This work offers a selection of Norris' articles, essays and reviews which have been written over the past five years. Although focused primarily on issues of literary theory, the material also has relevance for philosophy, intellectual history, sociology and developments in cultural criticism. Topics included are deconstruction (its ethical and philosophical bearings), Habermas' critique of Derrida, the post-pragmatist rhetoric of assent, post-modernity, the ideology of the aesthetic, language in relation to musical theory and revisionist readings of Kant (on the sublime). There is a long closing chapter dealing with Heidegger's politics (issues raised by Farias and Lacoue-Labarthe).