The Rhetoric of Sincerity - (Cultural Memory in the Present) by Ernst Van Alphen & Mieke Bal & Carel Smith (Hardcover)

About the Book

The essays in this volume demonstrate how the performance of sincerity is culturally specific and is enacted in different ways in different media and disciplines, including law and the arts.

Book Synopsis

The essays in this volume demonstrate how the performance of sincerity is culturally specific and is enacted in different ways in different media and disciplines, including law and the arts.

Review Quotes

"This brilliantly conceived and well-executed volume combines the surprising and the obvious in the very best way: there is, to my knowledge, no existing significant body of contemporary critical discourse on the subject, but once we are presented with its theme, it appears not only exciting and important, but inevitable. The Rhetoric of Sincerity is the kind of book that calls an entire field of inquiry into being." --Mark Reinhardt, Williams College

About the Author

Ernst van Alphen is Professor of Literary Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Mieke Bal is Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Professor. She is based at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam. Carel Smith is Associate Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the Meijers Research Institute in Law, both at Leiden University, The Netherlands.