Autumn 2011 Course Descriptions
PLEASE NOTE: This document is subject to amendment. It is intended for descriptive and informational use only. DO NOT USE IT TO REGISTER FOR CLASSES. To register, please consult the University Time Schedules.
The Following "Special Courses" are for M. Div. students only:
629-60000-01/02 Special Course — Chicago Theological Seminary
629-63000-01/02 Special Course — Meadville Lombard Theol School
629-65000-01/02 Special Course — Catholic Theological Union
629-66000-01/02 Special Course — Lutheran Theological School
629-68000-01/02 Special Course — McCormick Theol. Seminary* An asterisk indicates that the course so designated may count toward the required “designated introductory courses” for M.A. students.
DVSC 30400 Introduction to the Study of Religion *
Coyne, Ryan
M / W 3:00 – 4:20 S106
A general introduction to the study of religion for all entering Masters-level students. This course will be oriented by the intensive study of a single text and/or theme. An extra discussion section is required; times to be determined the first week of the quarter.
PQ: Supporting course required of all M.A./AMRS/M.DIV. students.
DVSC 42000 Divinity School: German Reading Exam
Monday, October 17 at 6:00 p.m.
PQ: Open only to Divinity School students.
DVSC 45100 Reading Course: Special Topic
Staff: ARR
PQ: Petition with bibliography signed by instructor; enter section from faculty list.
DVSC 49900 Exam Preparation
Staff: ARR
PQ: Open only to Ph.D. students in quarter of qualifying exams. Department consent. Petition signed by Advisor.
DVSC 50100 Research: Divinity
Staff: ARR
PQ: Petition signed by instructor; enter section from faculty list.
DVSC 59900 Thesis Work: Divinity
Staff: ARR
PQ: Petition signed by instructor; enter section from faculty list.
BIBL 31000 Introduction to the Hebrew Bible: Jewish Thought and Literature *
Chavel, Simeon
M / W 1:30 – 2:50 S106
The course will survey the contents of all twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible, and introduce critical questions regarding its central and marginal figures, events, and ideas, its literary qualities and anomalies, the history of its composition and transmission, its relation to other artifacts from the biblical period, its place in the history and society of ancient Israel, and its relation to the larger culture of the ancient Near East. Student responsibilities include primary and secondary readings, attending lectures, full participation in discussion sections, a guided visit to the Oriental Institute museum, a short-essay final exam, and a final paper.
An extra discussion section is required; times to be determined the first week of the quarter.
PQ: Supporting course required of all M.A. / A.M.R.S. / M.DIV. students.
Ident. RLST 11005 / JWSC 20004
BIBL 33900 Introductory Biblical Hebrew I
Boyd, Samuel
M / W / F 8:00 – 8:50 S201
BIBL 35100 Elementary Koine Greek I
Duncan, Patricia
M / W / F 8:00 – 8:50 S208
BIBL 39900 Song of Songs I
Fishbane, Michael
Tue 9:00-11:50 S403
A close textual study of Song of Songs, focusing on language, style and imagery. Modern commentaries will be emphasized; we shall also refer to some Jewish medieval commentaries dealing with the plain-sense.
PQ: Knowledge of Hebrew
Ident. HIJD 40100BIBL 42201 The Gospel of John (Selections)
Klauk, Hans-Josef
M / W 9:00 – 11:00 S208
No Greek necessary; a special Greek session is incorporated into the course (10:20-11:00)
BIBL 43200 Colloquium: Ancient Christianity
Mitchell, Margaret
Wed 6:00-8:50 S403 *Note change in day, time, and location*
A critical reading of influential narratives – both ancient and modern – of “the rise of Christianity” in the first four centuries, in interaction with selected primary sources from antiquity illuminating crucial issues (e.g. demographics, conversion, persecution, martyrdom, asceticism, women’s participation, ecclesiological and ritual structures, intellectual lineages), personalities (e.g. Ignatius, Perpetua and Felicitas, Irenaeus, Antony, Eusebius, Constantine) and events. On-going reflection on the nature of historiography itself.
PQ: Greek and Latin are not required, but reading groups will be organized for those who have these skills.
Ident. HCHR 43200
BIBL 45602 Giving and Receiving
Fishbane, Michael
M 1:00-3:50 S200
Emphasis will be on care of the indigent. The focus will be textual (classical biblical and rabbinic sources, also some medieval legal codes), but will include comparative issues drawn from anthropology. The larger concern of this course will be on theological matters.
Ident. HIJD 45600
BIBL 46200 Prophetic Vision and Divine Visitation
Chavel, Simeon
M / W 10:00 – 11:20 S400
A reading course. Biblical prose narrative and poetic prophecy from the Torah, Former Prophets, Latter Prophets, and Daniel explicitly focused on the idea of looking at divinity. Students will: prepare about 20 verses ahead of every class, using standard critical tools; read aloud in class, translate, and lead analysis; write three short exploratory papers (3-5pp.) and one research paper (15-20pp.); and read additional, critical materials.
BIBL 53104 Seminar: Apollonius of Tyana and the New Testament
Klauk, Hans-Josef
M 1:00 – 3:50 PM S403
A good knowledge of Greek is necessary.
THEO 30200 History of Christian Thought II *
Otten, Willemien
Th 9:00 – 11:50 S106
This is the second course in the History of Christian Thought sequence dealing with the period from Late Antiquity until the end of the Early Middle Ages, stretching roughly from 450 through 1350. The following authors and themes will be analyzed and discussed:
- The transition from Roman antiquity to the medieval period: Boethius and Cassiodorus
- The rise of asceticism in the West: the Rule of St. Benedict and Gregory the Great
- Connecting East and West: Dionysius the Areopagite and John Scottus Eriugena
- Monastic and Scholastic paragons: Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard
- High-medieval monastic developments: Cistercians (Bernard of Clairvaux) and Victorines (Hugh and Richard of St. Victor), beguines (Hadewijch) and mendicants (Bonaventure)
- Scholastic synthesis and spiritual alternatives: Thomas Aquinas, Marguerite Porete and Eckhart
Ident. HCHR 30200
THEO 47200 Barth’s Dogmatics
Hector, Kevin
W 1:30 – 4:20 S403
This course will carefully consider a handful of key sections of Barth’s Dogmatics, including his treatment of natural theology, the Trinity, election, anthropology, ecclesiology, and Christology.
DVPR 31400 Introduction to Philosophy of Religions *
Arnold, Dan
T/Th 10:30 – 11:50 S201
DVPR 51990 Spiritual Exercises, Relations of Power, Practices of Freedom
Davidson, Arnold
T 1:30 – 4:20 ARR.
How do ethical and political practices create new spaces of freedom? What kinds of practices can effectively modify networks of power and provoke transformations in our relations to ourselves? What is the dynamic between freedom and resistance? What forms of disobedience/dissidence/counter-conduct are ethically and politically productive? These questions will be approached through philosophical, historical, literary, and musical analysis. Readings and music may come from Pierre Hadot, Michael Foucault, Stanley Cavell, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Primo Levi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Derek Bailey, George Lewis, and Ceil Taylor.
PQ: Limited enrollment: Students interested in taking for credit should attend 1st seminar before registering. Priority will be given to students who can read texts in French
Ident. HIJD 51990 / PHIL 51990 / CMLT 51990
AASR 30316 Simmel’s View of Life and Religion
Levine, Donald
W 1:30-4:20 S200
Georg Simmel’s testamentary masterwork, Lebensanschauung—The View of Life: Four Metaphysical Essays, was described as “the final conclusion of his wisdom . . . a cornucopia for all who understand how to receive that wisdom.” Summing his life-long engagement with Kant’s principle of “form” and Goethe’s “Life,” VIEW sought an integrated understanding of the genesis, structure, and transcendence of social and cultural forms and the sources of authentic individuality. Our close reading of this text will be supplemented by forays into other pertinent writings. In particular, we shall examine his rich corpus of writings on religion, which include essays on religion and art, religion and personality, the sociology of religion, and religion and modernity. In the course of exploring Simmel’s questions regarding forms of art, religion, self, and social experience, and how they can be interpreted from the “view of life” itself, students will have an opportunity to sit in on an international conference of scholars convened on campus to celebrate the first complete English translation if his long-neglected masterpiece.
Ident. SOCI 30316
AASR 32900 Classical Theories of Religions*
Wedemeyer, Christian
M/W 10:00-11:20 S106
This course will survey the development of theoretical perspectives on religion and religions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thinkers to be studied include: Kant, Hume, Schleiermacher, Marx, Muller, Tiele, Tylor, Robertson Smith, Frazer, Durkheim, Weber, Freid, James, Otto, van der Leeuw, Wach, and Eliade.
Ident. HREL 32900/ANTH 35005
AASR 41600 Interpretation of Ritual
Lincoln, Bruce
T/TH 9:00-10:20 S208
Ident. HREL 41600/ANTH 52500
AASR 50081 Seminar: Pragmatism and Religion
Joas, Hans T/TH 1:30-2:50 F505
The American philosopher William James is not only one of the founders of pragmatism, but also the inaugurator of a methodological revolution in the empirical study of religion, namely of an approach that deals with religion not so much as a set of doctrines or institutions, but as articulations of intense experiences of self-transcendence. Starting with James’s classical work “The Varieties of Religious Experience” of 1902, this class will also deal with the contributions of other pragmatist thinkers to the study of religion—ranging from classical authors (Peirce, Royce, Dewy) to contemporary thinkers (Putnam, Rorty, John Smith) and my own writings in this area.
Ident. SOCI 50081
AASR 50082 Seminar: Robert Bellah and the Historical-Comparative Sociology of Religion
Joas, Hans T/TH 9:00-10:20 F505
This summer the opus magnum of the greatest living sociologist of religion is being published (Robert Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution, Harvard University Press). Nobody since Max Weber has produced such an erudite and systematic comparative world history of religion in its earlier phases. One of the purposes of this class will be a close reading of this book. But this will also be a good opportunity to deal with some of Bellah’s earlier work (on religion and modernization in Japan, on civil religion, on the different versions of American individualism, on the theological sources of Bellah’s work, on his relationship to Weber, Durkheim and Parsons).
Ident. SOCI 50082
CHRM 30500 Colloquium: Introduction to Ministry Studies
Lindner, Cynthia / Boyd, Kevin
W 4:30 – 6:00 S400
PQ: First year M.Div. students only
CHRM 35600 Arts of Ministry: Preaching
Lindner, Cynthia
F 9:00 – 11:50 S400
PQ: Second year M.Div. students, others by permission of instructor
CHRM 40600 Practice of Ministry I
Boyd, Kevin
F 1:30 – 3:30 S400
PQ: Second year M.Div. students only
ISLM 30025 Introduction to Islamic Law
El Shamsy, Ahmed
M /W 1:30 – 2:50 ARR.
This course introduces students to the structure and central concepts of Islamic law, and explores its implementation in practice through its long history. The course pursues two parallel strands of inquiry. One weekly class meeting is dedicated to a close reading and discussion of primary legal texts in translation. In the second meeting, we trace the historical role of Islamic law in Muslin societies, beginning with the emergence of localized normative traditions and ending with a consideration of the nature of Islamic law in the modern globalized world. All readings in English.
Ident. NEHC 20025/30025
ISLM 30386 Early Islamic Historiography
Donner, Fred
M /W 1:30 – 2:50 OR 210.
Instructs students in analysis of early Islamic historical traditions, including hadith.
PQ: 2 years Arabic or NEHC 20501 or equivalent or instructor’s permission
Ident. ARAB 30386
ISLM 30500 Islamic History and Society 1: Rise of Islam and the Caliphate
Donner, Fred
M /W 10:30 – 11:20 ARR.
Surveys the history of the Near East from Islam’s origins in the early sixth century CE until roughly the middle of the eleventh century CE, including the life of the prophet Muhammad, early expansion of the Islamic state, the civil wars, caliphates of the Umayyads and Abbasids, development of the main religio-political groupings (Khawarij, Shi’is, Sunnis), the evolution of statecraft, and other themes.
With additional Friday discussion sections
Ident. NEHC 20501/30501
ISLM 30601 Islamic Thought and Literatue-1
Qutbuddin, Tahera
M/W/F 10:30-11:20 ARR
This course covers the period from ca. 600 to 1100, concentrating on the career of the Prophet Muhammad; Qur’an and Hadith; the Caliphate; the development of Islamic legal, theological, philosophical, and mystical discourses; sectarian movements; and Arabic literature.
Ident. NEHC 20601/30601
ISLM 35500 Religious Deviation in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies
Fierro, Maribel
Tu 3:00-5:50 S208
There was no part of pre-modern life that religion did not touch, and none therefore that did not touch religion. The adoption of heresy and the imputation of heresy to others were statements about communal membership, about exclusion or marginalization from the community. Both in the abodes of Islam and Christendom, there were coherent and comprehensive bodies of religious teachings, ways and organizations to propagate them and a theory of coercion to maintain them. There were, at the same time, substantial differences in the ways those teachings were preserved, propagated and protected. How was correct belief and practice determined in pre-modern Islamic societies? How was religious deviation dealt with, especially when seen as a political threat? Who were those who made accusations of heresy or religious innovations and who were those accused of being heretics and innovators? Why were such accusations made? These questions will be addressed by analyzing specific cases.
NB: Open to advanced College students.
Ident. NEHC 20675/30675ISLM 45402 Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Late Medieval Spain
Nirenberg, David
F 1:30-4:20pm Foster 505
This course will focus on the contexts and conditions of religious pluralism in late medieval Iberia, including the period commonly associated with the collapse of that pluralism (from the massacre and forced conversion of Jews in 1391 to the conquest of Granada in 1492 and the forced conversions of Muslims shortly thereafter). We will draw on literary and art-historical as well as historical sources and methodologies in order to explore the cultural, theological, and social work to which religious difference was put in "Spain of the three religions."
Ident. SCTH 45402/HIJD 45402/HCHR 45402
ISLM 50100 Seminar in the Writing of Ibn al-'Arabi
Sells, Michael
Th 1:30-4:20 S214
This quarter, we will read several lyric poems, selection from Fusus al-Hikam (Bezels of Wisdom), and the treatise al-Ittihad al-Kawni also known as "The Universal Tree and the Four Birds." Special attention will be given to the role of the Qur'anic Moses in the writing, thought, and expression of Ibn al-'Arabi. Class sessions are devoted to close reading, translation, and discussion of the Arabic text. Prerequisite: two years of Arabic or the equivalent.
Ident ARAB 30663
HIJD 40100 Song of Songs I
Fishbane, Michael
Tue 9:00-11:50 S403
A close textual study of Song of Songs, focusing on language, style and imagery. Modern commentaries will be emphasized; we shall also refer to some Jewish medieval commentaries dealing with the plain-sense.
PQ: Knowledge of Hebrew
Ident. BIBL 39900HIJD 45402 Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Late Medieval Spain
Nirenberg, David
F 1:30-4:20pm Foster 505
This course will focus on the contexts and conditions of religious pluralism in late medieval Iberia, including the period commonly associated with the collapse of that pluralism (from the massacre and forced conversion of Jews in 1391 to the conquest of Granada in 1492 and the forced conversions of Muslims shortly thereafter). We will draw on literary and art-historical as well as historical sources and methodologies in order to explore the cultural, theological, and social work to which religious difference was put in "Spain of the three religions."
Ident. SCTH 45402/HCHR 45402/ISLM 45402
HIJD 45600 Giving and Receiving
Fishbane, Michael
M 1:00-3:50 S200
Emphasis will be on care of the indigent. The focus will be textual (classical biblical and rabbinic sources, also some medieval legal codes), but will include comparative issues drawn from anthropology. The larger concern of this course will be on theological matters.
Ident. BIBL 45602
HIJD 47200 Modern Jewish Intellectual History
Mendes-Flohr, Paul
W 6:00-8:50 p.m. S200
In broad strokes we will trace the trajectory of modern Jewish religious thought from an apologetic accommodation to the regnant philosophy and secular sensibilities – a tendency that characterized eighteenth and nineteenth century Jewish thought – to an affirmation of Jewish theological discourse as a mode of theo-centric reflection – a tendency that increasingly marks Jewish thought since the early twentieth century.
In our deliberations we will pursue a systematic historical review of writings of the major figures of modern Jewish thought, from Barukh (Bendictus) Spinoza and Moses Mendelsshon to Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, and latter twentieth century thinkers such as Arthur A. Cohen, Emil Fackenheim, Mordecai Kaplan, Yeshajahu Leibowitz, Emmanuel Levinas, Joseph Dov Soloveitchik, and representative Feminist voices.
HIJD 48410 The Theological Writings of Franz Rosenzweig
Mendes-Flohr, Paul
TH 3:00-5:50 S403
The course will be organized around three central concepts of Franz Rosenzweig’s philosophical theology: Creation, Revelation, and Redemption. The readings will be drawn principally from his magnus opus, Star of Redemption, his notes to the poetry of Judah Ha-Levy, his essays on the Hebrew Bible, and correspondence with Eugen Huessy-Rosenstock on Judaism and Christianity.
HIJD 51990 Spiritual Exercises, Relations of Power, Practices of Freedom
Davidson, Arnold
T 1:30 – 4:20 ARR.
How do ethical and political practices create new spaces of freedom? What kinds of practices can effectively modify networks of power and provoke transformations in our relations to ourselves? What is the dynamic between freedom and resistance? What forms of disobedience/dissidence/counter-conduct are ethically and politically productive? These questions will be approached through philosophical, historical, literary, and musical analysis. Readings and music may come from Pierre Hadot, Michael Foucault, Stanley Cavell, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Primo Levi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Derek Bailey, George Lewis, and Ceil Taylor.
PQ: Limited enrollment: Students interested in taking for credit should attend 1st seminar before registering. Priority will be given to students who can read texts in French
Ident. DVPR 51990 / PHIL 51990 / CMLT 51990
HCHR 30200 History of Christian Thought II *
Otten, Willemien
Th 9:00 – 11:50 S106
This is the second course in the History of Christian Thought sequence dealing with the period from Late Antiquity until the end of the Early Middle Ages, stretching roughly from 450 through 1350. The following authors and themes will be analyzed and discussed:
- The transition from Roman antiquity to the medieval period: Boethius and Cassiodorus
- The rise of asceticism in the West: the Rule of St. Benedict and Gregory the Great
- Connecting East and West: Dionysius the Areopagite and John Scottus Eriugena
- Monastic and Scholastic paragons: Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard
- High-medieval monastic developments: Cistercians (Bernard of Clairvaux) and Victorines (Hugh and Richard of St. Victor), beguines (Hadewijch) and mendicants (Bonaventure)
- Scholastic synthesis and spiritual alternatives: Thomas Aquinas, Marguerite Porete and Eckhart
Ident. THEO 30200
HCHR 42901 Christianity and Slavery in America 1619 – 1865
Evans, Curtis
W 6:00-8:50 p.m. S208
This course examines the history of Christian thought and practice in respect to slavery in the United States. Particular attention is paid to Christian missions to slaves, slave acceptance of and resistance to Christianity, debates over abolition, the Christian proslavery defense, and the practice and evolution of slave religion.
HCHR 43200 Colloquium: Ancient Christianity
Mitchell, Margaret
Wed 6:00-8:50 S403 *Note change in day, time, and location*
A critical reading of influential narratives – both ancient and modern – of “the rise of Christianity” in the first four centuries, in interaction with selected primary sources from antiquity illuminating crucial issues (e.g. demographics, conversion, persecution, martyrdom, asceticism, women’s participation, ecclesiological and ritual structures, intellectual lineages), personalities (e.g. Ignatius, Perpetua and Felicitas, Irenaeus, Antony, Eusebius, Constantine) and events. On-going reflection on the nature of historiography itself.
PQ: Greek and Latin are not required, but reading groups will be organized for those who have these skills.
Ident. BIBL 43200
HCHR 43600 Religion in 20th Century America
Evans, Curtis
T/Th 1:30 – 2:50 S 201
This class is a general history of religion in America, especially developments from the 1920s to the late 20th century. Special emphasis is placed on immigration, religious diversity, and the changing social and public dimensions of religion in America. WE alternate between major secondary books and crucial primary texts.
HCHR 45402 Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Late Medieval Spain
Nirenberg, David
F 1:30-4:20pm Foster 505
This course will focus on the contexts and conditions of religious pluralism in late medieval Iberia, including the period commonly associated with the collapse of that pluralism (from the massacre and forced conversion of Jews in 1391 to the conquest of Granada in 1492 and the forced conversions of Muslims shortly thereafter). We will draw on literary and art-historical as well as historical sources and methodologies in order to explore the cultural, theological, and social work to which religious difference was put in "Spain of the three religions."
Ident. SCTH 45402/HIJD 45402/ISLM 45402
HCHR 48801 The Multidisciplinary Study of American Culture
Slauter, Eric TH 9:00-11:50 RO 405
The Scherer Center Seminar. This seminar surveys the rich and varied multidisciplinary study of American culture as it is currently practiced at the University of Chicago. Seminar members read and discuss together recent books by scholars who teach in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, the Divinity School, the Law School and the Booth School of Business. Though interested in the way in which members of different departments and disciplines frame questions and problems, we will also be attuned to convergences in themes, approaches, and methods. During the last half of our seminar meetings the authors of our readings will join us for a discussion of their work and their fields.
Ident. RLIT 48801/ENGL 55405
HCHR 51103 Seminar: Medieval Biblical Exegesis 1
Fulton, Rachel
W 1:30 – 4:20 ARR.
The purpose of this course is to problematize the study of medieval Biblical exegesis both historiographically and theoretically. Primary readings will include works of patristic, medieval and early modern Christian scriptural interpretation (Ambrose, Augustine, Cassiodorus, Gregory the Great, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of St. Victor, Calvin) while scholarly discussions will range from efforts to situate the work of exegesis within its institutional and methodological contexts to contemporary reading of Scripture intended as works of cultural production and critique (Smalley, de Lubac, Ohly, Frye, Scarry, Auerbach, Ricoeur, Morrison, Kort). Particular attention will be given to the interplay between the reading of Scripture and its experience as prayer (above all, through Psalms), with glances at the importance at the importance of Scripture for the liturgical arts. Students taking the course for seminar credit will be expected to prepare a research proposal by the end of the first quarter. In the second quarter, we will focus on topics that arise from the research and writing of the seminar paper.
Ident. HIST 81103
HREL 32900 Classical Theories of Religions *
Wedemeyer, Christian
M/W 10:00 – 11:20 S106
This course will survey the development of theoretical perspectives on religion and religions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thinkers to be studied include: Kant, Hume, Schleiermacher, Marx, Muller, Tiele, Tylor, Robertson Smith, Frazer, Durkheim, Weber, Freud, James, Otto, van der Leeuw, Wach, and Eliade.
Ident. AASR 32900 / ANTH 35005
HREL 34110 Buddhism and the West
Ketelaar, James and Copp, Paul
Th 1:30 – 4:20 ARR.
Buddhism is a transnational phenomenon and as such can be found in a vast array of cultures and times. This course, focusing on East Asian Buddhism, looks at Buddhist history in China, Korea, and Japan, and the interpretation and reception of these traditions by and in “the West.”
Topics to be discussed include, but are not limited to, orientalism, occidentalism, esoteric exoteric traditions, Chan/Son/Zen, problems of translation, the roles of culture, history, nation and nationalism in religion, etcetera.
Ident. HIST 24110 / 34110
HREL 41600 Interpretation of Ritual
Lincoln, Bruce
T/Th 9:00 – 10:20 S208
Ident. AASR 41600 / ANTH 52500
HREL 44402 Mahayana Sutra Literature
Wedemeyer, Christian
Th 1:00 – 3:50 S400
In the period ca. 100 BCE-700 CE, the Buddhist traditions saw a tremendous surge in scriptural production and a new focus on textuality. Much of this new literature centered around the notion that one might aspire to the position of a cosmic world-teacher (buddha), rather than “merely” an enlightened saint. Gradually, as this new orientation spawned novel forms of religious thought and praxis, a self-conscious movement began to take shape which eventually came to be known as the Mahayana or “Universal Way.” In this course, we will explore the development of these traditions through close reading of several of its major scriptures (sutra-s) in translation.
PQ: HREL 35100 / SALC 48306 or other background in Indian Buddhism preferred.
Ident. SALC 48315
HREL 45501 Space, Time, Self and Other in Ancient Empires I
Lincoln, Bruce and Ando, Clifford
T/Th 1:30 – 2:50 CL21
Ident. CLAS 45911
RLIT 35411 Figures of the Sublime
Luedemann, Susanne
Tu 1:30-4:20 WB 206
This seminar will consider theoretical figures of the sublime from Longinus to Jean-Francois Lyotard and their incorporation in literary texts and painting. Readings will include aesthetic writings by Longinus, Shaftesbury, Edmund Burke, Kant, Schiller, Kleist, Stifter, Freud, Lyotard, Hans Blumenberg, and others. Special attention will be directed to the renaissance of the sublime in the 20th century, and to the question of whether the aesthetic sublime has a political counterpart. The course is designed for graduate students of all levels. All readings and discussion will be in English.
Ident. GRMN 35411/CMLT 35411/ARTH 35411
RLIT 41401 Theory of Criticism: 16th – 19th Centuries
Rosengarten, Richard
Th 1:30-4:20 S208
This course surveys the major interpretive modes that emerged in these centuries: the historical-critical study of the Bible, the emergence of the figure of the literary critic or “man of letters,” and the denomination of aesthetics as an articulated, independent mode of inquiry. The course will focus on major texts in each mode: by Wellhausen and Schweitzer, by Johnson and Arnold, and by Lessing and Kant. There will be shorter, supplementary reading distributed in class.
RLIT 43901 Religion, Modernity & the Novel I: Classic Texts
Rosengarten, Richard
M/W 9:00-10:50 S201
In this course, we study novels that represent decisive and original innovations in the genre’s form in the modern period: Cervantes’ Don Quixote; Richardson’s Pamela; Flaubert’s Madame Bovary; and a troika of shorter fictions from the earlier twentieth century: Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Kafka’s The Trial, and Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. We will engage in close reading of each novel’s embodiment of a new style for the genre (picaresque, epistolary, realist, stream-of-consciousness) and examine ways in which each engages religion both textually and contextually. This juxtaposition of form and history will afford us a particularly useful comparative matrix; each of these novels elicited condemnation upon its appearance, at least two were the objects of legal dispute regarding publication and distribution, and each of the authors actively sought to exert control over public reception of the work. We will consider whether the modern novel engenders a distinctive religious discourse that affords a window into the history of religion in modernity.
NB: This course meets for an additional thirty minutes on both days.
This is the first of a two-course sequence; the second course will be offered in winter quarter 2012.
RLIT 48801 The Multidisciplinary Study of American Culture
Slauter, Eric TH 9:00-11:50 RO 405
The Scherer Center Seminar. This seminar surveys the rich and varied multidisciplinary study of American culture as it is currently practiced at the University of Chicago. Seminar members read and discuss together recent books by scholars who teach in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, the Divinity School, the Law School and the Booth School of Business. Though interested in the way in which members of different departments and disciplines frame questions and problems, we will also be attuned to convergences in themes, approaches, and methods. During the last half of our seminar meetings the authors of our readings will join us for a discussion of their work and their fields.
Ident. HCHR 48801/ENGL 55405
RLIT 48900 Vision and Communism
Bird, Robert & Jackson, Matthew Jesse
W 1:30-4:20 JRL 207
From its very genesis the Soviet Union confronted contemporaries as a vibrant and inventive media spectacle, encompassing poetry and drama, radio and cinema, posters and painting, music and dance. Most of all, however, the Soviet project presented itself in visual terms, as vision of a profoundly new sort. To be Soviet was to see and to be seen in a profoundly new way. Soviet visual culture drew tremendous energy from the very impossibility of its task, devising dialectical strategies – from collage and montage to conceptual sots-art – of making communism available to vision. Our course will investigate a selection of these strategies by focusing on a limited set of significant works, mainly of graphic art and cinema, from the 1920s to the 1970s.
Ident. CDIN 48922
RETH 33500 Introduction to Ethical Theories *
Gamwell, Franklin
T/Th 9:00 – 10:20 S201
An introduction to major alternatives in Western philosophical ethics and especially to the ethical theories of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kant.
RETH 51700 Contemporary Virtue Ethics
Nussbaum, Martha
T 3:00 – 5:40 S201
This graduate seminar will study the revival of a neo-Aristotelian ethics of virtue in contemporary moral philosophy, considering, among others, Iris Murdoch, John McDowell, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, and Alasdair MacIntyre. Is virtue ethics a single movement, with a single set of philosophical motivations and normative commitments, or is it a complicated plurality of positions, motivations, and debates? What is the relationship of virtue ethics to the idea of ethical theory? To the aspiration to put reason in charge of human life? Is virtue ethics inherently conservative, deferring to socially formed passions and patterns of conduct, or is (some form of) it capable of radical criticism of entrenched social norms, e.g. of class, race, and gender?
A prerequisite for this course is a solid background in philosophy, comparable to that which would get someone admitted to our graduate program. (For example, a law student with an undergraduate major in philosophy would be a strong contender.) People who are not from the Philosophy Ph.D. program should apply directly to me for permission by September 15.
We will be alluding to the Greeks throughout, so some background in ancient Greek ethics, particularly Aristotle, is highly desired.
Ident. PLSC 52110 / PHIL 51515 / GNDR 51700 / LAWS 99202
RETH 51301 Seminar: Law-Philosophy Workshop
Nussbaum, Martha
M 4:00 – 6:00 LAW
This is a seminar/workshop most of whose participants are faculty from various area institutions. It admits approximately ten students by permission of the instructors. Its aim is to study, each year, a topic that arises in both philosophy and the law and to ask how bringing the two fields together may yield mutual illumination. There are twelve meetings throughout the year, always on Mondays from 4:00-6:00 p.m. Half of the sessions are led by local faculty, half by visiting speakers. The leader assigns readings for the session (which may be by that person, by other contemporaries, or by major historical figures), and the session consists of a brief introduction by the leader, followed by structured questioning by the two faculty coordinators, followed by general discussion. Students write a 20-25 page seminar paper at the end of the year. Past themes have included: practical reason; equality; privacy; autonomy; global justice; pluralism and toleration; war; sexuality and family. The 2011-12 theme is global justice. Schedule: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/workshops/lawandphilosophy.
Students are admitted by permission of the instructors. They should submit a c.v. and a statement (reasons for interest in the course, relevant background in law and/or philosophy) to the instructors by e-mail. Usual participants include graduate students in philosophy, political science, and divinity, and law students.
Ident. LAWS 61512 / PHIL 51200/PLSC 51301
