Literature and Ethics

Catalog description

Introduces students to the study of literature as a way of critically engaging ethical questions and practicing an ethics of empathy by imagining oneself in the situation of the other. Students will explore a range of ethical perspectives, power dynamics, cultural assumptions and values that shape human experience and meaning. They will differentiate among ethical, legal, social conceptions of justice as they apply to personal and political issues. In the process, students will develop critical competence to understand and resolve ethical conflicts and expand their own sense of what defines ‘the good life.’ Topics might include: ‘The Problem of Evil’; ‘The Good Life’; ‘Literature, Law and Justice’; ‘Environmental Humanities’; ‘Medical Humanities’; ‘Utopia/Dystopia.’ Covers the Interdisciplinary topic for the English major.