REL370.001
Advanced Studies in Religion in Culture: Modern Atheism

Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud:
the three great masters of the "hermeneutics of suspicion."

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

Fall 2008
Office: 209 Manly Hall
Office Phone: 348-8513
Course: TR 2:00-3:15
Course Number: 45286
Location: 210 Manly Hall

About Online Readings

Some course readings are placed in a "secure" folder; you can only access these PDF files (Portable Document Format, that can be opened with the free Adobe Reader) by clicking each link and then entering your Bama User Name and Password. If you have difficulty accessing these readings, contact the instructor by email.

If you have forgotten your Bama ID, but know your Campus Wide ID (CWID), then go here.

Description

Starting in 18th century Europe, the educated classes began to be openly atheistic, attacking the ruling class and the alliance between religion/state. This course examines the intellectual history of this movement through the texts of its most famous advocates, e.g., Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, as well as other lsser known but important figures.

Syllabus

Fall 2008 Syllabus (PDF)

Dr. Tim's Guide to Expository Writing (PDF)

Books (required)

Nietzsche, Friedrich, Kaufmann, Walter Editor
On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo
Vintage; reissue ed 12/17/89
ISBN: 97806797245629

Camus, Albert
The Myth of Sisyphyus and Other Essays
Knopf Publication
ISBN: 9780679733737

Bakunin, Mikhail
God and the State
Dover Publication
ISBN: 9780486224831

Freud, Sigmund
Future of an Illusion
Norton, WW & Co, 1989
ISBN: 9780393008319

Stepelevich, Lawrence Ed
The Young Hegelians: An Anthology (Humanities Paperback Library Series)
Humanities Press Intl 1997
ISBN: 0391040170

Readings

Michael Focault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" from "Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews"

Hans-Georg Gadamer, "The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem"

Alexander Nehamas, "A Thing is the Sum of Its Effects" from "Nietzsche: Life as Literature"