” encounters at conferences mutually attended. Unlike essays, conversations are interminable by nature. A portion of this one, however, is here edited and fixed in print.
