1262518 Literature and Ethics
1262518 Literature and
Ethics
Organizer(s):
Robert Doran, University of Rochester (robert.doran@rochester.edu)
The question of ethics in literature often bifurcates along the line separating “autonomous” from “committed” literature; but this panel will endeavor to go beyond this overly simplistic dichotomy and investigate how, in the twenty-first century—given the historical traumas of the last 100 years, from the First World War and the Holocaust to 9/11 and the Arab Spring, and given the changes that have rocked the academy since the 1990s, which have resulted in an increasing emphasis on ethico-political approaches and perspectives—literature and ethics are both inseparable and the site of innumerable polemics that put into question many of the shibboleths of literary criticism and theory, such as formalism, poetics, historicism, fictionality, and interpretation.
Among the questions we will investigate include: Does literary study always presuppose a practical relation to the literary text? Can ethical questions ever be successfully bracketed in literary criticism? How does the question of ethics specifically impact intrinsic and extrinsic approaches to literature? How has the rise of Theory (structuralism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, feminism, queer theory, cultural studies) contributed to the ethical understanding of literature and, concomitantly, how has it positioned literary study vis-à-vis the more “empirical” disciplines (e.g., sociology, anthropology, history).
Panel member:
| Name | Institute |
| Thomas Beebee | Professor of Comparative Literature and German, Pennsylvania State University |
| Catherine Nesci | Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of California, Santa Barbara |
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