Philosophy & Literature: Advanced Topics

In this intensive reading and writing course we will explore the border both separating and joining philosophy and literature. How does literature evoke philosophical problems, and how do philosophers interpret such works? How does fiction create meaning? Beginning with Greek tragedy, we will investigate Plato’s “quarrel” with, and Aristotle’s defense of, poetry. Then we will turn to modern works, mostly European, on topics such as: tragedy and ethics; style and rhetoric; author and reader; time and temporality; mood and emotion; empathy and “othering”; existence and mortality. Literary readings after Sophocles will be selected from Borges, Calvino, Kafka, Toni Morrison, Tolstoy, and Woolf. Philosophical readings after Plato and Aristotle will be selected from Danto, Freud, Murdoch, Nietzsche, Nussbaum, and Ricoeur. Not open to students who have taken PHIL 286 or PHIL 1020. (At least one previous course in PHIL or CMLT or waiver.)