What is
Religion?
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91561
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HUM
135
RC What is Chinese Popular Religion?
|
Robert Culp
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M . W . .
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11:50 -1:10 pm
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RKC 115
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HUM/DIFF
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1
credit Pilgrimages
to Mount Tai, Earth God shrines, fengshui masters
orienting grave sites, and raucous festivals for the Goddess of Heaven that
include parades, competitive dancing troupes, self-flagellation, and
fireworksall are dimensions of Chinese popular religion. This
course explores the history and dynamics of China syncretic
popular religious practice, which integrates elements of Daoism, Buddhism, and
Confucianism, from the late imperial period (1368-1644) to the present.
We will focus on key interpretive issues such as the tension between orthodoxy
and orthopraxy, state/elite control, and devotion as a process of self-making
and community formation. An additional concern will be the recent popular
religious revival in the Peoples Republic of China. This class
will meet Mon/Wed,
September 3rd 26th. Class size: 22
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91560
|
HUM
135
KS What is Catholicism?
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Karen Sullivan
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. T . Th .
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4:40 -6:00 pm
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OLIN 201
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HUM/DIFF
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1
credit This short course will address the
fundamentals of Catholic thought and ritual, both in terms of their historical
development and in terms of their contemporary relevance. How is Catholicism
different from other interpretations of Christianity, such as Protestantism and
Eastern Orthodoxy? What is distinctive about its theology, its morality, its
liturgy, its sacraments, and its calendar? In what ways has the Church changed
over the centuries, and in what ways has it remained the same? What is the
Church anyway? Topics to be addressed include the relation between Holy
Scripture and Church tradition, between the authority of the magisterium and individual conscience, and between Catholic
doctrine and the literature, art, music, and cinema it has inspired. This class will meet Tues/Thurs, October 2nd
25th. Class size: 20
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91544
|
HIST / HUM
206 Global Europe
|
Gregory Moynahan /
Joseph Luzzi
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. T . Th .
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10:10 - 11:30 am
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OLIN 102
(OLIN 307)
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FLLC
|
Cross-listed: Italian
Studies, French Studies, German Studies, Spanish Studies, Irish and Celtic
Studies Where does Europe
begin, and how do we establish its limits, conceptual and practical? Through a
policy of aggressive expansion, the nation-states of Europe
controlled over 85% of the habitable land in the world by 1900 and established
common military, economic, political, scientific and diplomatic systems
throughout much of this vast area. Yet this same expansion led to a
hybridization, and contestation, of Europe polities through other cultures
ranging from French North Africa, the British Commonwealth, and Latin America. How did Europe's
expansion and the postcolonial reaction to it transform European culture and
sensibility? How did a region defined by a millennium of continuous conflict
that culminated in two world wars of unprecedented violence come to find not
only relative peace but, in the European Union, a new political form and model
for global human rights? Focused as much on contemporary events and
developments within Europe as on its history,
this seminar will feature contributions by a range of Bard faculty and
incorporate film screenings, musical performances, and public readings into the
curriculum. Although we will discuss global processes, the focus will be
continental Europe. A basic awareness of
European history at the level of at least a full-year high school course is
required, while a college-level European history survey is recommended. Class size: 36
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91568
|
HUM
273 Hannah
Arendt Center
Humanities Seminar: Kreuzlingen: Creating
Madness
and Modernity
|
Francesca Slovin /
Geoff White
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. . . . F
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1:30 -3:50 pm
|
RKC 102
|
|
This
is a 5 week, 1 credit course. Cross-listed: Human Rights, Philosophy In this course, we take Kreuzlingen
as the point of departure from which to analyze the
complex phenomenon of dementia in major cultural activities, with focus on its
relationship to modernism and modernity. Kreuzlingen
is the site of the Bellevue sanatorium on Lake Constance, Switzerland, which was directed
until 1956 by Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966). The clinic had been established in
1857 by his uncle, Otto Binswanger, one of Nietzsches physicians. Ludwig
Binswanger was also the founder of Existential Analysis (Daseinsanalyse), the fusion of
psychoanalysis and existentialism. He adopted the term Verstiegenheit from mountain
climbers to analyze the severe anxiety occurring when one ascends so farin all
walks of lifethat descent is rendered impossible. Our term creating madness means, at once:
(1) the way modernity creates its own form of mental and emotional disruption;
(2) the way a certain madness in effect creates modernity; and (3), especially,
the creative genius that has become designatedby others and/or by oneselfas
mad. We will refer to the medical sciences (e.g. Georges Canguilhem),
to psychoanalysis (Ludwig Binswanger, among others), to philosophy and the
historical disciplines (from Friedrich Nietzsche to Michel Foucault). But our
special emphasis is on the creative arts: literature, music, art, and cinema.
The audio-visual medium may include Marat/Sade,
One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest, The Exterminating
Angel, Pi, Quills, Shock Corridor,
and A Dangerous Method. The course meets for the first five weeks of
the Fall Semester. Class size: 25