HUMSC 101 Great Dialogues: Reflection and Action
What is the relationship between thinking and action? Do they pull us in different directions? Can they be integrated? This course investigates how our own dialogue with core texts, from antiquity (e.g., Homer, Plato, Christian Scriptures) to the present (e.g., Joyce, Arendt), offers ways of understanding the dilemmas and issues raised by these texts and present in our culture.
HUMSC 102 Great Dialogues: Politics and Morality
What is the relationship between politics and morality? Are they opposites? Can they be integrated? This course investigates the way our own dialogue with core texts from the Renaissance to the present (authors may include Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Wollstonecraft, Marx, Conrad, and Arendt) offers ways of thinking through the dilemmas and issues raised by these texts and present in our culture.
HUMSC 201 Great Dialogues: Reason and Faith
What is the nature of, and relationship between, reason and faith? Does this fundamental distinction lead to other distinctions such as those between explanation and revelation, the rational and the intuitive? What impact do such modes of thought have on notions such as providence, perception and truth? What comparisons and contrasts can be drawn between each mode and prevailing modern perspectives? This course investigates how a dialogue with core texts (e.g., Boethius, Aquinas, Dante, Bacon, Milton, Descartes, Hume, Austen) offers ways of understanding these issues.
HUMSC 301 Great Dialogues: The Sacred and the Profane
What is the nature of, and relationship between, the sacred and the profane? This course will examine diverse manifestations of the sacred and the profane by emphasizing the nature of their interaction and the impact on our understanding of contemporary human civilization. A dialogical method in exploring these ideas will be encouraged. Areas to be investigated include space, time, ritual, culture, morality, life and death. The readings will be taken from core texts spanning a wide variety of fields and authors (e.g. Eliade, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Pieper, Charles Taylor, Mary Douglas, etc.).