Problem: Lightness vs. Weight
"Lightness and Weight according to Milan Kundera and Italo Calvino.
Project description:
Assignments for the final project will be individualized. Your essays will be compiled into a student handbook called "Writing about Literature From a Philosophical Perspective" which will be available to teachers and students in GC Commons as part of an OER (Open Educational Resource) for those who are interested in writing about literature from interdisciplinary perspectives. Students will read the handbook to learn more about different genres of academic writing: a personal response, a literary argument, and a comparative analysis. Your reflections and essays will guide those who are unsure or confused about the process, from brainstorming to revision.
Teachers of literature or philosophy courses might read the handbook out of curiosity, to gain inspiration for their own assignments, or even to think about the different ways literature and philosophy can be brought together in a course.
Each of you has been assigned a project that corresponds to the work you have been doing in this course so far. Following the instructions in the prompt below.
1. Summarize and evaluate Milan Kundera's understanding of the lightness/weight opposition, as articulated in the first four pages of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. You want to distinguish between lightness as an existential concept and lightness as a lifestyle or way of being in the world. Why does Kundera reference Nietzsche's notion of the eternal return; how does it connect to the lightness/weight opposition?
2. How is lightness as an existential concept like Camus's notion of absurdity? Contrast Kundera's assessment of lightness as unbearable with Camus's insistence on the absurd hero's happiness and discuss. Whom do you agree with, and why?