Category Archives: Courses

One-Day New Testament

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COURSES > LIFELONG [→ ONLINE ARCHIVE MATERIAL]

This seminar is an opportunity to consider the New Testament in a relaxed yet focused environment. What exactly is this work and where did it come from? Who wrote it? What are the main ideas contained in it? This one-day course will discuss these and other questions through a hands-on introduction to, and an overview of, one of the cornerstones of Western civilization and the “Abrahamic religions.” No prior knowledge or experience of any kind is required, although completion of the advance readings is expected. The reading assignment will be posted online at least one month before the seminar date. Continue reading →

“The Holy Trible”: Coordinated Readings from the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur’an

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COURSES > LIFELONG | COURSES > ONLINE [→ ONLINE ARCHIVE MATERIAL]

From a literary perspective, the Hebrew Bible, New Testament and Qur’an constitute an “Abrahamic scriptural trilogy” in which the later works build upon — and depend upon — the earlier works. Yet, although the paired “Old and New Testaments” are often read together (as “The Holy Bible”), the trilogy as a whole (which might be termed “The Holy Trible”) rarely is. This course will be devoted to the close reading and literary analysis of coordinated selections from all three of the major Abrahamic scriptures in an effort to better understand each of the works in its own right and in its relationships to the other two as well as the “Abrahamic scriptural trilogy” as a whole. No prior knowledge or experience of any kind is required. All readings and discussions will be in English. Continue reading →

An Introduction to Sigmund Freud

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COURSES > LIFELONG

As one of the great turn-of-the-century thinkers, Sigmund Freud’s development of psychoanalytic theory and practice forever changed the way people – even people who disagreed with him – looked at the human mind.  This course will provide an introduction to Freud’s life and views through a careful reading and discussion of three of his works: An Autobiographical Study, The Interpretation of Dreams (selections), and Moses and Monotheism.  No prior experience of any kind is required. Continue reading →

African-American Classics

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COURSES > LIFELONG | COURSES > ONLINE [→ ONLINE ARCHIVE MATERIAL]

Although issues of race and slavery have long been a prominent subject of American writing, the classic works of African-American authors are often unknown beyond the African-American community. This course will examine a selection of such classics in order to understand the works themselves, the canon of which they form a part and their relationship to comparable Euro-American works. Texts will include: David Walker’s Appeal, Frederick Douglass’s autobiographical Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery, W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk, and more. Continue reading →

Books That Didn’t Make It into the Bible

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COURSES > UNDERGRADUATE

Although many people think of the Bible as containing all of the sacred literature of the Judeo-Christian tradition, many books of “scripture” that could have been included in the Hebrew Bible or New Testament were left out by the committees that put those anthologies together. In this seminar course we will examine a selection of such “lost” books (drawing from the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library) in order to better understand what was left out of the Bible as well as what was kept in and why. Students will be responsible for doing close, thoughtful reading of each assignment and actively participating in each class discussion. In addition, students will be asked to write several papers and to make a presentation related to the themes of the course. The second essay is to be revised based on class and instructor feedback. Continue reading →

Introduction to Critical Thinking

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COURSES > UNDERGRADUATE

This course is designed to provide an informal introduction to critical thinking.  After an initial consideration of the nature of “argument”, we will work to develop our abilities to (a) understand and analyze arguments put forward by others, (b) formulate and express arguments of their own, and (c) evaluate competing arguments on a given subject.  To pursue these goals we will use two modern “how-to” books to help us read, discuss, and write about the arguments contained in three dialogues of Plato. Continue reading →

Book of Job and the Invention of Faith

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COURSES > CONGREGATION [→ ONLINE ARCHIVE MATERIAL]

This course will explore how the Book of Job transforms the Hebrew Bible’s concept of God (from a large-but-finite and explicable deity to an infinite and fundamentally inexplicable one) and therefore, the proper behavior of both humans and God in the relationship they share and the possibility of a covenant between them. Continue reading →

Introduction to Ethics

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COURSES > UNDERGRADUATE [→ ONLINE ARCHIVE MATERIAL]

This course is designed both to introduce students to some of the major texts of the Western philosophical tradition and to help students develop their critical thinking skills, including the ability to understand, assess and formulate logical arguments.  To pursue these goals we will read, discuss and write about a number of classical ethical systems, both ancient and modern. Continue reading →

Why They Hate Us: Cinematic Visions of ‘The Other Side’

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COURSES > LIFELONG [→ ONLINE ARCHIVE MATERIAL]

“O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!”
– Robert Burns, “To a Louse” (1786)

Since September 11, one of the pressing questions of our time has been: why do “they” (Arabs? Muslims? Terrorists?) hate “us” (America? The West? Infidels?). Is it because they hate our freedoms? Or because they want to share our freedoms and hate our policies? Or something else? Through a careful consideration of 6 films (some made by “us”, some made by “them”) supplemented by selected readings (including al Qaeda communiqués), we will seek, in Robert Burns’s words, “to see oursels as ithers see us”. Continue reading →

Icons of the Abrahamic Religions

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COURSES > UNDERGRADUATE

At the head of each of the “Abrahamic Religions” is an iconic founder-figure who is believed to be connected with the distinctive scripture of that faith: Moses and the Torah for Judaism, Jesus and the Gospels for Christianity and Muhammad and the Quran for Islam.  This course will examine the historical facts (insofar as they can be determined) of the lives of these founder-figures, some of the various “mythologies” that each tradition has constructed both of its own founder-figure and the other founder-figures, and the history, structure and content of the scriptures (both canonical and non-canonical) associated with each founder-figure.  Using select secondary sources as a guide, the course will center on a close reading of selections from the three scriptures and their associated literatures and culminate with a reading of Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s Children of the Alley (1959). Continue reading →