The Story of the Moral: on the Power of Literature to Define and Refine

The Story of the Moral: On the Power of Literature to Define and Refine the Self Jeffrey B. Kobrin Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Jeffrey B. Kobrin All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Story of the Moral: On the Power of Literature to Define and Refine the Self Jeffrey B. Kobrin This study employs a hybrid research method. My religious background has led me to find a great affinity for certain literary criticism, that which sees literature as a source for moral thinking and moral decision-making. I offer a history of my transactions with texts, texts that were initially formative for me as a moral thinker, then useful for me in a variety of ways as a teacher of texts, then which I later began to appreciate in a more critical and theoretical way as I developed a deeper understanding of how those texts had influenced me and how they had – or had not – influenced my students. I borrow heavily from the theory and method of autoethnography in this study, in the sense that I will examine a variety of “internal data” from my memories of books, teachers, and classroom situations, along with “external data” including interviews, report cards, lecture notes and exam questions, and will subject my data to a number of critical lenses with the goal of what Anderson (2006) describes as a commitment to “an analytic research agenda focused on improving theoretical understandings of broader social phenomena” (375). Using the lenses of the literary theory and criticism of Wayne Booth, Martha Nussbaum, Robert Coles and Aharon Lichtenstein, I will analyze my experiences as a reader and teacher, and I explain how literary works I read and taught can serve as vehicles for the development of a student’s moral sensibility – and how teachers can help facilitate that development. I use my own unique vantage point, that of an Orthodox Jewish boy who initially found friends in secular texts, then found that those texts were among his great teachers of values, to offer a singular perspective on the power of these texts. These lenses, which are (to mix metaphors a bit) filtered through my unique perspective, provide an interpretation that will at first lead me to explore the field of moral education as a whole, if only because I shared many of its desired outcomes in my literature classroom. After a brief overview of this field, I use the work of Hanan Alexander, David Hansen, Carl Rogers, and others to present a more general yet nuanced account of how “spiritual awareness” and the humane fusing of reason and emotion can be fostered in students, with a flexibility and understanding that learning is a way to learn a process, not a process towards a specific set of intellectual goals. I humbly call this hybrid method a literary-auto-ethno-pedogography, as I seek to produce a critical history of my education as a reader and teacher of literature. After an inquiry into my own reading and teaching to understand my own and my students’ development as moral decision makers; I then seek to expand the depth and quantity of moral conversations and bring them to the classrooms of others. As such, my study includes ideas for how to bring about moral conversations in English classrooms, both through student writing and oral exchange, based on ideas from Sheridan Blau, Jeff Wilhelm, David Hansen, Barry Holtz, and others. I conclude with the still unanswered questions that my study has raised for me and for other researchers who share my interest in the relations between secular and religious education and the problem of teaching literature to shape character and refine a reader’s moral sensibility. I also offer some concluding suggestions about how future students and teachers might build on and expand upon my work. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements…………………………………………….………………………..iv Chapter One: A Review of Myself I. The Odds, Defied – a brief introduction to my own unique ideological and philosophical situation and the beginning of an intellectual biography…………………………..1 II. The Company of Friends – how books have served as my “friends” (a la Wayne Booth) and their potential influence on character………………………………………………....9 III. What I Hope to Provide – an introduction to the hybrid method employed…...13 Chapter Two: A Review of Literature I. Transacting through Four Lenses – an introduction to the lenses I will be using in the project: Booth, Nussbaum, Coles, and Lichtenstein………………………………………16 II. Promoting Morality and Intelligent Spirituality through Literature and Education - the beginning of definitions of terms, their limitations and connotations…………20 III. Mapping the Conceptual Terrain of Moral Education – an overview of the recent development of this curricular field………………………………………………………24 IV. Criticism of Moral Education – on the limits of formal moral education and a very brief overview of its modern development…………………………………………………33 V. Jewish Education and Moral Education – on the approach of Jewish educators to the issue of teaching morality…………………………………………………………………36 Chapter Three: A Discussion of Methodology I. Autoethnography as Resources and Inspiration for This Study – a brief overview of aspects of analytical autoethnography as it relates to the hybrid methodology employed in this study…………………………………………………………………………...39 II. Memory as Method– on the issue of the limitations and opportunities of using memory as data for analysis……………………………………………………………………...45 Chapter Four: The First Lens: What If? I. Coduction and What-If Propositions – how Booth’s theory worked for me as an emerging, engaged reader……………………………………………………………………….50 II. But What-If Things Get a Lot Worse? Reading Stephen King – a look through the Boothian lens at how the works of a favorite writer impacted upon me…………………….55 i III. What-If in the Classroom: You Be the Jury – how this same modality has influenced my classroom practice, its successes and limitations………………………………..59 Chapter Five: The Second Lens: The Judicious Spectator I. Becoming the Judicious Spectator – an overall introduction to the Nussbaum model of an “empathetic perspectival experience” and books as the vehicle for providing that model……………………………………………………………………………………………63 II. Developing Further Empathy – reading the works of Herman Wouk and identifying with his characters and their plights; from a correspondence with the author, seeing him his books as “friends”……………………………………………………………………….65 III. The Novel as Vehicle for Empathy Education – a teacher’s epiphany and attempts to use the novel to help students connect with their own internal sets of values and ideas……………………………………………………………………………………………...69 Chapter Six: The Kinship of Books I. Kinsmen and Advisers: Literature as a Values Teacher – my emerging identity as a reader and a look at some early school documents………………………………77 II. Lost Opportunities – disappointment that not all works resonated for me and disappointment that they did not always resonate for others as well………………………….84 III. Welcome Back, Kobrin – returning to the classroom as a teacher and realization of the Coles model in my teaching……………………………………………………………87 IV. Literature as a Primer – some of the history of seeing literature as a primer for learning to make moral decisions; some of my classroom attempts to use it in this way…….88 V. Teaching Mockingbird in Great Neck: A Case Study – field notes and conclusions from an attempt to connect young readers to a piece of classic literature and facilitate an aesthetic reading………………………………………………………………….91 Chapter Seven: A Lens, but of Torah I. The Missing Link – on how the philosophy of Lichtenstein bridged my two ideological worlds………………………………………………………………………………100 II. A(nother) Brief Glossary of Terms – a brief return to and refinement of terms (such as “morality” introduced in chapter two, as a means of introduction to my lens of Lichtenstein……………………………………………………………………………………101 III. A Fourth Lens – an introduction to the thought and work of Aharon Lichtenstein and his overlap with and distinction from the critical lenses offered earlier…………………...104 IV. The Profundity of Reading – how the reading of fictional characters and situations has altered my reading of real people and real situations……………………………106 V. Why not the Torah? - on why literature is a perfectly acceptable source of wisdom and insight for an Orthodox Jewish reader and teacher……………………………….109 ii VI. And Therefore… on the integration of all four lenses and a return to a discussion of method………………………………………………………………………………………111 Chapter Eight: A Methodology of Reading Literature and Life and A Vision for the Future I. What Do We Want? - what are the ultimate goals of a morally-minded reader and teacher? A further discussion and ideation of what society could look like………………114 II. What Gets in Our Way? – why is such a vision not yet implemented? What are the educational, political, and psychological stumbling blocks?.................................................117 III. Addressing These Issues – a series of theoretical and practical responses to the impediments identified in the previous section………………………………………………...120 IV. Why Literature? – why literature is a ideal method for the delivery of these educational goals……………………………………………………………………………….123 V. What Such Reading Looks Like – three examples of educators who use literature in varied ways to teach overtly moral lessons………………………………………..126 VI. How Do We Get Students to Talk? –

Load more