Over the last few decades and from across a spectrum of centrist political thought, a variety of academic disciplines, and numerous public intellectuals, the claim has been that we need to empathize more with marginalized people as a way to alleviate social inequalities. If we all had more skill with empathy, so the claim goes, we would all be better citizens. But what does it mean to empathize with others? How do we develop this skill? And what does it offer that older models of solidarity don't? Why empathy-and why now?Rereading Empathy takes up these questions, examining the uses to which calls for empathy are put in the face of ever expanding economic and social precarity. The contributors draw on a variety of historical and contemporary literary and cultural archives to illustrate the work that empathy is supposed to enable-and to query alternative models of building collective futures.

Introduction: Why Empathy? Why Now?Emily Johansen (Texas A&M University, USA) and Alissa G. Karl (State University of New York, Brockport, USA)1. Reading George Eliot in the #metoo EraSusan Bruxvoort Lipscomb (Houghton College, USA)2. Putting Empathy to Work: Narrative and the Empathetic EntrepreneurEmily Johansen (Texas A&M University, USA)3. 'You' Can't Feel My Pain: The Limits of Empathy in Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American LyricRalph Clare (Boise State University, USA)4. Limits to Empathy: On the Motif of Failed Empathy in Julian BarnesPeter Simonsen (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) and Marie-Elisabeth Lei Holm (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)5. Unsettling Empathy: Hassan Blasim, the Iraq War, and the Spectacle of The Corpse ExhibitionTerri Tomsky (University of Alberta, Canada)6. Rachel Cusk's Empathy WorkAlissa G. Karl (State University of New York, Brockport, USA)7. Affective Possibilities Beyond EmpathyKathryn Cai (Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow with PowerSwitch Action, USA)8. Affective Misplacement and The Image CityTate Shaw (State University of New York, Brockport, USA)Index