Fall 2016/Pasadena
TC567/867
Callaway/Taylor
TC567/867: THE AESTHETICS OF ATHEISM. (4 Units: 160 hours; 6 Units: 380 Hours). Kutter Callaway and Barry Taylor.
DESCRIPTION: This seminar is open to both master’s level students and doctoral students. In the late-modern West, atheism, secular humanism, and/or naturalism are now “live options” in ways that they have never been before. While the United States remains one of the most religious of Western countries, a significant (and growing) minority of the population is not simply abandoning religious practice or religious institutions under the guise of being “spiritual but not religious,” but consciously self-identifying as atheist/humanist/naturalist. This seminar will explore the historical development of this (largely Western) phenomenon, and investigate the intellectual sources of atheism that fund the contemporary cultural imagination—sociological, psychological, philosophical, and, ultimately, theological. Although the broader concerns of the seminar have to do with the cultural significance of atheism, it will focus in particular on aesthetics. That is, the seminar will take up the question of whether and how the aesthetic impulse imbedded within a/theism might prove instructive for developing a constructive Christian theology in the late-modern world.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: In completing this course students will have demonstrated their ability to: (1) Map in general terms the primary schools of thought that constitute the landscape of modern atheism in the West; (2) Critically examine these paradigms in terms of their aesthetic shape (or lack thereof); (3) Assess the ways in which these atheistic frameworks might be brought into a mutually enriching conversation with Christian theology; (4) Formulate the beginnings of a constructive theological framework of their own that accounts for the shifting metaphysics of the contemporary cultural imagination; and (5) Assess the potential apologetic and/or missional benefits of developing a “theopoetics,” i.e. an articulation of the Gospel that “figures forth” the Kingdom of God in a culture responding to the death of god.
COURSE FORMAT: The seminar will meet weekly for three-hour sessions for a total of 30 hours of classroom instruction for lecture and discussion plus 10 hours of directed learning activities (for MA students) or 10 hours of instructional hours (for PhD students) for a total of 40 instructional hours. It will have some lectures by the professors, but will be mostly seminar presentations and class discussions. Students will be expected—beyond assigned class readings—to do the necessary primary and secondary research for their presentations. The seminar will cover a broad swath of intellectual traditions, drawing from a diverse set of disciplines.
REQUIRED READING [2,200 pp. for TC567; 3,000 pp. for TC867]:
Course Reader. (on eReserves found on Moodle) [approx.. 300 pp. including work from Julie Exline, Mary Daly, Katherine Sarah Moody, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Erin Schendzielos, Simone Weil, Lisa McCullough, and Mother Theresa].
Botton, Alain de. Religion for Atheists: A Non-believers Guide to the Uses of Religion. Vintage, 2013. ISBN: 978-0307476821, Pub. Price 16.95 [200 pp. assigned].
Buckley, Michael J. Denying and Disclosing God: The Ambiguous Progress of Modern Atheism. Yale University Press, 2004. ISBN: 978-0300093841, Pub. Price $24.95 [192pp.].
Caputo, John D. The Folly of God: A Theology of the Unconditional. Polebridge Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-1598151718, Pub. Price $16.50 [148 pp.].
Critchley, Simon. The Faith of the Faithless: Experiments In Political Theology. Verso, 2014. ISBN: 978-1781681688, Pub. Price $8.79 [200 pp. assigned]
Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Mariner Books, 2006. ISBN: 978-0618918249, Pub. Price $12.19 [200 pp. assigned].
DeLay, Tad. God Is Unconscious: Psychoanalysis and Theology. Wipf & Stock, 2015. ISBN: 978-1498208499, Pub. Price $15.05 [164 pp.].
Eagleton, Terry. Culture and the Death of God. Yale University Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-0300212334, Pub. Price $10.99 [248 pp.].
Halik, Tomas. Patience with God: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing In Us. Translated by Gerald Turner. Doubleday Religion, 2009. ISBN: 978-0385524490, Pub. Price 23.95$ [240 pp.].
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom). Neeland Media, 2010. ISBN: 978-0394719856, Pub. Price $7.99 [176 pp.].
Rollins, Peter. The Divine Magician: The Disappearance of Religion and the Discovery of Faith. Howard Books, 2015. ISBN: 978-1451609042, Pub. Price $11.24 [208 pp.].
Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Harvard University Press /Belknap, 2007. ISBN: 978-0674026766, Pub. Price $42.00 [776 pp. Required for TC867; Recommended for TC567]
RECOMMENDED READING:
Buckley, Michael J. At the Origins of Modern Atheism. Yale University Press, 1990. ISBN: 978-0300048971, Pub. Price $22.95 [253 pp.].
Botton, Alain de and John Armstrong. Art as Therapy. Phaidon Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-0714865911, Pub. Price $22.20 [200 pp. assigned].
Bowie, Andrew. Aesthetics and Subjectivity from Kant to Nietzsche. Manchester University Press, 2003. ISBN: 978-0719057380, Pub. Price $22.34 [346 pp.].
Caputo, John D. The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event. Indiana University Press, 2006. ISBN: 978-0253218285, Pub. Price $20.95 [376 pp.]
_____________. What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church. Baker Academic, 2007. ISBN: 978-0801031366, Pub. Price $12.76 [160 pp.].
_____________. The Insistence of God: A Theology of Perhaps. Indiana University Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-0253010070, Pub. Price $25.03 [320 pp.].
Feuerbach, Ludwig. The Essence of Christianity. Promethius Books, 1989. ISBN: 978-0879755591, Pub. Price $13.98 [278 pp.].
Harris, Sam. The End of Faith. W.W. Norton, 2004. ISBN: 978-0393327656, Pub. Price $9.77 [348pp.].
Hart, David Bentley. Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. Yale University Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-0300164299, Pub. Price $13.30 [272 pp.].
Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson. HarperOne, 2004. ISBN: 978-0060097950, Pub. Price $11.44 [576 pp. assigned]
Hitchens, Christopher. God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Twelve, 2009. ISBN: 978-0446697965, Pub. Price $9.75 [336 pp.].
Hume, David. Dialogues and Natural History of Religion. Ed. J.C.A. Gaskin. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN: 978-0199538324, Pub. Price $9.95 [256 pp.].
Jacoby, Susan. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. Holt, 2005. ISBN: 978-0805077766, Pub. Price $14.89 [448 pp.].
Marion, Jean-Luc. God Without Being: Hors-Texte. University of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN: 978-0226505411, Pub. Price $20.80 [284 pp.].
Moody, Katherine Sarah. It Spooks: Living in response to an unheard call. Shelter, 2015. ISBN: 978-0986249501, Pub. Price $24.99 [260 pp.].
Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. Touchstone Press, 1967. ISBN: 978-0671203238, Pub. Price $9.87 [266 pp.].
Smith, Christian. To Flourish or Destruct: A Personalist Theory of Human Goods, Motivations, Failure, and Evil. University of Chicago Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-0226231952, Pub. Price $35.75 [384 pp.].
Tillich, Paul. Theology of Culture. Oxford University Press, 1964. ISBN: 978-0195007114, Pub. Price $19.99 [224 pp.]
Turner, James. Without God, Without Creed. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985. ISBN: ,Pub. Price $27.00 [300 pp.].
Westphal, Merold. Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism. Fordham University Press,1998. ISBN: 978-0823218769 Pub. Price $25.85 [296 pp.].
Wiman, Christian. My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. ISBN: 978-0374534370, Pub. Price $9.75 [192 pp.].
Zuckerman, Phil. Living the Secular Life: New Answers to Old Questions. Penguin, 2015. ISBN: 978-0143127932, Pub. Price $7.70 [200 pp. assigned].
ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENTS:
TC567:
Completion of assigned readings, participation in class discussions and attendance. (20% of grade). [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1-5.] [120 hours].
Submission of a seminar paper (approx. 1,500-2,000 words) in which the student offers a critical summary and assessment of a required reading for a given week, noting in particular how the author’s claims inform our theological understanding of modern atheism and its aesthetic shape (or lack thereof). (20%). [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1-4.] [15 hours, including 10 hours of DLAs].
Two short (600-900 words) critical reflection papers on assigned readings of student’s choice, which place the reading into dialogue with a concrete manifestation of the contemporary phenomenon of atheism, exploring how the chosen text might inform our approach toward Christian mission and Gospel articulation in the contemporary world, i.e. how it might aid our development of a “theopoetics.” (20% of grade). [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #3-5.] [10 hours].
A final paper (3,500-4.000 words) in which the student engages in theological dialogue with one of the primary readings in the class, exploring in particular how the aesthetic impulse embodied in this theoretical framework (or lack thereof) might serve as a resource for constructive theological work. The conversation moves in two directions. How might Christian theology account for the modern pursuit of aesthetic experiences in ways that atheism does not or cannot? Conversely, how might the aesthetics of atheism give new shape and direction to contemporary theological inquiry?(40%). [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1-5.] [15 hours].
TC867:
Completion of assigned readings, participation in class discussions and attendance. (10% of grade) [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1-5.] [205 hours].
Presentation and submission of a seminar paper (approx. 2,000-2,500 words) in which the student offers a critical summary and assessment of a required reading for a given week, noting in particular how the author’s claims inform our theological understanding of modern atheism and its aesthetic shape (or lack thereof). Presenters will also be responsible for facilitating class discussion, which will take place in collaboration with the other student(s) presenting papers during that class session. (20% of grade) [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1-4.] [15 hours, including 10 hours of DLAs].
Three short (600-900 words) critical reflection papers on assigned readings of student’s choice, exploring how the chosen text might inform our approach toward Christian mission and Gospel articulation in the contemporary world, i.e. how it might aid our development of a “theopoetics.” (30% of grade) [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #3-5.] [20 hours].
A final paper (7,000-7,500 words) that offers a constructive theology of a/theism that takes seriously the shifting metaphysics of the contemporary cultural imagination. Students will engage in theological dialogue with one of the primary readings in the class, exploring in particular how the aesthetic impulse embodied in this theoretical framework (or lack thereof) might serve as a resource for constructive theological work.. The conversation moves in two directions. How might Christian theology account for the modern pursuit of aesthetic experiences in ways that atheism does not or cannot? Conversely, how might the aesthetics of atheism give new shape and direction to contemporary theological inquiry?( (40% of grade)[This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1-5.] [140 hours].
PREREQUISITES: None
RELATIONSHIP TO CURRICULUM: TC567: Option to meet the C2 requirement in the 120 MDiv and 80 MATM Programs (Fall 2015). Option to fulfill requirement in Theology and the Arts Emphasis, Worship and Music Ministry Emphasis, and Worship, Theology and the Arts Emphasis. TC867: Meets Theology and Culture requirement.
FINAL EXMAINATION: None.