Novels of Thinking

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2015

This course examines selected contemporary “novels of thinking,” powerful literary works that seek to engage the deep questions of life that also animate philosophical writing in a variety of different ways. Focusing on Iris Murdoch’s philosophical papers and Under the Net, J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello, David Foster Wallace’s essays and The Broom of the System, Marilynne Robinson’s Lila and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, we will examine the ways in which works of literature can offer philosophical instruction without becoming mere vehicles for straightforward forms of argumentation.