San Antonio College Library

In three essays, West explores the morality of asceticism, discipline, and dignity within the works of eight social theorists. He attempts to discover a feeling of pride over human affairs that differs from the pride which is condemned by theology.

"The Heart of What Matters shows that literature has a powerful and unique role to play in understanding life's deepest ethical problems. Anthony Cunningham provides a rigorous critique of Kantian ethics, which has enjoyed a preeminent place in moral philosophy in the United States, arguing that it does not do justice to the reality of our lives. He demonstrates how fine literature can play an important role in honing our capacity to see clearly and...

"Why Literature Matters in the 21st Century examines literature in its connection to virtue and moral excellence. The author is concerned with literature as the teacher of virtue. The current crisis in the humanities, Mark William Roche argues, may be traced back to the separation of art and morality."--Jacket.

Argues that great moral fiction has open-mindedly tested human values in an attempt to discover what best promotes human fulfillment and that current fiction fails to do so and, thus, undermines our experience of literature and our faith in ourselves.

Studies works by Jane Austen, Henry James, E.M. Forster and Alan Sillitoe.

Dr. Coles shows how the work of writers, artists, and thinkers of the past two centuries can inspire our own reflections on our daily lives. He offers a compelling call to venture outside our own selves and lives and to listen, attentively and with growing humanity, to the way others get through life, and he encourages us to examine our own character, kindness, and complexity by studying the wisdom of authors from Charles Dickens to Flannery O'Connor,...

"During the eighteenth century, the activity of conversation was repeatedly portrayed as a morally improving and socially cohesive activity. By the time Jane Austen was writing in the early nineteenth century, however, speakers and writers could not always work with such confidence. Many worried that manners were being eroded into mannerisms, many more were becoming conscious that their speech was fraught with the potential for deceit and misunderstanding."...

Tatar challenges the assumptions we make about childhood reading. By exploring how beauty and horror operate in children's literature, she examines how and what children read, showing how literature transports and transforms children with its intoxicating, captivating and occasionally terrifying energy.