September
14 Wednesday 10am - 12pm Martyn and I are running a 10 week
course on literature and ethics. It will take place in Asclepius
clinic and education centre 33 Walter Rd Swansea. There are stairs to
the venue. There is a an Italian cafe around the corner for
coffee and a new cafe is opening on the ground floor of
Asclepius but there are coffee / tea making facilities if
you wish to bring your own.
Week
1: Jenni General introduction: Inside and outside of a text. Authors,
narrators and readers. Authorial intent and ambiguity in Turn of the
screw by Henry James.
Week
2: Martyn. Post modernism and the text. Ambiguity, post modernism
relativism in relation to James’ Turn of the screw. Possibly
William James ---- you can use other texts too if you want to.
Week
3: Jenni Moral panic in James’ Turn of the screw. How this bears
relation to the last two weeks discussions. See file I downloaded
from internet
Week
4: Jenni Can we be moved by emotions in novels if they are
fictitious?
Examples
from Anna Karenina. Example of comedy from Mother’s Milk
Example
of sadness from Anna Karenina and psychical distancing Terry Diffy
and other theories on why/how we are moved by fiction. Colin
Radcliffe How can we be moved by the fate of Anna Karenina
Week
5: Martyn Psychology as evidence. Why does fiction affect us so
deeply? The psychological effects of fiction on the reader. Aristotle
on tragedy ----appeals to us all ----- cathartic. 2. Ethical issues
addressed in tragedy. Examples of tragedy that illustrate this point.
We can refer to various texts for these two weeks as the topic
concerns all fiction.
Week
6 Jenni: can we learn morality from fiction? ‘Is it only make
believe’ Kendall Walton. Can it make us a better person. Can we
learn how to treat others with consideration? If so then what affect
does fiction about evil or evil deeds have on us.
Week
7 Martyn: Moral attitudes of the writer, a look at what shapes their
outlook.: Henry James, Dostoyevsky and Voltaire. And does it matter?
Evil authors and evil deeds. Some examples I thought of; VS Naipaul
–misogynist, Salman Rushdie – apparently a blasphemer, Ayn Rand
right wing racist, anti gay etc
William
James consciousness, no grand narrator, fragmented, morality versus
perhaps
Ayn Rand was anti-gay and right-wing (although many would argue that being 'right-wing' is not necessarily evil) - but racist?
ReplyDeleteAyn Rand wrote:
"Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.
"Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas—or of inherited knowledge—which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.
"Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.
“Racism,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 126.