James S. Hans is Professor of English at Wake Forest University. His previous books are The Fate of Desire; The Origins of the Gods; The Value(s) of Literature, all published by SUNY Press; The Play of the World; Imitation and the Image of Man; and The Question of Value: Thinking Through Nietzsche, Heidegger and Freud. He has published numerous essays on modern and contemporary American literature and contemporary literary theory and Continental philosophy.