REL 231.001
20th Century Religious Thought

"Consciousness is a disease."
-Fyodor Dostoyevski,
Notes From the Underground

"Our age is essentially one of understanding and reflection, lacking in all passion but for momentary burst of enthusiasm, which then
shrewdly relapse into repose."
-Soren Kierkegaard

Professor
Dr. Tim Murphy
tmurphy@bama.ua.edu

Office: 209 Manly Hall
Office Phone: 348-8513
Office Hours: to be posted
Class Hours: TR 3:30-4:45
Classroom: 207 Manly Hall

About Online Readings

The online readings for this course are posted in the form of PDF files (Portable Document Format), stored on the Department's "secure" server, and are therefore not freely available on the Internet.

To open these files you must click on the above links and, if prompted, enter your Bama ID and Password.

If you have forgotten your Bama ID, but know your Campus Wide ID (CWID), then please go here. If you still have difficulty accessing these readings, then contact the instructor by email.

Those who need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0 to open PDFs (a free software available on the web and which is already installed on all campus computers) can go here.

Note: larger PDFs can take a long time to download (due to a slow Internet connection) and a long time to print (depending on your printer). Some students may therefore wish to download these files in a computer lab on campus, and then either print them there or store them on a floppy disk or zip/junk drive (to read/print them later at home).

Description

An examination of modern, western religious thought. This semester's theme: religious existentialism. We will review the major texts, authors, and themes of this eclectic movement. Existentialists ask questions such as: what is the meaning of existence? What is the meaning of my existence? How is that related to traditional faith? What does it mean to exist authentically? inauthentically?

Authors will include: Fyodor Dostoyevski, Søren Kierkegaard, Elie Weisel, Martin Buber, and Paul Tillich, among others. We will also view some classic films such as "The Seventh Seal."

Syllabus

Fall 2006 Syllabus (PDF)

Books (required)

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Notes From the Underground,
Dover,
ISBN 048627053X

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Grand Inquistor (ed. Charles Guignon)
Hackett Publisher
ISBN 0872201937

Wiesel, Elie. Town Beyond the Wall
Schocken Books
ISBN 0805210458

Solomon, Ed. Existentialism
Oxford University Press
ISBN 0195174631

Links

The Existential Primer

Existentialism

Wikipedia article on Existentialism

Resources

Dr. Murphy's rules for expository writing (PDF)

Sample essay (PDF)

What is Existentialism? (PDF)

Who's Who in Existentialism (PDF)

Readings

Systematic Theology by Paul Tillich (PDF)

Woman as Other by Simone de Beauvoir (PDF)

Introduction, Preface, and "Agony" by Miguel de Unamuno

"The Pretense of Social Christianity" and "Absolute Individualism" by Miguel de Unamuno

Parables and Paradoxes by Franz Kafka (PDF)