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Dr Olga Sobolev PEL 6.01a and Dr Angus Wrenn PEL 6.01a

This course is available to General Course ‘Spring Semester’ students.

Although an A-level pass or equivalent in Literature is useful, it is not an absolute requirement (especially for General Course students).

a) Literary treatment/projection of the aspects of ethics, focusing on the classical ideas of Aristotle and Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, developed in modern times by Sartre, Lacan, Bernard Williams and Michel Foucault. The course will draw on a range of themes arising from the interface between literary and philosophical studies and will explore such issues as the objectivity of moral reasoning (the question whether the practices that are traditionally and factually legitimated by religion, law or politics are indeed worthy of recognition); the spiritual crisis of the modern world (desire, guilt and innocence); technological omnipotence versus determinism; and the illusion of liberty in a tolerant democracy based on consensus.  It will also be concerned with such questions as whether philosophy and literature, when combined, can achieve more than the sum of the two parts.

b) The course is based on a carefully chosen range of short stories from world literature (including Kafka, Sartre, Can Themba, Virginia Woolf etc.) where there is either a direct allusion to or a strong parallel with the key ethical issues.

c) Related trips to galleries and theatre productions during the year.

d) Use of archive recordings of authors, and video.

e) Students encouraged to draw upon background in their main discipline, and to read widely.

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the LT. 1 hour of lectures and 1 hour of classes in the ST.

Structured activities during the reading week in the LT. Revision workshops and tutorals in the ST.

This course has a reading week in week 6 of the Lent term.

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the LT.

Literary texts: Franz Kafka  In The Penal Colony; Can Themba The Suit; Virginia Woolf Lappin and Lapinova; Shirley Jackson The Lottery; Jean-Paul Sartre The Wall; Guy de Maupassant The Model; O'Henry The Gift of the Magi.

Additional reading: Peter Singer and Renata Singer (eds.), The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004); Alex Voorhoeve, Conversations on Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2011); Luc Bovens, 'A response to Prelec', in: Oliver, Adam, (ed.) Behavioural Public Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2013); Brian Stock, Ethics through Literature: Ascetic and Aesthetic Reading in Western Culture (Brandeis, 2008).

Exam (80%, duration: 3 hours) in the summer exam period.
Presentation (20%) in the LT.