Introduction

The first paper at the 2002 English Institute (September 20–22) was Amanda Anderson's “Argument and Ethos.” According to Anderson, in contemporary literary and cultural studies, “ethos has suffered a kind of exile from theoretical work.” The particular “kind of exile” ethos suffers is not really an absence from theoretical argument, but rather a peculiar sort of presence: “no matter how disavowed it tends to come back in shadow forms, haunting the debate.” Anderson calls for “a fuller acknowledgment of the insistent presence” of ethos in our arguments.