Table of Contents

IntroductionMatthew Dinan and Denise SchaefferPart I – Conversations about Love and Friendship

Chapter 1 The Good, Truth, and Friendship in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

Stephen Block and Patrick Cain

Chapter2: Friendship and the Solitude of Greatness: The Case of Charles de Gaulle

Daniel Mahoney

Chapter 3: Love and Friendship in Henry James’s The Bostonians

Lisa Pace Vetter

Chapter 4: Whit Woody Barcelona: Love and Friendship in Whit Stillman’s Barcelona and Woody Allen’s Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona

Ann Ward and Lee Ward

Part II – Conversations Between Politics and PoetryChapter 5: Putting Together Courage and Moderation in Plato and Shakespeare

Kenneth DeLuca

Chapter 6: Shakespeare’s Princess: Education for Love and Rule in The Tempest

Paul E. Kirkland

Chapter 7: Reading Tolkien through the Lens of Solzhenitsyn’s Analysis of Ideology:

On Art, Responsibility, and Progress

Germaine Paulo Walsh

Chapter 8: Social Dance in the Films of Whit Stillman

Carl Eric Scott

Part III – Conversations From Tragedy to Comedy

Chapter 9: History, Tragedy and Rebellion in Camus’ Adaptation of Faulkner’s Requiem for a NunDenise Schaeffer

Chapter 10: A Vindication of Novels: Jane Austen’s Conversation with Mary Wollstonecraft

Natalie Fuehrer Taylor

Chapter 11: From Tragedy to Love: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale

Sara MacDonald

Chapter 12: The Tragic and the Equitable in Aristotle’s Poetics and Ethics

Stephen Sims

About the Author

Matthew D. Dinan is assistant professor in the great books program at St. Thomas University.

Natalie Taylor is associate professor of political science at Skidmore College.

Denise Schaeffer is professor of political Science at the College of the Holy Cross.

Paul E. Kirkland is associate professor of political science and great ideas at Carthage College.

Reviews

"A delightful collection of stimulating essays, ranging from Plato and Aristotle, Shakespeare and Jane Austen, to Whit Stillman and Woody Allen, among others. With these insightful readings, on themes of love and friendship, politics and poetry, tragedy and comedy, students of Mary Nichols pay tribute to a teacher whose deep influence has fostered thoughtful originality."

"Politics, Literature & Film in Conversation consists of twelve tributes to a teacher for whom teaching how to read with depth and care proves inseparable from caring deeply about those she teaches. Each contribution stands as an example of a thought central in the life and work of Mary Nichols--that philosophy, while extraordinary, must be embedded in, and inseparable from, the ordinary. These beautifully written chapters indicate just how successful she has been as a scholar, a teacher, and a friend. "

The reader is left to discover the many ways in which Nichols' is honored. That the editors and authors trust the reader to do so seems a proper way of honoring Nichols' scholarship and career.