Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 -

Spurred by personal experience of adult hemideafness and a unilateral cochlear implant, Orange--a New York philosopher, psychoanalyst, and prize-winning writer on issues of self and other--draws a long-overdue distinction between "listening" (highly valued in psychodynamic disciplines) and ethically "hearing" the Other. "Whom do we need to hear, and what remains unheard?" she asks, swiftly covering much ground in seven chapters. Orange explores the phenomenology of silence, familial silences, damaging exclusiveness in psychoanalysis, the dangers of dualism and monism in Western thought, and revised history through the agency of sufferers while foregrounding modern ethical experiences and questioning collective psychoanalytic responsibilities. She nimbly ranges from traumata inflicted/suffered by early US settlers, women, and torture victims to slavery; from the Black Lives Matter movement to the Holocaust; and from intergenerational wounds illuminated by psychotherapists to oppressions within psychoanalysis itself, meanwhile raising readers' consciousness. Incorporating ideas of Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Levinas, Levi, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Kant, Winnicott and Caruth, Orange offers a vast scholarly pastiche linking cultural experiences of differing eras on diverse continents that require re-evaluation with respect to ethical hearing. Some readers may want to slow down the fervor; others will greatly enjoy the bracing style of this text, which always rewards interest and is a good teaching tool to stimulate and savor discussion.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.