Abstract

A common critical evaluation of Jean-Francois Lyotard's work is that it is concerned to find new ways of speaking, or of expression. This thesis argues that Lyotard's work, particularly Just Gaming and The Differend, is concerned with finding new ways to listen. Those motifs are considered that relate or contribute to Lyotard's elaboration, in The Differend, of the ethical genre of discourse, in which one is compelled to listen. A critique is offered of this genre as Lyotard presents it. Another genre, poetry, is suggested as more suited to the demands that Lyotard, following the work of Levinas, makes of an ethical genre. The relevance that such an ethical genre might have to media studies is discussed.