Ethics - Extra Readings

Howard Sklar, PhD

Department of English

University of Helsinki

Howard Sklar, PhD

Department of English

University of Helsinki

Supplementary Reading (optional)

Fiction, Ethics and the Significance of Reading

Supplementary Reading List

Note: The titles on this list are not “required reading,” and I realize it would be impossible for you to read them all. On the other hand, they are highly recommended, and also may be used as materials for your papers. You’ll find these articles in the green folders in my pigeonholes.

I have listed the supplementary readings under the lecture before which it would be most useful to read them.

PART I: THEORETICAL VIEWS ON ETHICS AND FICTION

6.2.09

Session 2 – Theories of Fictional Ethics

Wayne Booth, “Why Ethical Criticism Can Never Be Simple” (from Todd F. Davis

and Kenneth Womack, eds. Mapping the Ethical Turn: A Reader in

Ethics, Culture, and Literary Theory, 2001; also from the

journal Style; available online here).

J. Hillis Miller: “The ethics of reading” (from Theory Now and Then)

Noël Carroll, “Art, narrative, and moral understanding” (from Jerrold

Levinson, ed. Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection)

Adam Zachary Newton: “Narrative as Ethics” (from Narrative Ethics)

Martha Nussbaum: “Introduction: Form and Content, Philosophy and

Literature” (from Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and

Literature)

13.2.09

Session 3 – Ways of Knowing Characters, Ways of Approaching Texts

Martha Nussbaum: “Perceptive Equilibrium: Literary Theory and Ethical

Theory” (Love’s Knowledge)

Wayne Booth: “Doctrinal Questions in Jane Austen, D. H. Lawrence, and

Mark Twain” (from The Company We Keep)

James Phelan: “Narrative Discourse, Literary Character, and Ideology”

(from James Phelan, ed. Reading Narrative: Form, Ethics, Ideology)

Andrew Gibson: “Introduction” (from Postmodernity, Ethics and the

Novel: From Leavis to Levinas)

27.2.09

Session 4 – “Moral Sentiments” in Response to Fiction

Howard Sklar: “Sympathetic Responses to Fictional Characters” (work in

progress)

Susan Feagin: “Imagining Emotions and Appreciating Fiction” (from

Emotion and Literature)

Susan Feagin: “Sympathy and Other Responses (from Reading with

Feeling: The Aesthetics of Appreciation)

Kathleen Lundeen: “Who has the right to feel?: the ethics of literary

empathy” (from Todd F. Davis and Kenneth Womack, Mapping

the Ethical Turn: A Reader in Ethics, Culture, and Literary

Theory; earlier version, from the journal Style, available online

available online here)

PART II: TEXTUAL ETHICS: THE ROLE OF NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

13.3.09

Session 5 – Using “Narratological” Approaches to Evaluate Ethical Content

Charles Altieri: “Lyrical Ethics and Literary Experience” (from Todd F.

Davis and Kenneth Womack, Mapping the Ethical Turn; earlier

version, from journal Style, available online here)

27.10.06 – NO CLASS

20.3.09

Session 6 – The Influence of Perspective on Reader Response

Adam Zachary Newton: “We Die in a Last Word: Conrad’s Lord Jim

and Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio”, pages 71-79 and 104-124

(from Narrative Ethics)

Meir Sternberg: “Order of Presentation, Delayed and Distributed

Exposition, and Strategies of Rhetorical Control” (from

Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction)

27.3.09

Session 7 – Ambiguities, Narrative Uncertainty, and Ethical Understanding

Toni Morrison: “Introduction” to Playing in the Dark

bell hooks: “Postmodern Blackness” (from Patrick Williams and

Laura Chrisman, eds. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory:

A Reader)

PART III: EMPIRICAL VIEWS ON THE ETHICAL EFFECTS OF READING

3.4.09

Session 8 – Empirical Study of Literature: Theory, Approaches, Ethical

Implications

Jèmeljan Hakemulder, “How to make alle Menschen Brüder: Literature

In a multicultural and multiform society” (from Dick Schram

and Gerard Steen, eds. The Psychology and Sociology of

Literature)

Marissa Bortolussi and Peter Dixon, “Introduction” to Psychonarratology:

Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response

17.4.09

Session 9 – Empirical Study of Literature and “Moral Sentiments”

Suzanne Keen, “A Theory of Narrative Empathy” (from Narrative 14:3; available

online here)

ARTICLES ON EMPIRICAL STUDIES THAT WERE AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW

In addition to the articles that are listed above for Sessions 8 and 9, as well as those listed for the same sessions in the Course Syllabus, I will make the following articles available for you to study:

Mary Beth Culp, “Literature’s Influence on Young Adult Attitudes, Values, and Behavior, 1975 and 1984”, English Journal, Vol. 74, No. 8 (December 1985), 31-35.

Shirley Koeller, “The Effect of Listening to Excerpts from Children’s Stories about Mexican-Americans on the Attitudes of Sixth Graders”, Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 70, No. 6 (July/August 1977), 329-334.

David S. Miall and Don Kuiken, “Foregrounding, defamiliarization, and affect: Response to literary stories”, Poetics 22 (1994), 389-407.

Fenja Ziegler, Peter Mitchell, and Gregory Currie, “How Does Narrative Cue Children’s Perspective Taking?”, Developmental Psychology, Vol. 41, No. 1 (2005), 115-123.