Ethics and Literature: The Modern German Tradition

Catalog description

We shall read literary texts (short stories, novellas, plays) from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the goal of understanding how literature might provide—or render problematic—moral insight. How does literature represent and question moral psychology and judgment, action, and responsibility? Do literary structures inhabit our moral self-understanding, for instance: character, will and choice, and narrative coherence? Taught entirely in German. Recommended prerequisite: advanced proficiency (one course beyond 305/306).