Literature and Philosophy

Catalog description

Traditionally, literary scholars apply philosophy to literature; philosophers mine literature for examples illustrating already existing philosophies. This course aims to find ways for philosophy and literature to shed light on each other. Can literature do philosophical work? How can philosophy be read? We will first study classical encounters between philosophy and literature in Plato, Aristotle, Hegel and Kant. Philosophers might include Sartre, Beauvoir, Fanon, Murdoch, Nussbaum, Derrida, Diamond, and Cavell. Theater and film: Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Hollywood movies. Novels by Coetzee, Sebald, and recent autofiction. A major focus of the class will be ethics.