New essays examining the intellectual allegiances of Coetzee, arguably the most decorated and critically acclaimed writer of fiction in English today and a deeply intellectual and philosophical writer.Arguably the most decorated and critically acclaimed writer of today, J. M. Coetzee is a deeply intellectual writer. Yet while just about everyone who comes to Coetzee's writing is aware that the visible superstructure of his works is moved from below by a vast substructure of ideas, we are still far from grasping Coetzee's intellectual allegiances as a whole. This book sets out to examine these allegiances in ways not attempted before, by bringing leadingfigures in the philosophy of literary fiction and ethics together with leading Coetzee scholars. The book is organized into three parts: the first part evaluates Coetzee with respect to notions of truth and justification. At issue is how the reader is to understand the ground on which Coetzee builds his ethical commitments. The second part considers the problem of language, in which ethics is rooted and on which it depends. The chapters of the third partposition Coetzee's writing with respect to notions of social and moral solidarity, where, in regard to literature as such or experience as such, philosophy and literature together exercise an unrivaled right to be heard.Contributors: Elisa Aaltola, Derek Attridge, David Attwell, Maria Boletsi, Carrol Clarkson, Simon During, Patrick Hayes, Alexander Honold, Anton Leist, Tim Mehigan, Christian Moser, Robert B. Pippin, Robert Stockhammer, Markus Winkler, Martin Woessner. Tim Mehigan is Deputy Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland. Christian Moser is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Bonn.

Introduction: Coetzee's Intellectual Landscapes - Tim Mehigan and Christian MoserJ. M. Coetzee on Truth, Skepticism, and Secular Confession in "The Age We Live In" - Tim MehiganSocial Order and Transcendence: J. M. Coetzee's Poetics of Play - Christian MoserAutobiography and Romantic Irony: J. M. Coetzee and Roland Barthes - Patrick HayesThe Semantics of Barbarism in J. M. Coetzee's Novel Waiting for the Barbarians - Markus WinklerIn the Heart of the Empire: Coetzee and America - Martin WoessnerFaith, Irony, Salt and Possible Impossibilities: J. M. Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus in Conversation with Zbigniew Herbert's "From Mythology" - Maria BoletsiCoetzee's Ethics of Language(s) - Robert StockhammerForce Fields - Carrol ClarksonThe Reading of Don Quixote: Literature's Migration into a New World - Alexander HonoldThe Lives of Animals: From Rational Language to Speaking (of) Lions - Elisa AaltolaCoetzee as Academic Novelist - Simon DuringCharacter and Counterfocalization: Coetzee and the Kafka Lineage - Derek AttrigeJ. M. Coetzee's South African Intellectual Landscapes - David AttwellPhilosophical Fiction? On J. M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello - Robert B. PippinCosmpolitanism, the Range of Sympathy, and Coetzee - Anton LeistIndex