The Ethics of Anonymity

Author: Robson, Mark

Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 103, Number 2, 1 April 2008 , pp. 350-363(14)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $21.27 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

This article contributes to recent debates on anonymous publication, authorship, and attribution. Following early modern examples from Shakespeare, Erasmus, Montaigne, and others, I argue that central to debates on anonymity is the relation between the known and the unknown. I propose that the drive towards attribution runs the risk of explaining away issues surrounding anonymous publication too easily and that, from the perspective of ethics as defined by Lévinas, Derrida, and Blanchot, there is a need to develop a critical response to anonymity that maintains a text's capacity for `strangeness' rather than making it reassuringly familiar.

Keywords: Anonymous publication; authorship; attribution

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: University of Nottingham

Publication date: 2008-04-01

More about this publication?

The Modern Language Review, the flagship journal of the Association, is available to all individual members as part of their subscription. MLR is one of the oldest journals in its field, maintaining an unbroken publication record since its foundation in 1905, and publishing more than 3,000 articles and 20,000 book reviews.

Each volume consists of four issues, published in January, April, July and October of each year. Its 1000+ annual pages are divided roughly equally between articles, predominantly on medieval and modern literature in the languages of Europe, and over 500 reviews of books in these areas. All contributions are in English, and each section is edited by a noted scholar in the field, under the overall supervision of the General Editor. Articles are chosen not only for their scholarly worth and originality but also, as far as possible, for their potential interest to a wider readership in other disciplines.