Can We Separate the Work from the Author?

Can — and should — an author's words and deeds, no matter how controversial, be separated from their artistic or intellectual output? From the Nobel Prize awarded to Peter Handke to the César given to Roman Polanski, the debate refuses to go away. The Nazi pasts of major twentieth-century thinkers — Heidegger above all — justifiably shadow our assessment of their intellectual legacies, while moves to include figures such as Céline in the register of French national commemorations have sparked bitter disputes. Must we conclude that the morality of a work is inextricably bound up with the morality of its author? And should works be suppressed when their authors have committed crimes, or promoted doctrines of hatred such as racism or antisemitism?

Far from resorting to polemic, this concise and rigorous book places these questions in historical, philosophical, and sociological perspective. Examining the positions taken across a series of landmark examples, Gisèle Sapiro offers readers a clear-eyed guide to grappling with one of the most contested and persistent questions in contemporary culture. Sapiro refuses the comforting neutrality of "everything is equally valid," and the book refreshingly stakes out clear positions, modeling for readers how to find their own way through a landscape genuinely fraught with pitfalls.