1st Edition
Literature and Character Education in Universities Theory, Method, and Text Analysis
Literature and Character Education in Universities presents the potential of literary and philosophical texts for character education in modern universities. The book engages with theoretical and practical aspects of character development in higher education, combining conceptual discussion of the role of literature in character education with applied case studies from university classrooms.
Character education within the academic context of the university presents unique challenges and opportunities. Literature and Character Education in Universities presents perspectives from academics in Europe, the USA and Asia, offering unique insights into the ways that engaged reading and discussion of core texts can promote the development of intellectual and moral virtues. Chapters draw on a wide range of texts from Confucius’ Analects to J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, focusing on themes such as truthfulness, self-knowledge, prudence, tolerance, friendship, and humility.
Literature and Character Education in Universities will be of real use to researchers, academics and postgraduates in the fields of higher education, philosophy, and literature. It should be essential reading for university educators interested in character development and advocates of literary education in modern universities.
Introduction
Part 1- Character education and core texts: didactics and methodology
1. Reading for pleasure: from narrative competence to character education
Rosalía Baena
2. In dialogue with Antigone: Ricoeur’s theory of reading as a tool for designing a core texts course
José Manuel Mora-Fandos
3. Having a great author as a companion: toward a didactical framework for studying core texts at the last stage of teacher education
Bram de Muynck and Bram Kunz
4. Character education at any age? Cicero on the lifelong pursuit of intellectual and moral virtue
Álvaro Sánchez-Ostiz
5. Character education and assessment in practice. A case study of a European liberal arts college
Tessa Leesen and Alkeline van Lenning
Part 2- Character education and core texts in literature and philosophy
6. From character to parable and allegory: varieties of moral imagination in fictional literature
David Carr
7. Virtue, vice, and saintliness in The Brothers Karamazov
Nancy E. Snow
8. Literature and practical wisdom. An experience with The Catcher in the Rye
Rosa Fernández Urtasun
9. Interiorizing ethics through science fiction. Brave New World as a paradigmatic case study
Raquel Cascales and Luis E. Echarte
10. Friendship, Self-Knowledge, and Core Texts. A Pathway for Character Education at University
Ana Romero-Iribas
11. Teaching humility in Confucius’ Analects: questioning the value of deference
Yang Yeung
Index
Biography
Edward Brooks is the Executive Director of the Oxford Character Project at the University of Oxford, UK.
Emma Cohen de Lara is a Senior Lecturer at Amsterdam University College and Research Fellow at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, the Netherlands.
Álvaro Sanchez-Ostíz is an Associate Professor of Latin Philology at the University of Navarra, Spain.
José Maria Torralba is an Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy and Director of the Core Curriculum Institute at the University of Navarra, Spain.
