ABSTRACT

Originally published in 1991, this book analyses the relation between writing and ethics in a number of social contexts – in politics, as language discloses its connections to the institutions of totalitarianism and democracy; in the university, as contemporary scholarly ideals find an uncomfortably accurate representation in the stylistic forms of academic writing; in daily social practice, ranging from the status of truth in journalistic writing to the connection between pronouns and affirmative action; and finally in the ethical structure of language itself.

chapter |8 pages

Introduction

part I|44 pages

The Ethics of Language

chapter 3|8 pages

The Rights of Black English

chapter 4|5 pages

Anti-Anti-Obscenity

chapter 6|11 pages

Pronouns and Affirmative Action

part II|47 pages

Rewriting in the Academy

part III|79 pages

Politics at More Than Its Word

chapter 14|10 pages

Virtue as a Literary Form

chapter 15|7 pages

Human Nature and Political Artifact

chapter 16|7 pages

The Body Impolitic Thinking Thoreau

chapter 17|15 pages

Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Evil

chapter 18|25 pages

Language and Genocide