The following courses will begin to be offered in the Fall of 2008 (instead of Lib201-206 as currently listed in the university calendar)
Lib 210 Eros, Love and Desire
When Plato wrote that eros is "giving birth in beauty" he sparked a debate that has lasted millennia. Does the erotic lead us upwards toward wisdom, truth and love of thy neighbour? Or is eros the chaotic, anti-social and even destructive force of Dionysian rapture? This course will explore these and other classic theories of eros, love and desire.
Lib 211 Empire
"The sun never sets in my empire" said Spanish King Carlos I in the 16th century—a phrase then adopted by the British to signal not only the planetary breadth of their imperial achievement, but also the divine, solar blessing conferred on their conquests by God. What is this imperial aspiration—the desire to dominate? Why is Western history in a sense the history of Empire? This course will trace imperial aspirations from the Roman city-state, to the British nation-state to the eclipse of the state altogether by the modern capitalist corporation. Need we then wonder why the "World Trade Center" is at the heart of global conflict?
Lib 212 Let Justice Roll
"Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." So cried the prophet Amos, echoed thousands of years later when Martin Luther King insisted that, "Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice!" This course will explore the quest for justice in its many forms in Western history, from the Greek claim that justice is "doing good to one’s friends, harm to one’s enemies" to contemporary claims for the recognition of civil rights and social justice for the poor, women, racial and ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians and other marginalized peoples.
Lib 213 The Abuse of Beauty
French writer Stendhal said in the 19th century that "beauty is the promise of happiness" and upon seeing the beauty of Florence he wondrously proclaimed, "I was in a sort of ecstasy… absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty ... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul." Yet only decades later his compatriot, poet Arthur Rimbaud, claimed that he wanted to "abuse" beauty, for he found her "bitter." Dadaist and surrealist artist Tristan Tzara went even further, "I have a mad and starry desire to assassinate beauty…" Tzara signaled not only a dramatic change in Western art, but the claim that all forms of harmony and beauty, including the personal and the political, are conservative. This course will explore the fate of the beautiful, from the Greeks to 21st century life.
Lib 214 The Will To Mastery
The ecological crisis facing humanity today is not, German philosophy Martin Heidegger would claim, merely the product of recent economic productivity nor can we solve it with yet more technology. It is the product of a "will to mastery" that has obsessed our culture since the Greeks. Heidegger ominously warns that this "will to mastery becomes all the more urgent the more technology threatens to slip from human control." This course will explore ideas for and against Heidegger’s claims and in so doing address the global ecological turning point we appear to face.
Lib 215 Ecstasy and Excess
"Joy is the most comprehensive mind…and it is from the summits of joy alone that each one will see the path to take." American philosopher Alphonso Lingis claims here that humanity is the "ecstatic" species. In Greek the ek-static means literally to be outside, even beyond oneself—to transcend what and who one is. In the last few hundred years artists, writers, philosophers and others have claimed that ecstasy and excess are not merely temporary states, but the very condition of human life. This course will explore a variety of theories, from the biological to the philosophical, inspired by the idea that there is no "human nature" that we can’t exceed.
Lib216 Ultimate Concern
The divine is that about which we are "ultimately concerned"—so said theologian Paul Tillich of Union Seminary in New York. Is this just a last-ditch attempt to salvage faith and spirituality in the midst charges that religion is, at best, an "opiate of the masses" (Marx) and, at worst, "patently infantile" (Freud)? Or again, is the role of religion being taken over by its long time sister in spirit—art? This course will explore the troubled and passionate place of religiosity and the aesthetic in Western civilization.
