Persecution and Morality

Valerie Giovanini is a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at California State University, Northridge, USA. She earned her PhD in Philosophy, Art and Critical thought from The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, with Judith Butler as her advisor. She has taught at Mt. St. Mary's University and for various colleges in the Los Angeles Community College District. She is the author of numerous peer-reviewed and published journal articles and book reviews. Her work concerns applied ethics, moral philosophy, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology.

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Life and Work: A Historical Horizon.- Chapter 3. Getting Personal: Persecution in Freud's Personal Life.- Chapter 4. The Uncanniness of Conflicting Moral Norms.- Chapter 5. Freud's Vulnerability to the Social Ideals of His Time & Moral Skepticism.- Chapter 6. A New Kind of Psychotherapy for Ethical Subjectivity.- Chapter 7. Intermission - From Freud to Lévinas.- Chapter 8. Life and Work: A Historical Horizon.- Chapter 9. Epistemic Gaps: Freedom and Mutual Dis-identification.- Chapter 10. Freedom and Existential Vulnerability: Lévinas's Vulnerability to His Cultural Ideals.- Chapter 11. Intentionality of Search: Vulnerability, Persecution, and the Ethical Bind.- Chapter 12. Conclusion: Ethics Reconsidered - Always Only a Proximate Response.

Early Reviews for Persecution and Morality
This quite original and engaging book sets up an encounter between Levinas and Freud in order to pave the way towards an ethics at once capacious and discerning. Centering on the primacy of âEURoepersecutionâEUR in the lives of both Freud and Levinas, Giovanini tracks the way this term surfaces at the level of fantasy and ethical understanding. The âEURoepersecutoryâEUR structure of Levinasian ethics establishes the involuntary ways we are affected by others, including the ethical demand that is conveyed by alterity itself. Querying the historical resonance of persecution in the wake of the Nazi genocide against the Jews, Giovanini shows how the psychic consequences can lead to delusional states that break with all ethical relationality. However, she also shows how it can lead to an ecstatic and relational understanding of others, one that is alert and responsive to difference. In her reading, the historical circumstances or persecution can lead to practice of responsibility that limits egoism in the name of a non-appropriative relationality. Few books weave their way between biography, fantasy, and ethics with the urgency and clarity that this one does. âEUR"Judith Butler, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, USA
 
In her first book, Valerie Giovanini delivers an ambitious canvassing of persecutable objects. As if conducted by a split-off Israeli part, the work is propelled by the unbearable knowledge of relentless brutalizations visited upon the Palestinian people. Pained by acts of blind hatred, Giovanini explores on a large scale the infectious spread of overmoralizing zeal and falsifications historically inscribed. In a mashup of autobiographical and quasi-biographical scenes of disrupted development, she argues that even the most lucid contenders fall short of their own emancipatory insights, egregiously betraying their premises and archive of rigorous investigations. To her credit, Giovanini opens a dossier on the psychotic overuse of âEURoeethicsâEUR in contemporary American theories that depend on Lévinas and FreudâEUR(TM)s pooled fates for securing faux assumptions and condemnatory stances, uncritically maintained. Importantly, the study tracks how love turns to hate, calling on readers vi to identify their particular otherâEUR"object of obsession and shadow partâEUR"if only to observe when one becomes vulnerable, in a genuinely Levinasian sense, to the foreclosure of ethical relation. âEUR"Avital Ronell, Ph.D., University Professor of the Humanities at New York University, New York, USA
 
In this intriguing book, Valerie Giovanini pairs Sigmund Freud and Emmanuel Levinas, strange bedfellows, perhaps uncanny ones, both haunted by violence. She challenges us to compare and contrast their attitudes toward ethics and vulnerability, as well their life stories. She makes us ask if, or how,psychoanalysis and radical ethics can ft together in the face of personal trauma. Best of all, she leaves us with more questions about the passivity inherent in persecution. An important contribution. âEUR"Donna M. Orange, Ph.D., Psy.D., NYU Postdoctoral Program and the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, New York, USA
 
Dr. Giovanini posits her work as a âEURoeretellingâEUR of the works and lives of Freud and Lévinas which foregrounds her sensitivity to the intimate relationship between reading, testimony, and the possibility of actionality, thus allowing her to both perform readings of their lives and their works  âEUR" in all of their multiplicities, complexities, incongruities âEUR" whilst, at the very same time, be refexive about the fact that her text might well be running those very same risks. Focusing on persecution as an entry point into her exploration is both philosophically intriguing and strategicallyvery sound: there really arenâEUR(TM)t many texts out there which address this urgent issue. Philosophically speaking, the way in which she unveils the persecutory gestures in the works of those who have been persecuted in their lives (whilst not exonerating herself from the possibility of doing so) is intriguing. IâEUR(TM)ll go so far as to say that this work might well be responsible for initiating a new generation of refections that make our philosophical âEUR" and ethical âEUR" certitudes tremble. I can well imagine Dr. GiovaniniâEUR(TM)s book being on the reading lists in English, gender studies, philosophy, art, and media studies departments, as well as quite possibly the general public. I certainly will be looking forward to the possibility of including her text in a seminar I run, entitled Writing Women. Her writing style is clear, welcoming, and very engaging. âEUR"Jeremy Fernando, Ph.D., Jean Baudrillard Fellow at The European Graduate School, Switzerland