Spring 2022 Course Descriptions
Great Texts Upper-Level Courses - Spring 2022
Early Modern Age (GTX 3321)
Dr. William Weaver – TR 12:30 – 1:45 PM
The early modern age was an age of literary as well as scientific discovery. Erasmus and Marguerite de Navarre were champions of the “new learning,” which represented a new approach to both sacred and secular texts. Shakespeare wrote for an institution – the London public theater – that was only three decades old when King Lear was first performed. Cervantes, a failed playwright, arguably invented the novel with Don Quixote. Everybody on the syllabus, it seems, was pursuing “things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme” (Paradise Lost 1.16). What questions about the self and its place in the world were driving these literary endeavors?
Great Texts by Women (GTX 3330)
Dr. Lynn Hinojosa, TR 11:00 - 12:15
In this course we will read texts from across the centuries written by women. We will focus on how these women writers interpreted, questioned, and contributed ideas within four often overlapping realms: the intellectual tradition and the concept of virtue; the church and the pursuit of holiness; art and the concept of beauty; and politics and the gender norms of society. Texts will include: Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Catherine of Siena’s Dialogues, Simone Weil’s Gravity and Grace, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, and world poetry by various contemporary female poets.
Masterworks in Art (GTX 3340)
Dr. Elizabeth Corey – TR 9:30 – 10:45
A survey of selected (mostly Western) masterworks of art: painting, sculpture, and architecture—from the Renaissance to the more personalistic art of late 20th C North America and Europe.
Masterworks in Drama (GTX 3341)
David Jortner – MWF 11:15 – 12:05
The nature and function of dramatic literature, in both cultural and theatrical history, are hotly debated. Is drama merely a blueprint for theatrical practice, an art form in its own right, or a hybridization of the two? What is the role of philosophy, art, literature, and cultural studies in writing and analyzing drama? How do we, as artists, scholars, and critics, discern artistic and literary value? We will wrestle with these questions (and others) throughout the semester. This class involves a survey and analysis of some of the most important works of dramatic literature in our intellectual tradition; as such, we should have vibrant class discussions about issues such as the role of theatre and art in society, the value of literature, and the understanding and adaptation of drama for the stage. Students should gain a better understanding of how to interpret and understand drama, but with a renewed sense of their own critical faculties and reasons for their aesthetic preferences.
Great Texts in the Twentieth Century (GTX 4321)
Dr. Alan Jacobs – TR 2:00 – 3:15
The twentieth century was the most momentous and traumatic century in recorded history. Social and technological change accelerated at a stunning rate, and the rise of totalitarian regimes led to unprecedented human suffering. Yet in the midst of it all, some people found hope. Through literature, philosophy, and theology, we will explore both the suffering and the hope.
Masterworks in Theology: Biblical Interpretation Through the Centuries (GTX 4332)
Dr. Barry Harvey, MW 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Throughout Christian history the interpretation of the Bible has formed the core of theological reflection in conversation with philosophy and literature. Scripture itself, specifically the New Testament, is in large part an interpretation of the Old Testament. We shall study texts dealing with the exegesis of the Bible from Scripture itself to signature works in the 20th century. In addition to the Bible, the authors we shall study will be selected from such names as Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Albert Schweitzer, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gustavo Gutierrez, and James Cone.
Masterworks in Music (GTX 4340)
Dr. David Corey – TR 12:30 – 1:45
Masterworks in Music is a more or less chronological survey of the finest pieces of Western classical music from antiquity to the present. This is done with attention to regional difference of style as well as an abiding concern over the fundamental philosophical questions raised by music: What is music? What makes some music good and other music terrible? What accounts for taste?
Great Texts in Modern Science (GTX 4341)
Dr. Eric Martin – MW 4:00 – 5:15
Science is indisputably a central facet of modernity; this class will equip students with the analytical tools needed to better understand the sciences, their history, and their role in society. Students will learn the foundational content and context of several lineages of natural sciences through engagement with primary texts from Darwin, Huxley, Freud, Watson and Crick, Gould, Carson, and others. This will provide students familiarity with multiple aspects of modern sciences and will set the stage for the latter part of the class, which involves theoretical reflection on the nature of those sciences more generally. What is the nature of scientific progress? Do natural sciences provide any sort of unified or coherent world picture? What is the role of human beings in that picture, and what are the possibilities for religious belief, free will, or ethical commitment? Is there a particular scientific method, or a multiplicity of ways of knowing about the world?
Great Texts Capstone (GTX 4343)
Dr. Melinda Nielsen – TR 3:30 – 4:45
“The world is full of gods,” pre-Socratic philosopher Thales declared (at least according to Aristotle). If so, what does it mean for humans to live “naturally” in such a world? In what ways does the natural world—the world of senses, sight, words, and reason—mediate the supernatural world? How can we use these natural goods to perceive the supernatural more clearly? This course will focus on two closely related areas in which creaturely activity stretches toward and falls short of the divine: human rationality and human language. In particular, what roles do wonder, rhetoric, myth, and poetry play in living a free and fully human life in a supernaturally inflected cosmos? Readings will include Plato’s Phaedrus, Augustine’s On Christian Teaching, Newman’s The Idea of the University, Shakespeare’s Tempest, Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poetry, Tolkien’s Silmarillion, and will conclude with C. S. Lewis’s “modern fairy-story,” That Hideous Strength.