7:00-9:30      TR	BH 018

Meets with ENG L461 and REL R410
FIRST EIGHT WEEKS
**Carries Cultural Studies**

An intensive eight-week exploration of the difference between
"justice" and its partial embodiments,  morality and law, as presented
in the biblical book of Job and subsequent texts in the Job tradition.
We shall be looking at different models of justice (e.g., retributive
versus distributive), at suffering as a criterion of righteousness,
and at the competing claims of ethics and aesthetics.  This will be a
course in interpretation at the boundaries of language, and thus in
the inevitability of falling short.

The first month will be devoted to a close reading of the text of
Job–called by Tennyson "the greatest poem of ancient and modern
times"--with attention to its cultural context (including biblical and
ancient Near Eastern parallels) and to the rich tradition of biblical
commentary, ancient and modern.  In the second month, we shall be
focusing on a set of modern works--most notably King Lear, the
drawings of Blake, and Kafka's The Trial (along with lighter fare,
from Archibald MacLeish to legal theory)--which effectively
reconfigure the biblical questions and paradoxes.

No specialized knowledge or previous study of the Bible is required.
Students will write a brief passage of biblical commentary (due at the
end of the fourth week) and a final paper.