How does literature make readers feel empathy even for characters that are completely fictional? With what kinds of characters are we asked to empathize with – and who, on the other hand, are left out? And what are the possible real-world causes of literary empathy; can reading fiction make us better understand one another, or even lead to social action? This course delves into heated debates over the relationship between reading and empathy. The first half of the course is devoted to a study of fictional minds; we will learn the various ways in which minds, thoughts, and feelings are constructed in novels and short stories. This knowledge will give us the necessary tools for textual analysis that we will then put to use in the second half of the course, when we read recent theories on literature and empathy while considering our own empathetic and affective responses to the novels and short stories we read. Throughout the course, questions of empathy will be looked at from the perspective of intersectional identity; how are aspects of identity such as gender, race, class, and sexuality portrayed in fiction and how do the intersecting identities of fictional characters affect our empathetic responses as readers?

Satisfies General Education Requirements:

• Group-Satisfying: Arts and Letters
• Multicultural Courses: Identity, Pluralism, and Tolerance (IP)