William Melaney

My academic training was in modern languages, literary theory and Continental philosophy (Ph.D., Stony Brook University, 1993). While my first book was concerned with how Gadamer and Derrida can be read together, two subsequent studies explored how Adorno and Derrida, and then Levinas and Kristeva, provide complementary frames for revising the Kantian theory of the subject. A more recent book re-examines Hegel as an aesthetic theorist and ethical philosopher, suggesting how the semiotics of Julia Kristeva can assist in a return to some of Hegel's key achievements. My current research is concerned with how the aesthetic concerns of various modern philosophers tend to reinstate our historicity, even when a theory of history seems far from their intentions