https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i2.088
Teaching Ethics through Literature: A Study of Saadat Hasan Manto’s “Open It”
AFSAL M
PhD Research Scholar, Department of English
Farook College (Autonomous) Kozhikode
Affiliated to the University of Calicut, India
ORCID: 0000-0001-7866-2504
PROF. (DR.) K RIZWANA SULTANA
Head & Professor, Department of English
Farook College (Autonomous) Kozhikode
Affiliated to the University of Calicut, India
ORCID: 0000-0001-7602-0399
Abstract: From an ethical critical standpoint, using Martha Nussbaum’s idea of narrative imagination, this paper argues that literary studies in the age of artificial intelligence have its significant role in education to promote historical understanding and ethical values embedded in a text. The pedagogic spaces of classrooms have the virtue of political discussions that necessitates the health of a just democratic nation. Taking the example of Saadat Hasan Manto’s short story “Khol Do”, this paper substantiates the function of stories in generating ethical thoughts and compassion through developing narrative imagination. It also bears a critical stand on the proliferation of AI tools in literary studies and defends traditional classroom discussions on textual connotations and ideas. The larger sense of the paper justifies the ever-evolving role of teachers in creating pedagogic spaces where universal human values are discussed with/without adapting to modern technology. Manto’s story encapsulates violence and evils of a particular period, but it sheds light upon contemporary war crimes, refugeehood, migration, vulnerability and human innocence.
Keywords: Partition, Affect, Vulnerability, War, Refugee, Communal Conflict, Artificial Intelligence
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