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Seton Hall University
Curriculum

College of Arts and Sciences Core III Course Descriptions

Catholic Studies

CORE 3101 (CAST 3040)
Spirituality of Work 
3 Credits
The course explores spirituality of work in contemporary society and its application to various professions and everyday life. The course explores various meanings/definitions of spirituality and work in order to reflect on the deeper meaning of work in people’s lives. Study of this topic will include Biblical warrants for a spirituality of work; spirituality of work in the history and tradition of the church, as well as the ecumenical and interfaith dimensions of a spirituality of work.

CORE 3251 (CAST 3251)
The Church and Science
3 Credits
This course is concerned with the development of the experimental sciences (viz., physics, chemistry and molecular biology) within the western tradition and the influence that the Church and science have exerted upon each other since the beginnings days of Christianity.

CORE 3252 (CAST 3041)
Theology of Food
3 Credits
The subject of food will be presented from the perspectives of religious belief and science, thus strengthening the student’s understanding of the relationship between faith and reason (science). More specifically, this course will examine the integration of the scientific, theological, cultural, social, and ethical dimensions of food and will address such fundamental questions as: “What is food?” and “What is eating?” “What is meant by sacrificial eating?"

CORE 3734 (CAST 3004)
Catholic Theology of Science
3 Credits
The history of science is often told as a chronological account of practical and theoretical developments from antiquity to modern times. Because of the modern assumption that science and religion have no relation, the theological influences of religions in various cultures are often ignored, or they are interpreted according to the historian’s biases, which is difficult to avoid. The worldview instilled by theologies, however, influenced how people of different cultures fundamentally understood the universe, so the fuller consideration of the history of science is the consideration of the theological history of science. In this course, the students will read a variety of writings with differing opinions and original sources. Cultures/periods will be treated in this order: Egypt, China, India, Babylonia, Greece, Arabia, Biblical cultures, early Christianity, European Middle Ages, and the Scientific Revolution.

CORE 3745 (CAST 3320)
Chesterton, Lewis and the Sacramental Tradition
3 Credits
This course examines the works of two of the most prominent 20th century British Christian writers. Although both authors are renowned as apologists, the course focuses upon their imaginative writings and how these served as invaluable expressions of their thought and spiritual vision. Works considered include Chesterton’s novel, The Man Who Was Thursday and Lewis’ novels.

CORE 3746 (CAST 3940)
The Catholic Classics and Interiority
3 credits
This course flows from the new Seton Hall University core curriculum and endeavors to flesh out the meaning of "the Catholic intellectual tradition." Its aim is to analyze the Catholic classics in the light of human interiority, particularly the human passion for meaning, for the good and for God.

CORE 3747 (CAST 2011)
Catholicism and Art
3 Credits
This course will study the role of art in Christian history as well as contemporary Catholic attitudes towards artistic creation and appreciation. It will consider various examples of early Christian, Byzantine, medieval, Renaissance and Baroque art. It will also consider the relationship between Catholicism and “modern” art and what recent cultural studies have called “the Catholic imagination.” Visiting speakers will address the class on various aspects of Catholicism and art through the centuries. We will also try to arrange some class trips.

CORE 3748 (CAST 3994)
Foundations of Christian Culture
3 Credits
Drawing from a variety of sources historical, literary, philosophical and theological this course examines the origins and nature of Christian culture, exploring in particular the value of culture itself as an aspect of revelation and incarnation. The course offers some answers from the contemporary Christian tradition to the ancient questions: How am I meant to understand the world? How am I meant to understand myself? This course is part of the Catholic Studies foreign study tour program.

CORE 3749 (CAST 3749)
The Philosophy and Theology of Bernard Lonergan
3 Credits
This course will treat the life and work of the Canadian philosopher/theologian Bernard Lonergan from his early days to his later manuscripts on economic theory. It will outline the early influences on his thought Newman, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas as well as the influence of the modern sciences and historical scholarship. It will present the broad outlines of his theory of consciousness with an emphasis on self-appropriation. The relevance of his thought to the fields of education, philosophy, history, economics and theology will be highlighted.

CORE 3751 (CAST 3017)
Saints Alive!
3 Credits
The course examines the lives and struggles of famous Saints as seen through the lens of contemporary filmmakers and playwrights. 

CORE 3752 (CAST 3016)
Global Christianity
3 Credits
This course explores the distinctive characteristics of non-western forms of Christianity in the Middle East and Egypt, Africa, the Caucasus, Central Asia, India, China and Latin America and the recent spread of western forms of Christianity into nonwestern cultures from an interdisciplinary, historical and theological perspective. 

CORE 3754 (CAST 3397)
Latin American Catholicism
3 Credits
Catholicism is not only an inextricable part of Latin America history and identity, but the region’s experience of the Faith has a profound influence on the universal and future life of the Church. The course examines in particular Catholicism in Latin America, which embraces a rich ensemble of the humble and heroic, the struggles for human dignity and the miraculous.

CORE 3755 (CAST 3018)
John Henry Newman: His Life and Teaching
3 Credits
The course focuses on the philosophical theological thought of John Henry Newman, tracing Newman’s views from his early life to his conversion to Roman Catholicism.

CORE 3756 (CAST 3019)
Christians and Muslims in Dialogue, A Catholic Perspective
3 Credits
This course examines the historical interaction between Christianity and Islam in light of pertinent themes in Christian-Muslim encounters. It explores contemporary positions in interreligious dialogue between Christianity and Islam from interdisciplinary, historical and theological perspectives.

CORE 3759 (CAST 3020)
Catholic Jewish Dialogue on the Holocaust
3 Credits
A critical assessment of facts, issues, and attitudes affecting Catholic Jewish interfaith dialogue on the Holocaust.

CORE 3760 (CAST 3022)
Spirituality and Sports: A Catholic Perspective
3 Credits
In this course students will explore and examine the Catholic tradition and spirituality through the analogy of sports. Students will examine how human beings encounter the Holy in the midst of everyday life with emphasis on athletic experiences as both an athlete and a “fan.”

CORE 3762 (CAST 3998)
Italy Footsteps of Saints 
3 Credits
Italy in the Footsteps of the Saints Italy enjoys a preeminence as a spiritual center for the Christian world alongside its importance in the development of Western civilization’s art, music, architecture and political thought. The course will examine the interplay between Italy’s profound spiritual heritage and cultural achievements, focusing on the contributions of such key figures as the Apostles Peter and Paul, Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi, Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Ignatius of Loyola and others. This course is part of the Catholic Studies foreign study tour program.

CORE 3763 (CAST 3026)
The Human Person in Faith and Fashion: A Catholic Perspective
3 Credits
The course looks at the age-old question, what it means to be a human person. The course explores this question by analyzing three views: [1] the human person in the image of God in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, [2] the human person in the image of self, as defined by other schools of thought, and [3] the human person in the image of fashion (person as portrayed by the fashion media). We will look at fashion images as a visual language and evaluate what it communicates about men and women. The course will also explore the impact of the three views or personhood on culture.

CORE 3764 (CAST 3024)
The Literature of Catholic Conversion
3 Credits
This course is designed to help students to understand and to explore the experience of voluntary conversion in the Catholic tradition. Beginning with conversion even before Christianity with the story of Moses, moving through the New Testament and St. Augustine to later converts like John Henry Cardinal Newman and Dorothy Day, the course examines the nature of conversion, what led to it in each case, and the impact on the life of the converted and his or her society.

CORE 3768 (CAST 3031)
Catholicism, Healthcare and the Human Condition
3 Credits
This course will explore the experiences of both patient and healthcare provider and the relationship between the two. The healthcare encounter (e.g. doctor patient, nurse patient) is privileged, unique and multidimensional. The groundwork will be set by study of the human condition and the structure of the healthcare delivery system; students will examine how humans live and how they die revealed by a consideration of disease, socioeconomics, psychology and religion. Our study will be advanced using the tools of art, literature, science and theology.

CORE 3793 (CAST 3955)
Catholicism and Human/Social Sciences
3 Credits
Models of integration and tension between Catholicism and the various sciences of human behavior are examined in their historical contexts. Main controversies—the relationship between facts and values, essentialism vs. anti-essentialism, voluntarism vs. determinism, and relativism vs. objectivism—are examined from a Catholic perspective that emphasizes how theology and the human sciences “implicate” each other. A Catholic theology of the human sciences is applied to modern and post-modern conditions of life and contrasted with other Christian as well as non-Christian theologies.

CORE 3890 (CAST 3021)
Modern Women of Faith
3 Credits
The course focuses on the question of what it means to be women of faith, by considering the example of several Catholic women who have lived exemplary, faith-filled lives in a way that has challenged conventional expectations of women on the part of society. In view of their examples, students are encouraged to identify and consider the characteristics of an authentic, faith-filled, Catholic feminism.

CORE 3981 (CAST 3027)
The Catholic Church and Jews in Poland
3 Credits
An analytical survey of Catholic-Jewish coexistence throughout Polish history. Through the reading of primary texts referring to the settling of Jewish community in Poland, the conditions off nourishing of Jewish culture, evolving Catholic attitudes towards the Jewish minority, complex Church-Jewish relations during the Holocaust, and unprecedented renewal of Jewish culture in postwar Poland, as well as the rebuilding of Catholic-Jewish relations in recent decades, the course will provide an advanced introduction to Catholic-Jewish history in Poland. The study abroad trip to Poland, through visiting important Catholic shrines and famous sites of Jewish culture, will provide students with tangible examples of Catholic-Jewish coexistence in Poland, the destruction of Jewish community by the Nazis, as well as with more recent memorialization of the Jewish culture in Poland. 

CORE 3982 (CAST 3001)
Walking the Sacred Labyrinth: A Catholic Perspective
3 Credits
In this seminar-style course, we will learn how the meaning and purpose of the labyrinth changed from the pre-Christian era through medieval monastic life to the modern period. The labyrinth, which in ancient Greek civilization stood as a metaphor for a heroic quest, became in the medieval period an interior form of pilgrimage and spiritual journey. It was particularly popular with women religious, who were encouraged to pray the labyrinth instead of going on an actual pilgrimage. We will study the design of Chartres Cathedral and its labyrinth as our major case study, and see how exterior space (i.e., religious architecture) and interior space were strongly connected in the medieval Christian tradition.  In order to gain a hands on understanding of how the labyrinth functioned as a part of this medieval matrix, we will examine the mathematical formulas known as “sacred geometry.” We will reflect on different kinds of meditative techniques and prayer, particularly from within the Catholic tradition, as we prepare to walk one of the local labyrinths in our area together.

CORE 3983 (CAST 3003) 
Creation and Science
3 Credits
This course seeks to deepen a student’s understanding of the relationship between the Catholic theology of creation and contemporary empirical science. Topics to be covered include the birth of science; the historical-philosophical environment of this birth; the interventions of recent Popes on the issue; the specificity of the cosmos as shown by current science; the unity of the cosmos and its beauty; the importance of philosophical realism; the doctrine of creation ex nihilo et cum tempore; the theory of the Big Bang; and the theory of evolution. Primary sources will be emphasized. 

CORE 3984 (CAST 3023)
The Popes and Science
3 Credits
This course is designed to introduce students to Papal teaching on the relations between Christian Faith and natural science and also to serve as a foundation for further study of faith and reason. The course aims to explore the impact of the Popes on the development of modern science. 

CORE 3985 (CAST 3028)
Worship and Holy Images in the Catholic Church
3 Credits
Using theological, historical, and anthropological perspectives, the course explores the spiritual significance of Christian iconography from early Christianity to the Middle Ages focusing on the links between imagery and Christian worship. 

CORE 3987 (CAST 3025)
New Jersey Catholic Experience
3 Credits
This course is designed to provide students with a detailed knowledge of how the Catholic Church developed within the context of New Jersey and American history over the past three centuries. The story of a distinctive Catholic experience has many dimensions which will be described not only through major milestones and eras, but through a growing socio-religious perspective which includes the laity, religious leaders, and key individuals who contributed to the legacy of their faith statewide.

CORE 3988 (CAST 3891)
Internship in Catholic Studies 
3 Credits
The Internship in Catholic Studies will focus on Living the Mission: the social justice movement in the Catholic Church.  The course will integrate community service with issues of justice from the perspective of modern Catholic leaders. Through readings, journal reflection, discussion and a weekly community service commitment, students will gain a more comprehensive understanding of the theological mandate to respond to injustice, to discover their individual role in this work, and to understand how their service influences the cause of social justice. The course provides opportunities for first-hand experiences to enable the student to reflect more deeply on the human struggle for meaning, existence, and even survival. Through volunteer service, the student is given a unique vantage point for observing and sharing in the journey of life through the eyes, ears, and hearts of those who find themselves on the fringe of life in Seton Hall’s own backyard.

Chemistry & Biochemistry

CORE 3250 (CHEM 3103)
Foundations of Modern Science
3 credits
This course is concerned with the development of the experimental sciences (viz., physics, chemistry and molecular biology) within the western tradition, and the influence that the church and science have exerted upon each other since the beginning days of Christianity.

English

CORE 3370 (ENGL 3370)
Illness and Literature
3 credits
This course will explore representations of and responses to illness from the perspective of those suffering from it (the patients), those helping the sufferers (doctors, nurses, spouses, siblings, children, parents, and so on), and those living in a society ravaged by epidemic, such as the Black Death. We will read literature from three traditions – the Western secular literary tradition, the Catholic tradition, and the Jewish tradition – to deepen our understanding of what illness does to individuals and their society, and to strengthen our resources as future patients, caregivers (personal or professional), and individuals for dealing with the spiritual as well as practical crisis that illness generates.

CORE 3371 (ENGL 3371)
Fantasy and Faith in British Literature
3 credits
This course examines questions of meaning central to the Catholic intellectual tradition in connection with the study of literature. We will focus on works of fantasy, specifically the fiction of C. S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their predecessors. The course will examine the implications for social action, morality, heroism, and sacrifice in these works.

CORE 3373 (CAST 2422, ENGL 3422)
Catholic Literature and Film
3 credits
This course, which fulfills both a Catholic Studies and an English requirement, is concerned with the translation of specifically Catholic literature into film. We shall be examining seven texts in the course, all of which have been adapted for the screen. We shall be reading five novels, one play, and a collection of sermons. This collection of the sermons of the late Archbishop of San Salvador Oscar Romero is not directly parallel to the film bearing his name, Romero, but the spirit of the sermons is deeply reflected in the filmed depiction of the man. All the other works have been intentionally adapted into their filmed counterparts.

CORE 3380 (ENGL 3314)
Irish Literature Celtic Revival to the Present
3 credits
Students will explore twentieth-century Irish writers publishing in English from the formation of the Irish National Theatre in 1899 through the Easter Rising of 1916 and War of Independence, the founding of the Irish Free State and Irish Civil War (1919-24), to the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland of the 1960s-80s, to the present day. Beginning with W.B. Yeats and James Joyce, the course will survey writers in all three major genres, including dramatists Lady Gregory, J.M. Synge, Sean O'Casey, Brian Friel and Marina Carr; poets Seamus Heaney and Eavan Boland; and fiction writers Edna O'Brien, Mary Lavin, Seán Ó Faoláin, Frank McCourt, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Patrick McCabe, and others.

CORE 3383 (ENGL 4421)
Irish Literature Past and Present (Travel Abroad)
3 credits
This course provides an overview of selected Irish fiction writers, dramatists, and poets, beginning in the late 18th-century and focusing on the 20th-century. Irish literature must be studied in light of the struggle for Irish independence and Catholic emancipation; therefore, students will be encouraged to make connections between Ireland’s past and present in order to understand the themes, tropes, and genres of the Irish literary tradition, with particular emphasis on issues of national identity, war, religion, family, gender, and diaspora. An optional Spring Break trip to Ireland furthers students' appreciation of Ireland past and present.

CORE 3375 (ENGL 3211)
Medieval Literature
3 credits
This course will explore a literary world where religious piety includes visions of toads, lovers encountering magic ships and talking deer, madness means running around naked in the woods and eating food without salt, and not serving the good wine to guests means you might get vomited to death. We’ll meet green knights, people with giant legs they use as umbrellas, berserkers, Chaucer, Dante, knights and ladies, carrier swans, and loyal pet lions. We’ll explore manuscript making, whether they really ate nothing but mud and peas, and whether the sun actually ever shone in the Dark Ages.

CORE 3376 (ENGL 3319)
Body in Early America
3 credits
This course explores representations of the body in early American literature, including the place of the body in a variety of religious traditions. More than just its physical form, the body can be read sexually, scientifically/medically, religiously/spiritually, economically, legally, aesthetically, culturally, politically, and philosophically. Readings will begin with explorer and Native American oral narratives, will include texts from a variety of New World settlements, and will go through the literature of the early Republic.

CORE 3381 (ENGL 3381)
Faith and Doubt in Nineteenth-Century British Literature
3 credits
This course explores the Victorian “crisis of faith” in novels and poems by nineteenth-century British writers, including Mary Shelley, Alfred Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and Charlotte Brontë. Reading Frankenstein and Dracula and other influential texts, we will discuss how personal and political issues, like marriage, work, empire, gender, race, history, and aesthetics, intersect with the Oxford Movement, which sought to Catholicize the Church of England, and with new scientific theories, including Charles Darwin’s natural selection. Faith and doubt, as it happens, are not only spiritual matters, but also constitutive aspects of fiction, scientific method, financial speculation, modern subjectivity, and social interaction in an urbanized world. Students will learn, then, how uncertainty has been naturalized as an ordinary feature of everyday life.

History

CORE 3420 (HIST 3385)
Catholic Social Engagement in U.S. History
1 credit
Through a close examination of primary and secondary source material, this course explores the history of Catholic social engagement in the American context. It examines how Catholics in the United States bore public witness to their faith and brought their influence to bear upon wider society. Particular attention will be given to four areas in which Catholicism has traditionally provided a counterpoint to dominant social values: church-state relations, education, healthcare and bioethics, and the social order. This course draws attention to how a particular tradition of Catholic social engagement emerged in response to Catholics’ dynamic interaction with a distinctive American cultural, social, and political environment.

CORE 3422 (HIST 3387)
The Catholic Church in the U.S.
3 credits
Role of Catholics and the Church in the United States from colonial beginnings to the recent past, focusing on internal developments and on relations with the wider society.

CORE 3423 (HIST 3230)
The High Middle Ages
3 credits
Formation of medieval civilization in the so-called Dark Ages and its transformation between the 11th and 14th centuries.

CORE 3424 (HIST 3254)
Early Modern Ireland
3 credits
Political, economic, and social history of Ireland from the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 to the Great Famine of the 1840s.

CORE 3425 (HIST 3264)
Modern Ireland
3 credits
Examination of the forces of Ireland’s recent past that account for her present condition.

CORE 3426 (HIST 3234)
Medieval Italy
3 credits
This course treats the history of Italy from the early Middle Ages to the Council of Trent. Emphasis is placed on the dramatic changes in peoples, state institutions, religion, the economy and society that occurred during these centuries. The abiding and sometimes determinant role of geography in Italian history is a subject that receives particular attention. All areas of the peninsula are discussed, with special attention to relations between peripheral or provincial areas and cultural or administrative centers. Major intellectual, religious, social and political developments are explored through primary and secondary readings, and a mixture of lecture and class discussion.

CORE 3428 (HIST 4291)
Special Topics: Medieval Heresies
3 credits

CORE 3430 (HIST 3235, CAST 2235)
Modern Italy
3 credits
This course treats the history of Italy from the Baroque Age down to contemporary events. Emphasis is placed on the dramatic changes in peoples, state institutions, religion, the economy and society that occurred during these centuries. The abiding and sometimes determinant role of geography in Italian history is a subject that receives particular attention. All areas of the peninsula are discussed, with special attention to relations between peripheral or provincial areas and cultural or administrative centers. Major intellectual, religious, social and political developments are explored through primary and secondary readings, and a mixture of lecture and class discussion.

CORE 3431 (HIST 4393)
Topics in American History: 20th Century Catholic Social Activists
3 credits
This course deals with activist priests who remained true to their calling and were successful advocates for social justice during the most turbulent days of the 20th century. Included are television personalities, Congressmen, community organizers, the man who led the largest march on Washington, DC before 1963, and another who fought gangsterism on the docks of New York who was immortalized in the film, On the Waterfront. During their heyday they may have challenged authority but remained faithful Catholics. Theirs is a story of high politics, violence, romance, and faith.

CORE 3432 (HIST 3229)
The Early Middle Ages
3 credits
This course surveys medieval European political, legal, social, economic, cultural and religious history from circa 300 to circa 100. Through discussion of a wide range of primary sources, student in this course will analyze the processes through which early Europeans amalgamated elements of Roman, “barbarian,” and early Christian cultures to create a new civilization in western Europe.

CORE 3433 (HIST 3389)
American Catholics and the Movies
3 credits
Through selected readings and films this course chronicles the changing image of the Catholic Church, its practitioners and its parishioners, during that period of the mid-20th century when movies were the mass medium.

CORE 3434 (HIST 3420)
Religion and Society in Latin America
3 credits
Students will explore the ways in ways in which religious ideas and practices have shaped political, social, cultural and economic experiences in the region of Latin America from the 16th through the 18th centuries.

CORE 3435 (HIST 3240)
The Renaissance and Reformation
3 credits
The beginning of modern Europe as the renewal of trade is followed by rediscovery of the ancient world, discovery of the New World, changes in art, literature and thought and the division of Christianity by the Protestant movement.

Languages, Literatures & Cultures

CORE 3300 (CLAS 3300)
Death and Afterlife in Antiquity
3 credits
This course highlights some of the most fundamental and important concepts in the Catholic intellectual tradition, specifically death, the afterlife, and the nature of God. Classical texts will be compared with biblical texts. The heart of the course is to examine the way that the ancient texts have contributed to, or disagree with biblical ideas.

CORE 3301
(CLAS 3301)
The Odysseus Theme
3 credits
This course will begin with a close reading of Homer’s Odyssey, focusing on the character of Odysseus and moral questions raised by the trickster figure. We will then examine the literary tradition inspired by the Odyssey, including adaptations made by classical, Christian and modern authors, such as Sophocles, Vergil, Dante, James Joyce and Margaret Atwood.

CORE 3540 (MOLG 3321)
Engaging the World: Meeting the Other
3 credits
How do we ethically deal with cultural and ethnic difference? Students will read excerpts from twentieth century philosophers whose theories explore how difference and identity may coexist. We will read numerous shorter literary writings describing the Immigrant and Outsider experience from different perspectives.

CORE 3542 (MOLG 3541)
Literature of the Mediterranean
3 credits
This course explores the topic of migration across the Mediterranean Sea from a cultural and historical point of view. It focuses on twentieth- and twenty-first century narrative and theory of the multiple dimensions of Mediterranean identities as well as of the symbolic, spiritual and cultural value of physical displacement, building on the great texts studied in the Journey of Transformation courses that focus on the Catholic, Greek, Islamic, Hindu and other traditions. The course examines several questions including: How do we understand the Mediterranean as a modern space of encounter among different civilizations? How has the Mediterranean served as a locus for spiritual, political, religious, and literary constructions in the long twentieth century? What is the Catholic thought in relation to the ethical and moral questions raised by today’s migration crisis?

Mathematics & Computer Science

CORE 3490 (CSAS 3085, PSYC 3698)
Robotics and the Mind
3 credits
This course explores the relationship between Catholic theological reflection and scientific evidence on the question of what it means to be human. Theoretical discussion will be accompanied by physically constructing and programming a variety of robots.

MATH 3204 (CSAS 3204 / CORE 3491)
Logic, the Limits to Knowledge, and Christianity
3 credits
The course presents an overview of topics in and related to logic, including development of formal logic and an axiomatic first-order logic. It explores the history of mathematics and logic in the Catholic Intellectual and wider Western Traditions, as well as the mutual interactions of mathematics, philosophy and religion. It then considers extensions of first-order logic, and provable limits to knowledge: the three unsolvable problems of Euclidean geometry, and examples from Gödel, Turing, Arrow, quantum physics, and others. Epistemological issues will be emphasized throughout the course. As a Core curriculum course, fundamental questions such as “What is logic?” and “What are its limits?” will be considered within the framework of Christianity's broader view of the human person and human intelligence.

Philosophy

CORE 3590 (PHIL 3590)
Philosophy and Therapy
3 credits
This course will critically investigate the ancient conception of philosophy as a way of life. According to this view, philosophy is therapeutic in the sense that it not only helps us to successfully address the daily challenges we face but ultimately tells us how to live a moral life. By taking up the conception of philosophy as a way of life, the discussion of the therapeutic function of philosophy can be based on a variety of philosophical schools (e.g. Platonic, Stoic, Epicurean, Jewish, Christian), all of which were either referred to or referred to themselves as practicing philosophy and elaborated on the metaphor of the philosopher as physician or healer of the soul. One central concern of this course will be to critically discuss whether philosophy can indeed claim to be therapeutic. The other concern will be to learn about some of the essential characteristics of ancient and modern “philosophical therapy” (e.g. asceticism) as well as exercises philosophers have used to care for soul and body (e.g. spiritual exercises).

CORE 3591 (PHIL 3591)
Ancient Greek and Early Christian Conceptions of Love
3 credits
This is a text-based seminar. Through an examination of key texts, we’ll compare ancient Greek and early Christian discussions of love (esp. what the Greeks called eros) with the hope of attaining a better understanding of love and its role in life, and of the variety of approaches to these perennial issues. Topics include: the kinds of love; the (ir) rationality of eros; the role of eros in life; the relationship between eros and the other kinds of love, and their relative value.

CORE 3592 (PHIL 3592)
Humans and the Natural World: Ideas that Matter
3 credits
This course will explore the various paradigms of the natural world that have been developed over the course of the Catholic intellectual tradition, broadly understood. These paradigms have had enormous influences on the ways that we in the west have thought about, organized, and acted upon and in the natural world. We will explore stories of origin (especially Genesis) and other Biblical literature (Psalms and Proverbs), current theological debates about the status of the nature world in Catholic thought, philosophical discourses about nature, as well as the Christian discussions with representatives from other traditions (i.e. Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, and Native American narratives).

CORE 3593 (PHIL 3593)
Ethics, Religion, and Postmodernity
3 credits
In this course we will begin by outlining the prominent features of the “postmodern condition” as they emerge from “radical” critiques of modernity. We will then examine and critically evaluate normative responses to the postmodern condition and highlight the impact of these movements on Christian ethics and the Catholic intellectual tradition.

CORE 3594 (PHIL 3590)
Faith and Reason
3 Credits
To raise the question of the relationship between faith and reason is to ask about the relationship between theology and philosophy, religion and culture, revelation and natural knowledge. Do these pairings represent separate spheres that have little or nothing to do with one another? Do reason and faith complement each other, or are they opposed to each other? Is the option for faith reasonable? Can faith contradict reason? If so, which do we follow, and why? Such questions are of more than academic interest, since how we answer them can have a profound effect on how we live our lives.

CORE 3595 (PHIL 3595)
19th and 20th Century Catholic Thinkers
3 credits
The course explores some of the ways in which the Catholic intellectual tradition has responded to cultural, social, economic, and political developments in the modern world, from the French Revolution to our contemporary situation. Focus will be on a few select thinkers rather than a survey.

CORE 3596 (PHIL 3010)
St. Augustine
3 Credits
In this course, students will read and analyze some of the major works of Augustine in careful and rigorous ways with the goal of understanding Augustine’s ideas on their own terms and in relationship to the times in which he lived and worked, appreciating Augustine’s stature and influence in the western intellectual tradition, and developing philosophical ways of thinking about Augustine and his works. Students will opportunities for students to improve their thinking, listening, speaking and writing through a consideration of Augustine’s texts and major secondary works, and will discuss the relevance of Augustine’s ideas for our lives in the 21st century.

CORE 3597 (PHIL 3015)
St. Aquinas
3 Credits
Historical background; life and achievements of Aquinas, analysis of the main themes of his philosophy, development and influence of Thomistic philosophy, and its continuing relevance.

Political Science & Public Affairs

CORE 3640 (POLS 3101)
Catholics in the Political Process
3 credits
This course is designed to examine the appropriate roles of the institutional Catholic Church, its citizens, and its political candidates within in the American political process today. It will explore traditional Christian political theory; the Church’s relevant major social teachings, and the challenges that confront Catholicism and its adherents in the current, American public arena. In the long term, this course will encourage students to make judgments about both the moral agenda and political policies of the Church, particularly as they impact the behavior of Catholic citizens and political actors in their quest for the common good.

Psychology

CORE 3490 (CSAS 3085, PSYC 3698)
Robotics and the Mind
3 credits
This course explores the relationship between Catholic theological reflection and scientific evidence on the question of what it means to be human. Theoretical discussion will be accompanied by physically constructing and programming a variety of robots.

CORE 3656 (PSYC 3705)
Memory - From Plato to Present 
3 credits 
In this Signature 3 class, our approach to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition will be to bring examine memory as it is conceptualized by cognitive psychologists like myself as well as from other traditions. We will examine the writings and research on memory from Greek Philosophers (Plato, Aristotle), Catholic Theologians (Aquinas, Augustine, Grove,), early psychologists (Wundt, Ebbinghaus), and modern cognitive psychologists and cognitive scientists (your professor and others).

CORE 3657 (PSYC 3706)
Development of Thoughts and Beliefs 
3 credits 
This course is designed to provide a deeper understanding of the origins and development of thoughts and beliefs in humans, both at individual and collective community levels. Each unit will focus on a “big question” that has played an important role in how humans think of ourselves and others. Literature from developmental psychology will be interspersed with those from the Catholic Intellectual Tradition to provide an in-depth examination of the two levels of development in parallel.

CORE 3670 (PSYC 3695)
Neuropsychology of Religious Experience
3 credits
This course will explore the intersection between religious experiences and neuropsychology. We will discuss what the fields of neuroscience and theology can learn from each other based on current research on the neurobiology of religious experiences.

Religion

CORE 3470 (JCST 3480)
Judaism and Other Religions
3 credits
This course will explore the major approaches to thinking about another religion. We will focus on Jewish texts as textual examples but we will also discuss in every lecture the parallel Christian material. Some of the lectures will focus on the Islamic, Hindu, or Buddhist parallels. The objective of the course is to gain a sense of how Judaism might conceive its relationship to other religious traditions beyond the poles of pluralism or rejection. This is a crucial task in our era of globalization and post-secularism.

CORE 3720 (RELS 3102)
The Bible, Film, and Popular Culture
3 credits
The course examines the interaction of the Bible, film and popular culture by considering how stories, ideas, and themes from the Bible have been portrayed in Hollywood movies. Specific biblical texts will be analyzed in their historical context and in their depiction in popular films. The course will address such questions as: How has the Bible shaped the way the stories told in film? How has popular culture shaped the way the Bible is read or understood? In particular, the course will focus on ideas of how religion, faith, the God/human relationship, and gender roles are shaped in the intersection of the Bible and popular culture. The aim of the course will be to develop the students’ ability to think critically about biblical interpretation and religious experience more generally, is shaped by cultural context, both past and present.

CORE 3721 (RELS 3201)
Catholicism and Ecumenism
3 credits
This course provides a great service to dialogical or ecumenical critical thinking. The course situates the Catholic modern ecumenical movement in the larger context of Christian history, allowing students to understand the contemporary dialogues in relation to the history of doctrine.

CORE 3722 (RELS 3522)
Religion, Morality, and the Problem of Suffering
3 credits
This course examines the relationship between religion and morality from three, interrelated angles of inquiry. First, we will examine whether religious belief is necessary for moral knowledge and action. Second, we will turn to the question of human suffering as a test case. Specifically, we will explore how various points within the Christian tradition have grappled with human suffering. Third, we take up the question of religion and morality through an interreligious or comparative theological exercise on the question of suffering.

CORE 3723 (RELS 3503)
Race, Politics and Theology
3 credits
This course explores questions of race, ethnicity, and political community. More specifically, is a multi-ethnic and multi-racial society viable? Alternatively, is a post-racial society more preferable? What might it mean to “recognize” and value one’s ethnic or racial identity? Should one’s ethnicity or race be recognized at all? If so, then how? What, then, are the political implications? Questions such as these underscore the larger question of difference and cultural pluralism: in what normative sense can difference and cultural pluralism be considered public goods — what is the limit and extent of these goods? We will pursue this question through a theological-ethical perspective that is in dialogue with contemporary issues in American politics, constitutional law, and moral philosophy.

CORE 3724 (RELS 2223)
Modern Christian Thought
3 credits
This course examines the development of Christian thought from the Reformation to modern times. Topics include: Early attempts at Church reform; the Protestant reformation in Germany, Switzerland and England; the Council of Trent and the Catholic Reformation; the Orthodox Churches; the Peace of Westphalia and the religious settlement; the challenge of rationalism and the Christian response in modern times. We will explore the relation of free will and grace, clashes between religion and politics on a variety of fronts, including the Peasant Revolt and the French Revolution, the rise of nationalism, and Enlightenment and Romantic views of religion. The course will be grounded in close examination of theological texts, but will also include works of art, poetry, historical accounts, and film.

CORE 3727 (RELS 2222)
Medieval Christian Thought
3 credits
Tracks the development of Christian thought from Augustine to the eve of the Reformation. Influence of Augustine in the West; widening breach between Eastern and Western Christendom; rise of Islam and the interaction of the monotheistic faiths; religious orders and the universities; scholasticism and the achievement of Thomas Aquinas; dissolution of the medieval synthesis.

 

CORE 3729 (RELS 2315)
Theology of Marriage
3 credits
The course traces the relationship between faith and commitment in a “theology of marriage.” Past and present Christian understandings of the marital relationship in light of Scripture and sacramental theology. Insights about marriage based on knowledge from psychology and anthropology. Christian marriage as promise, symbol and vocation.

CORE 3730 (RELS 3180)
Responses to Suffering in the Ancient World
3 credits
The course invites students to reflect intellectually on the problem of human suffering. To facilitate this reflection we will survey a range of ancient religious, literary and philosophical texts that respond in different ways to suffering. We will read texts from the biblical, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions. Throughout the course, these ancient texts will provide an analytic framework for the student to reflect on responses to the problem of suffering in our contemporary world.

CORE 3731 (RELS 3280, CAST 4390)
The Popes and the Modern Ecumenical Movement
3 credits
The course traces the involvement of the Popes, especially after Vatican II, in the ecumenical movement. Because of this movement, which has been developing during the last century (since 1910), the relationships between the different Christian churches, long divided from one another, have changed and continue to change significantly. This course seeks to interpret the reasons why Christianity divided centuries ago, and the ways in which the churches are seeking to remedy those divisions today, seeking to restore the unity of the Church, showing especially the contributions of the Popes to that movement.

Sociology, Anthropology & Social Work

CORE 3790 (ANTH 3306, SOCI 3888)
African Diasporic Religions in Dialogue
3 credits
This course will examine the products of interrelations between West African religions and Catholicism as they met via the slave trade and forced relocation of Africans to the New World. It will also view contemporary versions of those interrelations. We will discuss continuities and changes, syncretism, resistance, and divergence between and among African derived religious practice and the religious and cultural forms that people of African descent encountered in the New World. The main focus will be social-scientific. Among the topics to be considered: Mexican, Cuban, Haitian, Trinidadian, Brazilian, and U.S. traditions, including discussions of Catholic Saints, slave Baptisms, the Inquisition, folk Catholicism, sacred drumming, trance possession, and Santería.

CORE 3791 (SOCI 3888)
Thomas Merton, Religion, and Culture
3 credits
Roman Catholic, Trappist Monk, civil rights and anti-war activist, cultural critic and poet, Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was among the first pioneers of a contemporary movement now referred to as “being religious interreligiously”. This course will provide a broad exposure to the writings of Thomas Merton in various genres; an appreciation for the continued relevance of his work in the first decade of the twenty-first century and beyond; an understanding of what it means to be religious interreligiously without having to abandon one’s native religious tradition; and a firsthand experiential appreciation of the value of contemplative practice (sacred silence) and its importance in the fast-paced and fragmented world of information overload in which they find themselves.

CORE 3792 (ANTH 3304)
Anthropology of Mysticism
3 credits
This course explores the lives of specific Catholic mystics (and also some Eastern Orthodox mystics) and the phenomenon of mysticism and mystical phenomena drawing on a sub-specialty of cultural anthropology: the anthropology of consciousness. The professor and students will strive to make meaningful sense out of the fascinating lives of these unusual personalities and of the firsthand nature of their experiences with the Divine or Ultimate Reality in a non-reductionist way. Special attention will be paid to the relationship between ascetic, ritual and devotional practice and mystical experiences.

CORE 3793 (SOCI 3886)
Engaging the World: Catholicism and the Human Sciences
3 credits
Models of integration and tension between Catholicism and the various sciences of human behavior are examined in their historical contexts. Main controversies – the relationship between facts and values, essentialism vs. anti-essentialism, voluntarism vs. determinism, and relativism vs. objectivism – are examined from a Catholic perspective that emphasizes how theology and the human sciences “implicate” each other. A Catholic theology of the human sciences is applied to modern and postmodern conditions of life, and contrasted with other Christian as well as non-Christian theologies.