The Author: Catharine Walker Bergström received her Ph.D. from Gothenburg University (Sweden) and is a senior lecturer of English at University West in Trollhättan. To aid students in contextualizing literary works they study, she has co-authored an interactive teaching text entitled Texts and Events: Cultural Narratives of Britain and the United States, which interweaves literary and historical narratives. It also discourages readers from viewing any text as finite by providing links to various websites.

• Contents: E. L. Doctorow – Narrative ethics – Postmodern ethics – Intuition – Polyphonic Narrative – Historiography – Quest for truth – Infinite obligation – Levinas – The Other – Identity – The Self – Emerson – Self-reliance – The Over-Soul – Jung – Collective unconscious – Synchronicity – Gnosticism – Gnosis – Kabbalah – Hope – Scepticism – Derrida – Deconstruction – Intertextuality – Welcome to Hard Times – Book of Daniel – Ragtime – Loon Lake – Billy Bathgate – Waterworks – City of God.