Michael O'Sullivan is Assistant Professor in English at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is author of Michel Henry: Incarnation, Barbarism and Belief (Peter Lang, 2006).

Although Western philosophy has generally appraised weakness negatively as a lack of power or a sign of moral failing, in this book Michael O'Sulllivan joins a number of contemporary thinkers (Ricoeur, Derrida, Agamben, Butler, and Nussbaum, among others) who in their own ways have offered a defense of passivity, vulnerability, and the precariousness of life. Through a wide-ranging exploration of the theme of weakness in philosophy, religion, and literature, O'Sullivan identifies a variety of treatments of this theme and ties them all together in the message that weakness is a core feature of our shared humanity. This book thus provides readers with a great starting point for anyone in the humanities who is in search of a new conceptual mapping of the human.

• Introduction \ Part I: Philosophy \ 1. Akrasia and Fragile Goodness \ 2. The Flesh is Weak: Incarnating the Word \ 3. Daoism and Weakness: "Weakness is the means dao employs": \ 4. Nietzsche's Revaluation of Power - Kierkegaard's Despair of Weakness \ 5. Gender theory and weakness: is there a "weaker vessel"? \ 6. Why is Derrida's sign violent? Radical passivity and givenness \ Part II: Literature \ 7. Negative Capability and Romantic Indolence \ 8. Dickens and the "experience of the common" \ 9. Joyce's "Words of Silent Power" \ 10. Beckett and "The Authentic Weakness of Being" \ 11. Vulnerability and "the animal" in Coetzee \ Conclusion - Humane Weakness\ Bibliography \ Index

Michael O'Sullivan is Assistant Professor in English at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is author of Michel Henry: Incarnation, Barbarism and Belief (Peter Lang, 2006).

Although Western philosophy has generally appraised weakness negatively as a lack of power or a sign of moral failing, in this book Michael O'Sulllivan joins a number of contemporary thinkers (Ricoeur, Derrida, Agamben, Butler, and Nussbaum, among others) who in their own ways have offered a defense of passivity, vulnerability, and the precariousness of life. Through a wide-ranging exploration of the theme of weakness in philosophy, religion, and literature, O'Sullivan identifies a variety of treatments of this theme and ties them all together in the message that weakness is a core feature of our shared humanity. This book thus provides readers with a great starting point for anyone in the humanities who is in search of a new conceptual mapping of the human.

• Introduction \ Part I: Philosophy \ 1. Akrasia and Fragile Goodness \ 2. The Flesh is Weak: Incarnating the Word \ 3. Daoism and Weakness: "Weakness is the means dao employs": \ 4. Nietzsche's Revaluation of Power - Kierkegaard's Despair of Weakness \ 5. Gender theory and weakness: is there a "weaker vessel"? \ 6. Why is Derrida's sign violent? Radical passivity and givenness \ Part II: Literature \ 7. Negative Capability and Romantic Indolence \ 8. Dickens and the "experience of the common" \ 9. Joyce's "Words of Silent Power" \ 10. Beckett and "The Authentic Weakness of Being" \ 11. Vulnerability and "the animal" in Coetzee \ Conclusion - Humane Weakness\ Bibliography \ Index

Michael O'Sullivan is Assistant Professor in English at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is author of Michel Henry: Incarnation, Barbarism and Belief (Peter Lang, 2006).

Although Western philosophy has generally appraised weakness negatively as a lack of power or a sign of moral failing, in this book Michael O'Sulllivan joins a number of contemporary thinkers (Ricoeur, Derrida, Agamben, Butler, and Nussbaum, among others) who in their own ways have offered a defense of passivity, vulnerability, and the precariousness of life. Through a wide-ranging exploration of the theme of weakness in philosophy, religion, and literature, O'Sullivan identifies a variety of treatments of this theme and ties them all together in the message that weakness is a core feature of our shared humanity. This book thus provides readers with a great starting point for anyone in the humanities who is in search of a new conceptual mapping of the human.

• Introduction \ Part I: Philosophy \ 1. Akrasia and Fragile Goodness \ 2. The Flesh is Weak: Incarnating the Word \ 3. Daoism and Weakness: "Weakness is the means dao employs": \ 4. Nietzsche's Revaluation of Power - Kierkegaard's Despair of Weakness \ 5. Gender theory and weakness: is there a "weaker vessel"? \ 6. Why is Derrida's sign violent? Radical passivity and givenness \ Part II: Literature \ 7. Negative Capability and Romantic Indolence \ 8. Dickens and the "experience of the common" \ 9. Joyce's "Words of Silent Power" \ 10. Beckett and "The Authentic Weakness of Being" \ 11. Vulnerability and "the animal" in Coetzee \ Conclusion - Humane Weakness\ Bibliography \ Index