Literature as an educator: ethics, politics and the practice of writing in Thomas Mann’s life and work

Collection:
Mokslo publikacijos / Scientific publications
Document Type:
Straipsnis / Article
Language:
Anglų kalba / English
Title:
Literature as an educator: ethics, politics and the practice of writing in Thomas Mann’s life and work
In the Journal:
Journal of philosophy of education. 2022, vol. 56, iss. 2, p. 265-280
Summary / Abstract:

ENFollowing the definition of ‘practice’ conceptualised in After Virtue, the paper argues that literature as creative writing and reading is a MacIntyrean practice. Literature's key internal goods are spelled out: the common aesthetic enjoyment achieved by the writer's ability to create a truthful fictional narrative the reader is drawn into and the expansion of our narrative identities and self-awareness. Against the conceptual background, the paper asks in which sense can we say that literature as a practice schools us in the virtues. Thomas Mann's work and life are discussed. It argues that Mann's work is both a rich source for us to understand 20th-century German and European bourgeois societies and an ideological obfuscation of such understanding. Drawing on his early conservatism, the paper shows how the practice of writing and Mann's Nietzschean self-assertion allowed him to become a politically engaged writer able to question himself and his culture. [From the publication]

DOI:
10.1111/1467-9752.12654
ISSN:
0309-8249; 1467-9752
Related Publications:
Thomas Mannas kritinės teorijos požiūriu / Andrius Bielskis. Politologija. 2019, Nr.1 (93), p. 36-59.
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https://www.lituanistika.lt/content/105575
Updated:
2023-11-24 18:28:46
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