UCLA

Using four works by Marilyn Chin and Russell C. Leong, this essay engages with Ethical Literary Theory and Criticism on several fronts. It shows the ethical impulses that have galvanized many ethnic American writers since the Civil Rights movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. It questions the possibility of a purely “objective” Ethical Literary Criticism given that ethical or literary criteria are invariably inflected by race, gender, class, ethnicity, politics, and religion. Instead of placing ethics above aesthetics, it demonstrates their interdependence and inextricability. This article also introduces the topics of class exploitation, homophobia, sexual harassment, and marginalization of minority writers into the sphere of Ethical Literary Criticism.