Date of Submission

Spring 2019

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literature; Philosophy

Project Advisor 1

Marina van Zuylen

Project Advisor 2

Daniel Berthold

Abstract/Artist's Statement

This project came to light in the hopes of trying to grasp how literature and philosophy tackle the quest for human perfection. This inherently impossible pursuit has been the source of much research and imagination, gave birth to the utopian literary genre. In each constructed society, there is a cost for the stability afforded; and the price is one’s freedom. The freedom at stake is not the idealistic American notion of freedom which will guide this work, but that freedom which is central to our humanness and its ability to allow for pain in our lives that is the most exciting aspect. The flight from freedom-induced pain is central to self-preservation, but without it, how do we appreciate the good? How can we distinguish the authentic from the imitation, the boredom of stasis versus the stimulation of self-conscious choice; without the pangs of guilt or self-consciousness?

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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