This is an extensive study of American philosopher Alphonso Lingis who is gaining an internatinal reputation to augment his national one. Lingis's books have already been translated into nearly a dozen languages and writers from many disciplines are finding his works a source for fresh philosophical and scholarly inquiries. The distinguished contributors to this volume reflet on their own encounters with this unique American thinker as they engage his work from their various critical perspectives. They address most of the central themes found in his writings - including singularity and otherness, death and eroticism, emotions and rationality, embodiment and the face, excess and the sacred. In the book's first section, the contributors discuss Lingis's significance as a contemporary philosopher, particularly with regard to such renowned figures as Dante, Kant, Nietzsche, Foucault and the major existential and phenomenological thinkers of the past century. In the second section, they focus on Lingis's ideas as the basis for inquiries into additional fields such a art, literature, cultural studies and politics. The book closes with a new essay by Lingis himself.