Description

This course is about religion, psychology, and the moral life.  It focuses on the quality of our loves, fears, hatreds, and regrets; our sense of responsibility to ourselves and others; our (anxious) awareness that we are limited in body and time; and our attempt to craft a narrative of self-understanding.  In this way we will examine questions of self-knowledge, religious experience, and the moral quality of the emotions.

We will ask, Is religion a source of psychic health, or an obstacle to it?  What sorts of problems is religion meant to cure?  What problems do religious beliefs create?  How does religion bear on the self's loves, its past, its mortality, its doubts?  We will also look at concrete actions, cultural practices, and religious institutions.  Along the way we’ll ask whether it is possible to want to do evil, whether it is possible to love or grieve too much, what is meant by purity of heart, and whether we ought to love the dead.  To focus our discussions, on occasion we’ll look at relationships with mothers and fathers, the emergence of mega-churches in the USA, eating ethnic fast food, and wearing “authentic NBA apparel.” 

We will study these questions and cases through the works of Augustine, Søren Kierkegaard, and Sigmund Freud.  These authors examined how the self can be a problem to itself.  They were strong poets of self-analysis who turned to religion to provide either a cure for or an explanation of the self's internal woes.  Equally important, they believed that the path to truth was taken through self-examination.  What we find as they take us along that path will be a central topic of this course.  These authors also saw their ideas as having broader implications for cultural and social criticism.  Their brilliant efforts to study the self’s longings, pathologies, cultural influences, and religious practices will be the focus of our readings and discussions.

Format

In the first session I will lay out basic questions about the course and our authors.  Thereafter  each class will mix lecture and discussion.  You will receive a "pump priming" question in advance of most class sessions via email to spark discussion and to inform your reading for that session.  It is vital for each meeting to keep pace with the reading assignments.  This is not a traditional lecture course.  To insure that everyone is prepared for discussion, occasional, unannounced quizzes may be required

Requirements

There will be 3 five-to-seven page papers (double-spaced, typed) on suggested topics, worth 20% each.  I encourage you to develop your paper topics in consultation with me.  The due dates for these papers are listed on the course schedule below.  Late papers are penalized 2 grade for each day late.  Attendance and participation are worth 25%.  There will also be a final (comprehensive) exam, worth 10%.

In addition, each student is required to make at least one office visit before spring break.   That way I can get to know you and your interests, and answer questions that you have about course material.  This requirement counts for 5%.  My office hours are posted at the top of the first page of this syllabus.

Attendance policy: Only excused, documented absences are acceptable.  If you have 4 or more unexcused absences, you cannot score higher than a B in this class; 6 or more, no higher than a C; 8 or more, no higher than a D; 10 or more, no higher than an F. 

Summary:

Texts

Augustine, Confessions

Augustine, The City of God

Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (Hong, Princeton Univ. ed.)

Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing

Kierkegaard, A Literary Review

Kierkegaard, Works of Love

Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality

Freud, The Ego and the Id

Freud, The Future of an Illusion

Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

Note on the syllabus two additional assignments from Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, on e-reserve.  Also: It is highly recommended that you read the book of Genesis, chaps. 1-4 and chap. 22, and Luke 15:11-31.  Consider reading these materials a requirement if you are not familiar with them.   

Schedule

Apr. 3 Three Essays, chaps. 1, 2

Apr. 5 Three Essays, chap. 3

Apr. 10 Ego and Id, chaps. 1-3

Apr. 12 Ego and Id, chaps. 4-5, appendix A and B

Apr. 17 Future of an Illusion, chaps. 1-5

Apr. 19 Future of an Illusion, chaps. 6-10

Apr. 24 Civilization and Its Discontents, chaps. 2-4

Apr. 26 Civilization and Its Discontents, chaps. 5-8

Apr. 27: Third paper due 5pm in Sycamore 230

Final Exam: Date and time TBA

(Note: No make-up exams except for illness, which must be documented by a physician.)