Virtue Literature, East & West
(Globalization Studies/Cultural Studies – Interdisciplinary)
Instructors: James Murphy, Government
Dennis Washburn, Asian Studies
Schedule: Mondays, 3 – 6pm
Thursdays, 4 – 6pm
Location: 215 Silsby Hall
Description:
The increasing globalization of economies and civil societies has resulted in closer contact, and at times intense conflict, between different systems of political and ethical values. Free markets, democracy, and human rights are widely espoused, but the interpretations of these ideas are often so fundamentally different that clashes of values seem inevitable, while the discovery of common interests seems impossible. Perhaps nowhere are the differences more apparent, and potentially more explosive, than between East Asian and Western cultures. This course will explore the possibility of finding common grounds through a comparative examination of Eastern and Western approaches to virtue ethics. Through close readings of some major philosophical and literary texts in the Confucian and Aristotelian traditions, we will explore the possibilities of dialogue about ethics across radically diverse cultures, and see how the different disciplines of philosophy and literary criticism illuminate these traditions of ethical reflection.
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