The Dead and the Living

Explores ethical, historical, and personal dilemmas in modernism through the relation between the dead and the living. What claims do the dead have on the living? How do the living shape the lives of the dead? Readings in literature, psychoanalysis, and philosophy, including Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, W. G. Sebald, and Julian Barnes. Students should register for ENGL 0100K S01 and may be assigned to a conference section by the instructor during the first week of class.