In Poetic Justice, one of our most prominent philosophers explores how the literary imagination is an essential ingredient of just public discourse and a democratic society.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Nussbaum (ethics, Univ. of Chicago) describes the social purposes of the realistic novel, using concepts of empathy and identification to explain the worlds of Hard Times, Native Son, and Maurice. She writes out of the multicultural, feminist, and liberal traditions and calls for a value-based judgment of economic and social development. Nussbaum works through a theory of private emotions, showing how they pertain to and influence public actions. The heart of her inquiry concerns the use of literary feelings and techniques to enlighten and inform legal reasoning. She considers questions of race, class, and gender as important aspects of public policy. This would make a fine selection for this election season. Recommended for public and academic libraries.?Gene Shaw, NYPL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Timely and urgent. . . . Ms. Nussbaum's appeal to the outlook of fiction as a model for judicial and social policy is bracingly utopian and immensely heartening. --Morris Dickstein, The New York Times Book Review
"No one has made a better case for the importance of literary and humanistic education to the public life of the nation. Martha Nussbaum's new book should be required reading for every member of Congress." --Stanley Fish, author of Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change
"Nussbaum argues elegantly that the novel, by engaging our sympathy in the contemplation of lives different from ours, expands our imaginative capabilities so we may better make those judgments that public life demands of us. . . . Nussbaum's thesis . . . deserves to be shouted from the rooftops-like Whitman's Song of Myself." --Kirkus Reviews
"Nussbaum fascinatingly argues that the so-called 'reasoning mind' has blinded us from that all-too-obvious aspect of being a human animal-our emotions." --Raul Nino, New City
"Nussbaum is one of our profound contemporary thinkers. . . . We do not know whether or not reading novels really does make people more humane [but] here is the strongest argument yet published." --Keith Oatley, Toronto, Ontario Globe & Mail --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
"No one has made a better case for the importance of literary and humanistic education to the public life of the nation. Martha Nussbaum's new book should be required reading for every member of Congress." --Stanley Fish, author of Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change
"Nussbaum argues elegantly that the novel, by engaging our sympathy in the contemplation of lives different from ours, expands our imaginative capabilities so we may better make those judgments that public life demands of us. . . . Nussbaum's thesis . . . deserves to be shouted from the rooftops-like Whitman's Song of Myself." --Kirkus Reviews
"Nussbaum fascinatingly argues that the so-called 'reasoning mind' has blinded us from that all-too-obvious aspect of being a human animal-our emotions." --Raul Nino, New City
"Nussbaum is one of our profound contemporary thinkers. . . . We do not know whether or not reading novels really does make people more humane [but] here is the strongest argument yet published." --Keith Oatley, Toronto, Ontario Globe & Mail --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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More About the Author
Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, appointed in Law, Philosophy, and Divinity.
Author photo by Robin Holland
Author photo by Robin Holland
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
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The relevance of literature,
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This review is from: Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life (Paperback)
I read this book alongside Rorty's "Achieving Our Country." Both are concerned with similar themes; I was interested especially in how both authors addressed the relevance of literature in shaping our moral and political beliefs. But whereas Rorty's consideration of the moral value of literature is limited to a contrast with deconstructive approaches to literature, Nussbaum takes a more detailed approach. Using concrete studies of both works of fiction (Richard Wright's "Native Son" and several works by Dickens are featured prominently) and legal cases to reveal how a sense of the particular is developed and maintained through the reading of fiction, and may be applied to moral and judicial reasoning. Being attuned to particulars, she argues, allows for sympathetic identification (with characters in novels, and with defendants in trials), and thus a sense of compassion and mercy. This short, easy to read book is, I think, a good introduction to her work on both law and literature (subjects she teaches on at Chicago) -- the relation between which is developed further, in greater detail, in both "Love's Knowledge" and "Sex and Social Justice."
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
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This review is from: Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life (Paperback)
The book arrived on time. I was in very good condition for a used book. There was some writing and highlighting in it, but it was sparing. Also, some of the pages had their corners folded over but that too was minimal. Aside from that minor inconvenience (it was barely worth mentioning), the product was in good condition and I would use the seller again.
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First Sentence:
Noting in his children a strange and unsavory exuberance of imagination, an unwholesome flowering of sentiment-in short, a lapse from that perfect scientific rationality on which both private and public life, when well managed, depend-Mr. Gradgrind, economist, public man, and educator, inquires into the cause: "Whether," said Mr. Gradgrind, pondering with his hands in his pockets, and his cavernous eyes on the fire, "whether any instructor or servant can have suggested anything? Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
judicious spectator, literary judge, gas turbine division, public rationality, economic utilitarianism, public reasoning, privacy cases Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Hard Times, Stephen Blackpool, Sissy Jupe, Adam Smith, General Motors, Mary Carr, Supreme Court, Bigger Thomas, Thomas Gradgrind, Forster's Maurice, Fourth Amendment, Justice Stevens, Mary Dalton, Richard Posner, Wayne Booth New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Noting in his children a strange and unsavory exuberance of imagination, an unwholesome flowering of sentiment-in short, a lapse from that perfect scientific rationality on which both private and public life, when well managed, depend-Mr. Gradgrind, economist, public man, and educator, inquires into the cause: "Whether," said Mr. Gradgrind, pondering with his hands in his pockets, and his cavernous eyes on the fire, "whether any instructor or servant can have suggested anything? Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
judicious spectator, literary judge, gas turbine division, public rationality, economic utilitarianism, public reasoning, privacy cases Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Hard Times, Stephen Blackpool, Sissy Jupe, Adam Smith, General Motors, Mary Carr, Supreme Court, Bigger Thomas, Thomas Gradgrind, Forster's Maurice, Fourth Amendment, Justice Stevens, Mary Dalton, Richard Posner, Wayne Booth New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 41
books:
See all 41 books this book cites
100
books
cite this book:
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- Hard Times (Bantam Classics) by Charles Dickens on 13 pages
- Hard Times (New Oxford Illustrated Dickens) by Charles Dickens on 13 pages
- Native Son by Richard A. Wright on 5 pages
- A Treatise on the Family: Enlarged Edition by Gary S. Becker in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- The Quality of Life (Wider Studies in Development Economics) by Martha Nussbaum in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
See all 41 books this book cites
- Mapping the Ethical Turn: A Reader in Ethics, Culture, and Literary Theory by Todd F. Davis on page 58, page 79, and Back Matter
- Endings and Beginnings: Law, Medicine, and Society in Assisted Life and Death by Larry Palmer on page 90, page 131, and Back Matter
- Literature and Law (Rodopi Perspectives on Modern Literature, 30) by Michael J. Meyer on page 121, page 142, and page 240
- The Heart of Judgment: Practical Wisdom, Neuroscience, and Narrative by Leslie Paul Thiele on page 251, and Back Matter
- Imagining a Place for Buddhism: Literary Culture and Religious Community in Tamil-Speaking South India by Anne E. Monius in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 100 books citing this book
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