Course Description
Exploration of the relationship between literature and philosophy. Depending on the instructor, the emphasis may be philosophical readings of literary texts or the literary treatment of philosophical texts.
Athena Title
Literature and Philosophy
Prerequisite
ENGL 1102 or ENGL 1102E or ENGL 1103 or ENGL 1050H or ENGL 1060H
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course aims to introduce to students to the rich conversation between literature and philosophy through study of common themes and preoccupations such as ethics, aesthetics, and epistemology. Instructors will build courses around their interests and strengths, and content will therefore vary. All versions of the class, however, will bring into conversation philosophical and literary texts in pursuit of the following objectives: -- Students will be able to identify the way literature addresses philosophical issues such as the nature of the mind, the art of living, the ethics of behavior. -- Students will be able to analyze works of literature from the standpoint of philosophical concerns. -- Students will be able to articulate in analysis the literary value of philosophical texts. -- Students will be able to identify both the shared concerns of the disciplines of literature and philosophy as well as the distinctions between them. -- Students will understand the long and deep involvement of literature and philosophy -- either in a course that surveys the history of the conversation between the disciplines or in one that focuses on a specific philosophical approach as it provides an analytical frame for literary analysis. -- Students will produce a significant body of written work in which they bring together literature and philosophy.
Topical Outline
As stated previously, the course is open to many specific approaches. The following is an outline of one such approach: Literature and Philosophy: Ethics Texts: Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being The Turn to Ethics, eds. Garber, Hanssen, and Walkowitz Mapping the Ethical Turn, eds. Davis and Womack Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey Samuel Johnson, Rasselas J.M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers Stephen Spielberg, Schindler's List Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing Course Outline 1. Ethics v. Morality; Responsibility; "Here I am"; Face-to-Face encounter Readings: Genesis 22; Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”; Cohen, “Story of Isaac”; Kierkegaard “Fear and Trembling” 2. Otherness, Subjectivity, Being, Intention, Ambivalence Readings: Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey Levinas, Otherwise than Being, pp. 1-20, Booth, “Why Ethical Criticism Can Never Be Simple” (Davis and Womack, 16-29); Buell “What We Talk About When We Talk About Ethics; Butler “Ethical Ambivalence” (Garber, Hanssen, Walkowitz, pp.1-28) 3. Topics: Reading and Resistance Readings: Levinas, Otherwise than Being, pp. 21-45; Schwarz, “A Humanistic Ethics of Reading”; Altieri, ”Lyrical Ethics and Literary Experience” (Davis and Womack, 3-15; 30-58; Kraft “Laurence Sterne and the Ethics of Sexual Difference;” Sedgwick “Sexualism and the Citizen of the World: Wycherley, Sterne, and Male Homosocial Desire” (handout or reserve) 4. Happiness, Morality, Democracy Readings: Samuel Johnson, Rasselas, Nussbaum, “Exactly and Responsibility” (Davis and Womack, 59-79); Johnson “Using People” (Garber, Hanssen, Walkowitz, pp. 47-63); Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, pp. 45-59; Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, pp. 61-97; Mouffe, “Which Ethics for Democracy” (Garber, Hanssen, Walkowitz, pp. 85-94); Diamond “Henry James, Moral Philosophers, Moralism,” Davis and Womack, pp. 252-70); Hilton, “Restless Wrestling: Johnson’s Rasselas” (online) 5. Substitution; Bioethics Readings: J.M. Coetzee’s Lives of Animals; Levinas, Otherwise than Being, pp. 99-127; Klass, “The Best Intentions” (Garber, Hanssen, Walkowtiz, pp. 65-83) 6. Biocentrism, Suffering, Analogy/Equivalence Readings: Gubar, “Poets of Testimony”; Marshall, “Forget the Phallic Symbolism, Consider the Snake” (Davis and Womack, pp. 165-208); Margaret Atwood’s Snake Poems (handout) 7. Witness, Didacticism, Prophecy Readungs/Viewings: Spielberg’s Schindler’s List; Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 131-52; Davis and Womack, “The List is Life” (Davis and Womack, pp. 151-64) 8. Feeling, Alienation, Desire, Alterity, Narcissism Readings: Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers, Lundeen, “Who Has the Right to Feel?” (Davis and Womack, pp. 83-92); Sommer, “Attitude, Its Rhetoric” (Garber, Hanssen, Walkowitz, pp. 201- 220); Levinas, Otherwise than Being, pp. 153-71, from Michael Ondaatje, Leonard Cohen, and Winfried Siemerling, Discoveries of the Other: Alterity in the Work of Leonard Cohen, Hubert Aquin, Michael Ondaatje, and Nicole Brossard (on reserve) 9. Race and Power, Violence, Cosmopolitan vs. National Ethics Readings/Viewings: Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing, Hanssen “Ethics of the Other”; Bhabha “On Cultural Choice” (Garber, Hanssen, Walkowitz, pp. 127-200); Walker, “Moral Repair and Its Limits” (Davis and Womack, pp. 110-27),Walkowitz, “Cosmopolitan Ethics” (Garber, Hanssen, Walkowitz, pp. 221-30); Levinas, Otherwise than Being, pp. 175-85; Mitchell, “The Violence of Public Art: Do the Right Thing” (available online through jstor) 10. Sexual Difference, Women and Power Readings: Aphra Behn’s “History of the Nun”; Irigaray, from The Ethics of Sexual Difference, Judges 4 and 5; Joshua 2 (handouts and bible, any English translation)
Syllabus