Biography

This course explores the transformative power of short fiction to depict the moral dilemmas of the human experience. Reading stories spanning across diverse historical and cultural landscapes—from the apartheid-era South Africa in Nadine Gordimer’s Jump, to post-earthquake Japan in Haruki Murakami’s After the Quake, to the Vietnam War in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and the haunting European gothic worlds of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber—we will examine how literature reveals human strengths such as courage, resilience, and moral reflection in times of conflict. We will consider how historical and geographical contexts shape identity and moral decision-making. This course encourages critical engagement with the authors’ artistic blend of realism and fantasy to challenge our imagination and sense of empathy. Together, we will grapple with the central question: When conflict demands that we respond, how do we redefine ourselves and our relationships with others to make meaningful moral choices?