Looks at literary works from outside the Judeo-Christian tradition to test Levinas’s notion of “the Other.” In literary and cultural studies today, the term “the Other” appears to have largely lost its moorings in the primacy of the intersubjective encounter, focusing rather on the social construction of the Other. For Emmanuel Levinas, in contrast, the Other is precisely that which eludes construction and categorization. In a study that ranges from literature of ancient China, Greece, and Israel to modern Egypt, Italy, West Africa, and America, Steven Shankman tests Levinas’s ideas by reading literary works from outside the Judeo-Christian orbit for figurations equivalent to Levinas’s notion of the Other. He also places ethics at the center of intercultural—or, in his words, “transcultural”—comparative literature. In contemporary literary and cultural studies, it is often assumed that culture has the last word. However, as Levinas insists—and as Shankman argues throughout this book—it is ethics that is the “presupposition of all Culture,” that is situated “before Culture.” “Shankman has written an interesting book … [his] wide-ranging essays draw from the literatures of ancient China, Greece, and Israel to modern Egypt, Italy, West Africa, and America … a useful contribution to the Levinasian literature.” — Jewish Book World “Shankman’s study … offers close readings of a number of texts from the Western tradition that open up a dialogue with some of Levinas’s most significant and challenging philosophical theories.” ― CHOICE “Other Others skillfully demonstrates the helpfulness of Levinasian ethical philosophy for a comparative literary scholarship.” — Recherche Littéraire/Literary Research