The Ethics of Romanticism

An exploration of the intersections of moral philosophy and Romantic literature and culture. Writers studied may include Smith, Hume, Bentham, Hazlitt, Hegel, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Godwin, Equiano, Austen. We will consider how writings of the Enlightenment and Romantic period differently reflect upon problems of knowledge, otherness, identity, community, and aesthetics, and how these reflections are related to the ethical imagination. We will also juxtapose our selections with several recent theoretical debates. Enrollment limited to 20.