HDS Course Listing

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HDS 2490

Back Roads to Far Places: Literature of Journey and Quest

Stephanie Paulsell and William A. Graham

Description

This course will explore the pervasive themes of journey and quest in world literature with particular attention to their religious dimensions. Through direct encounter with imaginative literary works from a variety of contexts and genres, we will consider the relationship between interior journeys and journeys through an external landscape, home and exile, and the religious and literary dimensions of literature itself. The course will focus on primary texts, with little required reading of secondary materials except in the preparation of a final paper. The lectures will explore important themes as well as supply contextual location for each week's text, discuss issues of genre, style, reception history, and key literary questions and concepts (e.g., myth, legend, epic, the novel, the Doppelgänger, allegories, composite narrative, oral formulaic composition, symbolism, scripture, Bildungsroman, haiku, classic models). Emphasis throughout will be placed upon careful reading of the texts, which will include Tolkien's \Hobbit/, \Gilgamesh/, the Bible, Dante's \Inferno/, Teresa of Avila's \Interior Castle/, \Life of the Buddha/, Hesse's \Siddhartha/, Basho's \Narrow Road to the Deep North/, Endo's \Deep River/, McCa rthy's \The Road/, and others.

Enrollment Limited: No
Open to BTI Students: Yes
Jointly offered through the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as Culture and Belief 32

Course website

Scheduling

Half Course
Spring 2010
Tu., Th., @ 9 and a section on Wednesday
Location to be announced.

Relationship to Program Requirements

Program Requirement	Area / Category / Art / Designation
MTS Area(s) of Focus	Comparative Studies Religion, Literature, and Culture
MDiv Distribution Category/ies	none
MDiv Art(s) of Ministry	Religious Education
ThM, pre-2007 MTS, and pre-2005 MDiv Area	Area 2
Language Course Designation(s)	n/a