- Overview
- Module description
Tales of Freedom, Necessity and Providence (HUM2005)
15 credits
Freedom and necessity, used by philosophers as complementary or opposite concepts, have recently been studied as everyday experiences. Genevieve Lloyd did this by focussing on literary texts or by highlighting the more literary aspects of philosophical texts. You will follow her example by reading selected passages of key texts of European, North African and East Asian cultures such as Euripides’ Alcestis, Boccaccio’s Decameron, Wu-Ch’êng-ên’s Monkey, Manzoni’s The Betrothed, and Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Some of these authors discuss the belief in Providence, which might reconcile human agency and necessity. Students will be assessed by writing either an essay or a short story, as they prefer.
If you are a student of languages, this module can count towards a language for the purposes of your degree title, providing you engage with material in the relevant language in the assessment. Please contact the module convenor if you require more details.
