Suffering and Meliorism in Literature and the Philosophy of Literature within the RCF Centre of Excellence on Meliorist Philosophy of Suffering (MePhiS, 2026–2033)
The research group investigates literature and the philosophy of literature as routes toward a meliorist philosophy of suffering. With a strong literary–philosophical orientation, we take seriously the idea that literary works can articulate philosophical and ethical issues and shape how people experience, express, and manage suffering.
The group critically examines divergent forms of meliorism by engaging writers and literary traditions associated with optimism, pessimism, and melioristic positions. Our work analyzes texts that reflect pressing social anxieties and human or non-human suffering, including those arising from war and violence, poverty and marginalization, ecological catastrophe and the climate crisis. In parallel, we study how philosophers use literature to communicate ethical stances toward suffering.
Bridging literary studies with philosophical analysis, the group maps the conceptual layers of meliorism, clarifies its ethical implications, and shows how literature can cultivate responsible ways of responding to vulnerability and suffering.