Literature and Judgement

Catalog description

There exists a close but complex relationship between the acts of making literature and making judgments. This course will explore some of these relationships and ask, for instance: how does judgment weigh upon the literary act? how do literary considerations bear on our making judgments? what criteria are called forth in both of these moments? Texts treated will be literary, critical-analytical, legal, and cinematic, and include such authors as Arendt, Benjamin, Derrida, Freud, Henry James, Kafka, Kant, Primo Levi, Nietzsche, Tolstoy and Verga.