Seminar in Literary Studies
Topic: Reading for a Better World?: Literature and Ethics
Class Information
Instructor: Simpson, David
CRN: 93140
Time: TR 12:10-1:30
Location: 308 Voorhies
Description
Reading for a Better World?: Literature and Ethics
From Plato to the present, writers and thinkers have debated the value of literature. Does it help us to become better people, developing sympathy sand understanding, or is it an escape valve, a site where we may experience second-hand emotions never requiring to be put into practice? In addressing this question, the seminar will read and discuss a range of poets, novels, critics and philosophers, including Plato, Rousseau, Arnold, Richards, Nussbaum, Dickens, Shelley and Wordsworth. We will read and compare at least one book deemed to have done good (Hard Times), and another to have done harm (Lolita). There will be a midterm and final paper, and a final exam.
Other materials will be available in a course reader, available at Davis Copy Max (3rd St)
Texts
William Erle, Obi
Dickens, Hard Times
Nabokov, Lolita
Rousseau, Politics and the Arts (ed. Allan Bloom)