This book investigates the motif of spectral mourning in John Banvilles The Sea, Tim Parks Destiny, and Ian McEwans The Child in Time and sheds new light on the conjunction of mourning, mystery and ghosts in English literature. While the Freudian position of mourning is taken as a theoretical point of departure, the main focus is on Jacques Derridas ethics of mourning and other contemporary mourning theories which conceive of mourning as an interminable and irresolvable process. These theories centre on ethical responsibility to the Other, a discourse in critical theory that is known as the...

This collection of essays provides the first systematic investigation of practical necessity and offers novel perspectives on this intriguing phenomenon. While debates on necessity often take place in the realm of metaphysics, there is a form of necessity that is pertinent to practical philosophy.