Tag Archives: Socratic Method

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 →

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 →

Tragedy and Comedy of Shakespeare: Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice

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COURSES > LIFELONG

As perhaps the greatest dramatist in the English language, Shakespeare was noted for both his tragedies (plays with unhappy endings) and his comedies (plays with happy endings. In this course we will carefully read and discuss one of each in an effort to understand each play in its own right as well as what made Shakespeare “Shakespeare” in general. The tragedy selection will be Hamlet (perhaps one of Shakespeare’s best-known plays) and The Merchant of Venice (perhaps one of his most misunderstood ones). No prior experience of any kind is required. Continue reading →

Shakespeare and His Others: Comparisons across Time and Space

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COURSES > LIFELONG [→ ONLINE ARCHIVE MATERIAL]

Reading Shakespeare’s plays in the context of similar plays by other great (and not-so-great) playwrights allows one to better appreciate the genius of both Shakespeare and his “others”.  In this course we will look at four pairs of plays in order to examine the similarities and differences in each pairing as we seek to understand the plays themselves in particular and “Shakespeare” in general.  After beginning with The Merchant of Venice and the contemporaneous The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe, we will consider Romeo and Juliet in conjunction with Nizami’s rendering of the medieval Arabian/Persian love story of Layla and Majnun and Antony and Cleopatra in conjunction with Kalidasa’s medieval Indian play The Recognition of Sakuntala.  We will conclude with a close reading of Hamlet alongside Tom Stoppard’s modern Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Continue reading →

Co-Evolution of Christianity and (Rabbinic) Judaism

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COURSES > LIFELONG

Although “Christianity” is often thought of as a younger religion than “Judaism”, Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity actually co-evolved from a common Second Temple starting point and thus stand to one another as “sisters” rather than as “mother-and-daughter”.  This course will trace the parallel development of these two Abrahamic religions through an examination of a selection of primary and secondary texts in order to better understand each in its own right and in relation to the other, as well as their relationship to their common precursor.  No prior knowledge or experience of any kind is required. Continue reading →