About
This course examines some of the issues raised by modern literature that challenge and critique religious conventions. The focus is on the modern era, since the last two centuries saw the emergence of the literary imagination as a major cultural force while traditional religious systems came under greater and greater scrutiny. We will consider a handful of prominent works of fiction by some familiar and perhaps not so familiar literary masters. All of the assigned texts raise questions of religious and personal identity over and against other persons and/or groups. Almost all of the assigned texts emerge out of, and challenge, the European Christian milieu. As you read them, therefore, you are to consider how each text may force the reader to raise basic but large religious questions, such as:
- who/what am I? who/what am I not?
- what must I do? what must I know?
- how ought I live to live well?
- to whom do I have obligations?
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