Cultivating ethical imagination: using Morrison's «Beloved» to teach historical empathy

Abstract

This article examines the pedagogical potential of teaching Beloved in university literature courses as a means of cultivating students’ ethical imagination and historical empathy. Drawing on approaches from literary pedagogy and ethics-oriented teaching, the study argues that Morrison’s novel provides a uniquely effective framework for engaging students with the traumatic legacy of American slavery while encouraging reflective moral judgment rather than passive historical consumption. The article situates «Beloved» within the context of teaching African American literature and demonstrates how narrative strategies such as fragmented memory, multiple perspectives, and embodied trauma can be used to foster empathetic engagement with the past. Particular attention is paid to classroom practices, including guided discussion, close reading, and reflective writing, that help students confront ethical complexity without reducing historical suffering to abstraction. By integrating literary analysis with pedagogical reflection, the article shows how teaching «Beloved» can move beyond content transmission toward the development of ethical awareness, critical thinking, and responsible historical understanding. The findings suggest that ethical imagination and historical empathy should be treated as central learning outcomes in courses on African American literature.