Reading the world differently: Nussbaum and comparative literature

N'Dré Sam BEUGRE

Article Details

Reading the world differently: Nussbaum and comparative literature

Authors:

N'Dré Sam BEUGRE

Publisher:

Université Cadi Ayyad, Maroc

Journal:

L'IMPACT Issue 6, pp.33-47

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

12/2025

Document Language:

French

Document ID (Org No.):

2001846263

pISSN:

2820-7637

Abstract:

 This article explores the intersection between Martha C. Nussbaum’s moral philosophy and the practice of comparative literature in order to highlight how reading can become both an ethical and political act. Nussbaum defends a conception of emotions as cognitive judgments, essential to moral life, and insists on the central role of literature in cultivating moral imagination and democratic citizenship. Through fiction, readers learn to inhabit the perspectives of others, to develop sensitivity toward human vulnerability, and to refine their moral judgments. Comparative literature radicalizes this gesture by bringing together texts from different cultural, linguistic, and historical contexts. It thus fosters critical decentering, hermeneutic hospitality, and awareness of the power relations shaping the circulation of narratives. Cross-readings — for instance, between Toni Morrison and Albert Camus, or Rabindranath Tagore and Virginia Woolf — exemplify how comparative literature operates as a pedagogy of pluralism. The article concludes by advocating for the notion of “literary citizenship,” understood as a way of participating in collective life through both compassion and critical vigilance. In an age marked by indifference and identity-based closures, reading otherwise becomes a way of living otherwise, sustaining the promise of a sensitive, pluralist conception of justice.

Article Details

Reading the world differently: Nussbaum and comparative literature

Authors: N'Dré Sam BEUGRE

Publisher: Université Cadi Ayyad, Maroc

Journal: L'IMPACT Issue 6, pp.33-47

Document Type: Article

Publication Date: 12/2025

Document Language: French

Document ID (Org No.): 2001846263

pISSN: 2820-7637

Issues

Authors:

N'Dré Sam BEUGRE

Publisher:

Université Cadi Ayyad, Maroc

Journal:

L'IMPACT Issue 6, pp.33-47

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

12/2025

Document Language:

French

Document ID (Org No.):

2001846263

pISSN:

2820-7637