\" ALTERITY \" : A Portal to Ethical Literary Criticism in Indonesia

Greek tradition has historically been considered as origin of ethics in Western philosophy today. However, it was not seriously being pursued in contemporary time. Only in the twentieth century, this connection has gotten a relatively long period of stability in the Great Tradition of English literature. Unfortunately, such modern ethics has been trapped into favor of politics and ‘scandal.’ In the late 1980s, literature scholars rethink ethical criticism in what is generally known as the turn to ethics. At that time, moral philosophers have returned to literature as an alternative virtue. What appealing is that ethical criticism is brought into the light of postmodern theories. Emmanuel Levinas, for instance, is the most radical thinker of otherness, and his idea has been a burgeoning subfield in literary studies. However, this “new” dynamics has not simply been appreciated in the recent literary theories in Indonesia. The ethics is also still regarded as means of training ethical sensibility or pedagogical and educational practices. This paper aims to search for a new critical approach to (Indonesian) literature, say, ethical literary criticism and to acquire the possible reading “alterity” in some literary works, including Cala Ibi and “[Rintrik]”. The result is that—by considering about its methodological implications—ethical literary criticism can be a possible and, perhaps, plausible alternative of looking at “ethics” in different way within Indonesian literary works. Key words: alterity, ethical literary criticism, Levinas