Literature and Ethics Cluster

Comparative Literature's Literature and Ethics cluster engages students in an examination of the values implicit in certain behaviors, issues of conflict and conflict resolution, and questions of personal and national commitments to others. Courses in this cluster address a variety of thorny problems involving choice and individual responsibility, including the motivating factors for electing one path of action over another, the consequences of specific choices on individuals and groups within society, questions of free will, power relations, the role of the government in individual lives, issues of torture and abuse, and related issues.

To complete the cluster, students take a series of three courses:

CL 211: World Literature (generally taught in the fall, which examines ethics, displacement, and identity in non-western and western literary works)

CL 364: Literature and Ethics (generally taught in the spring, whose specific topics varies and include the study cruelty and violence, war, law and literature, etc.)

Philosophy 131: Present Moral Problems (a companion course to Literature and Ethics, which may be taken either in the fall or spring semester.)