This article discusses three different conceptions of ethics within contemporary feminist theory and how they depict the connection between ethics and politics. The first position, represented by Wendy Brown, mainly describes ethics as a sort of anti-political moralism and apolitical individualism, and hence as a turn away from politics. The second position, represented by Saba Mahmood, discusses ethics as a precondition for politics, while the third position, represented by Vikki Bell, depicts it as the ‘external consciousness’ of the political, and (...) as destabilising political discourse by confronting it with singularity and ‘radical’ difference. Though they represent distinct positions, the article argues, all three suffer from a tendency to reify ethics by failing to give a contextualised account of it. The article then introduces the ethical perspective of Judith Butler, arguing that she – while offering both a transhistorical and a contextualised dimension – tends to psychologise and individualise ethics and politics. The last part of the article introduces Terry Eagleton and what, in a Marxist vein, could be called a ‘materialist ethics’ or an ‘ethics of socialism’, and argues that this way of framing the relationship between ethics and politics provides a solution to the trap of reification identified in the three described positions. This part also discusses how Eagleton’s theory relates to – but also differs from – arguments made by Butler. One advantage of Eagleton’s work, the article argues, is that it does not psychologise and individualise ethics and politics as Butler’s work does. (shrink)

Muslim women often come to mind when we think of women and their lives between the sharp borders of sun and shadow, male/female, private/public, veiled/naked, imprisoned/liberated. However, women exposed to patriarchal patterns within different faith traditions, and within many secular contexts, have some similarities even if no group is monolithic or can be compared with other groups as if there were easy analogies. In recent years there have been strong forces in Europe, and elsewhere, that seem to have as their (...) goal to antagonize groups against each other. Jews are set up against Muslims, Christians against Muslims and vice versa. In such a situation, secularism seems to be the only positive alternative. However, the sharp border between secularism and religious traditions has also been criticized for being simplistic. The notion of intersectionality has created an awareness of the interrelatedness of multiple layers of oppression and the need to be whole as a person. This article warns against falling into simplistic categories such as those used by neo-nationalists as well as of ultraliberal neo-atheists. Secularism, culture and religion, and thus multiculturalism, need be seen in nonessential terms that honour fluidity, process, ambivalence and hybridity. In this article I want to argue that women’s religious agency intersects with education, health, economy and moral autonomy based on an affirmation of multi-layered, fluid identities. (shrink)

Kitchen is also an image for a biblical generosity to the stranger, an expression of the ‘Hearthold of God’ and of mercy. A round table can be solid in a way that prevents hugging as well as fighting, yet a place where gestures of love can be expressed. My kitchen metaphor may also be read as claiming the sacrament of the kitchen table, of bread and wine in ordinary life.

The thesis contends that education and literary studies can make a valuable contribution to ethics and ethical development of persons, their relations with others and with the world. It promotes an approach to ethics education through dialogic enquiry based on theories and practices associated with comparative literature and philosophical enquiry. These involve students sharing experiences and meanings as they participate in interpretive communities and communities of philosophical enquiry. There are two main components to the research: ethically focused studies of literary (...) texts and the design, implementation and evaluation of a module in Ethics Education using literature and film as stimuli for Dialogic Enquiry. The literary analyses are influenced by reader-response theory. While recognizing the importance of the author or the contexts of production and receptions of texts, reader-response theory focuses on the experience of the reader as she/he responds to literary texts, and on her/his role in actively co-authoring the meaning of texts. Readers may form or join interpretive communities that share an ethos of practice. The literary narrative fictions studied include fairy tale, contemporary European cinema and neo-Western crime drama, each of which offers a valuable way of thinking about education. The module in ethics education, designed for Transition Year students, is based on movements in Philosophy with Children. Students formulate and explore ethical questions raised in response to themes or issues of literary texts. Dialogic communities of ethical inquiry may emerge from this. Students, participating in these dialogic communities of ethical inquiry, get to test out and develop their moral sense, understood in terms of reason, feeling, memory and imagination. The literary analyses demonstrate the ethically educative promise of literary texts, and the responses of students to this course and the growth of their ethical engagement suggest that this is a promising approach to ethics education. Such an educational experience may be ethical in matter, theory and practice and continue to find expression as praxis beyond the covers of books and walls of classrooms. (shrink)