Ellen Spolsky is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Lechter Institute for Literary Research at Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

"Cognitive Science is arguably the most important intellectual development of the post World War II period. Literary theory, however, has failed almost completely to cope with this fundamental change in the intellectual climate. Spolsky's book is a pioneering effort in this regard. The argument is adventuresome and fresh. Unlike so much of the work which is now being published, it is not a rehash of a re-hash, etc. This is news."It deals significantly with a literature from a wide-range of historical periods and with a number of important literary theoretical positions—feminism (most notably, consistently, and insightfully), New Historicism, Marxism, Deconstruction, and psychoanalysis." — Don Byrd, State University of New York at Albany"The idea that art grows from an inherent attribute not only of mind but of the physical brain gains special poignance in the context from which the author views it: as an explanation of the enduring power and compulsiveness of the literary based in the biological urgency in the structure of mind/brain to fill in the gaps. For literature, biology is also destiny." — David Porush, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• IntroductionEllen Spolsky 1. Power and Constraint: Convenantal Hermeneutics in MiltonHarold Fisch THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES 2. Biblical Covenants as Performative LanguageGerda Elata-Alster and Rachel Salmon 3. Facing the Other: Levinas, Perelman, and RosenzweigSusan Handelman 4. The Difficulty of Finding a Moral Basis for Accepting the CovenantDaniel Statman 5. The Perpetual Covenant of Jewish LearningMenachem Fisch 6. The Sign of the CovenantBetty Rojtman COVENANTS AND TEXTS 7. Redesigning Redemption: Covenant in The Testament of MosesBetsy Halpern-Amaru 8. Placing Reading: Ancient Israel and Medieval EuropeDaniel Boyarin 9. Binding and Unbinding: The Summons to Interpretation in The Merchant of VeniceElizabeth Freund 10. American Literature's Declaration of In/dependence: Stanley Cavell, Nathanial Hawthorne, and the Covenant of ConsentEmily Miller Budick 11. Intertextuality and Reader Resonsibility: Living On in Malamud's "The Mourners"Sharon Deykin Baris 12. "The New Covenant" and the Dilemma of Dissensus: Bercovitch, Roth, and DoctorowSam B. Girgus Contributors