Further developing the line of argument put forward in his Literature as Communication (2000) and Mediating Criticism (2001), Roger D. Sell now suggests that when so-called literary texts stand the test of time and appeal to a large and heterogeneous circle of admirers, this is because they are genuinely dialogical in spirit. Their writers, rather than telling other people what to do or think or feel, invite them to compare notes, and about topics which take on different nuances as seen from different points of view. So while such texts obviously reflect the taste and values of their widely various provenances, they also channel a certain respect for the human other to whom they are addressed. So much so, that they win a reciprocal respect from members of their audience. In Sell's new book, this ethical interplay becomes the focus of a post-postmodern critique, which sees literary dialogicality as a possible catalyst to new, non-hegemonic kinds of globalization. The argument is illustrated with major reassessments of Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth, Dickens, Churchill, Orwell, and Pinter, and there are also studies of trauma literature for children, and of ethically oriented criticism itself.

Dialogue on Partition explores dialogic possibilities in Indo-Pak English novels on partition of India in 1947 and expounds upon the potential of art and literature to offer dialogue. The book locates the inherent individualities of voices of narrators, characters and writers of these novels, as promulgators of dialogue in the face of the contentious event of partition and post-partition conflict. The book shows how the authors of these novels objectify their religious stance and present a regional affiliation attributed to a shared existence in the subcontinent, while locating and dissecting shared symbols, regional fraternity, sufi and mystic eclecticism and diversity of heteroglot and polyphonic voices in the chronotopal space and time of partition. The objective of the book is to critique the role of Indo-Pak novels in propagating dialogue, thereby proposing ways of reducing fissures implanted in the psycho-social terrain of the inhabitants of the region by offering junctures within the literary domain. Thus, the book expounds upon how these novels may be perceived as tools of integration between sects, races and nations at large. It can aid in opening borders to shared art and literature which inherently engenders response and dialogue leading to possibilities of coalition and integration.

Hans-Georg Gadamer, the major proponent of philosophical hermeneutics, reveals himself here as a highly sensitive reader and critic of the German literary tradition. This is not the work of a specialist as narrowly defined in the typical literary study. Although he is a master of the techniques of criticism, Gadamer always sees the study of literature as a fundamentally human activity where human beings, generation after generation, pose their questions to an encroaching darkness that threatens to rob them of their confidence in the meaning of life and death. Never pedantic or antiquarian, these studies show such literary giants of the German past as Goethe and Hölderlin as our contemporaries. Gadamer demonstrates his ability to achieve the creative interplay of literature and philosophy which, in isolation, easily degenerate into sterile academic games. Typical of this dialogue are essays on Rainer Maria Rilke, including an examination of a problem of punctuation in one of his poems. What would be, in less capable hands, one more solution to a literary problem, turns out to be one of Gadamer's creative approaches to the mystery of man's relation to time and death.

An examination of Carroll's books about Alice explores the contextual knowledge of the time period in which it was written, addressing such topics as time, games, mathematics, and taxonomies.

How is it that some texts achieve the status of literature? Partly, at least, because the relationship they allow between their writers and the people who respond to them is fundamentally egalitarian. This is the insight explored by members of the Åbo literary communication network, who in this new book develop fresh approaches to literary works of widely varied provenance. The authors examined have written in Ancient Greek, Táng Dynasty Chinese, Middle, Modern and Contemporary English, German, Romanian, Polish, Russian and Hebrew. But each and every one of them is shown as having offered their human fellows something which, despite some striking appearances to the contrary, amounts to a welcoming invitation. This their audiences have then been able to negotiate in a spirit of dialogical interchange. Part I of the book poses the question: How, in offering their invitation, have writers respected their audiences’ human autonomy? This is the province of what Åbo scholars call "communicational criticism". Part II asks how an audience negotiating a literary invitation can be encouraged to respect the human autonomy of the writer who has offered it. In Åbo parlance, such encouragement is the task of "mediating criticism". These two modes of criticism naturally complement each other, and in their shared concern for communicational ethics ultimately seek to further a post-postmodern world that would be global without being hegemonic.

In Defense of Dialogue: Reading Habermas and Postwar American Literature offers a timely investigation of the value of dialogue in contemporary American culture. Using Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action to read the work of Frank O’Hara, James Baldwin, Grace Paley, and Andy Warhol, In Defense of Dialogue assembles postwar writers who have never been studied alongside one another, showing how they overcame the pervading skepticism of their contemporaries to imagine sincere and rational speakers who seek to cultivate intersubjective discourse.

Never less than profound, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka's fierce and provocative contribution to the debate on multiculturalism brings together 19 iconoclastic essays on African, European, and American literature, culture, and politics. "Unquestionably Africa's most versatile writer".--New York Times