Emotional Intelligence: Literature, Ethics and Affective Cognition in J.M. Coetzeeâs Disgrace

Claire Heaney

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Emotional Intelligence: Literature, Ethics and Affective Cognition in J.M. Coetzeeâs Disgrace

In: Understanding Knowledge Creation

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Claire Heaney

Claire Heaney
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 141â161

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401207447_009

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This chapter aims to complicate the emerging picture of art as a possible source of emotional knowledge creation by investigating the complex relationship between ethics and aesthetics. J.M. Coetzeeâs Disgrace, through a sustained engagement with the aesthetic ideology of the Romantic tradition, challenges the moral authority of literary inheritance, forcing the reader to confront the uncomfortable possibility that, rather than enlightening us, aesthetic engagement might instead provide a justifying framework for unethical attitudes and behaviour. I trace the cognitive path traversed by the novelâs central character, the intellectual David Lurie, as he is forced by a series of extreme personal experiences to reconsider the relationship of art to wider social structures. Initially an admirer of Romantic art, Lurie comes to recognize that its conceptual schema conceals a worldview that is ethically questionable. Paradoxically, however, the power of art is retained when Lurie uses it to uncover and express his newfound knowledge of the world and the self. I argue that Lurieâs story is a complex and ambiguous development from aesthetic ânot-knowingâ and even ignorance towards a deeper emotional involvement with the surrounding world, one in which sympathy, emotion, and the imagination are viewed as valuable components of knowledge.

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Understanding Knowledge Creation

Intellectuals in Academia, the Public Sphere and the Arts

Series:Â At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, Volume: 78

E-Book ISBN:: 9789401207447

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2012

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African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
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Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
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Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

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Emotional Intelligence: Literature, Ethics and Affective Cognition in J.M. Coetzeeâs Disgrace

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Understanding Knowledge Creation

Intellectuals in Academia, the Public Sphere and the Arts

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Emotional Intelligence: Literature, Ethics and Affective Cognition in J.M. Coetzeeâs Disgrace