FSEM 150   Constructing an Ethical Life

Faculty Profile for Professor Harsh

How can one lead an ethical life in a complicated world? What does one owe to the self, and what to something outside the self? Literature is one means by which human beings explore fundamental questions such as these. During the term, students will read six works of literature from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that bear on these matters: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, George Gissing’s The Nether World, Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Close reading and wide-ranging discussion will provide an opportunity to consider what is distinctive about each author's vision, and what commonalities (if any) can be found across eras and cultures. Students who successfully complete this seminar receive credit for a 100-level ENGL course and can satisfy the human thought and expression area of inquiry requirement or the artistic practice and interpretation liberal arts practice.

Constance Harsh is an English professor who specializes in Victorian fiction; she has a particular fondness for the work of the Brontë sisters, and she has studied George Gissing for many years.