Philosophy & Literature (370-0-20)

Instructors

Sam Filby

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-435: Mon, Wed, Fri 10:00AM - 12:00PM

Overview of class

What makes a literary work "philosophical"? Why would someone choose to write a "philosophical novel" as opposed to a philosophical essay or treatise? What is it to read a text philosophically, and how might such a reading contrast with other modes of textual interpretation? In this class, we'll reflect on these questions by reading novels, plays, poetry, literary criticism, and philosophical essays. Central to our investigation are two great modernist novels: Marcel Proust's Swann's Way and Viriginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. We'll pay special attention to how questions about knowledge, the self, and intersubjectivity arise and are addressed in these texts. Along the way, we'll read writers like Sophocles, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Descartes, Simone Weil, Simone de Beauvoir, and Iris Murdoch.

Class Attributes

Face to face: In person, in campus space