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Catholic
Studies Courses Art History AH 304-51: Baroque Art This course examines major developments in art and architecture in Western Europe (Italy, Flanders, Spain, Holland, and France) during the 17th century (1590s-1700). The Baroque period was dynamic and full of contrasts. It was a time of major religious, political, and social developments to which artists and patrons responded. Readings and lectures will consider art in the service of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the absolutist monarchies of France and Spain, as well as the middle class, Protestant society of the Northern Netherlands. We will look at the development of art academies, landscape and genre painting, and portraiture as well as new approaches to depicting Christian and mythological subject matter. Major artists to be studied include Caravaggio, Bernini, Rubens, Velazquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Poussin. AH 431-21: Sixteenth Century Art in Rome:
Mannerism to Counter-Reformation This course examines developments in art in Rome during the 16th century. It focuses on the transition from Mannerism to the Counter-Reformation age. It starts with Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and Raffaello’s Rooms where the signs of Mannerism are already visible. Then it goes on to explore the main mannerist artists active in Rome in the first half of the century. It analyzes the influence of the Italian and foreign northern culture and the presence of some northern artists in Rome around the middle of the century: both will help the passage to “nature” and to the representation of religious subjects. English EN 320-51: Renaissance: Tudor Literature In this class we will focus on four main goals. 1. To praise God. 2. To know thoroughly a representative set of Tudor authors and genres. 3. To embed Tudor literature within Tudor culture, history, and ideology. 4. To produce a research paper on Tudor literature which acquaints the student with the work of major scholars and journals. History HS 396-21: Papacy and Rome Rome, the ‘Eternal City’, central in the history of Western culture, changed form Antiquity to Modern times passing through a medieval evolution that made the capital of the Roman Empire the centre of Christianity. To understand how and why Rome became the most important city of Christendom it is necessary to reconstruct the historical evolution of the Papacy. Indeed, the presence of popes in Rome shaped the city role, culture, politics and architecture of the Eternal City. This course will study topics related to the evolution of the papal primacy from Late Antiquity to the Medieval period in relation to the Byzantine Empire, where Constantine founded the “New Rome”. In the course we will analyze the relation between the Rome of the Roman Empire and the centre of Christianity: how the heritage of the Roman Empire influenced the role played by the papacy and how the new imperial see reacted against the evolution of the papal primacy. HS 411-51: Renaissance Europe This course will examine the cultural, political, and social changes that Europe underwent between ca. 1300 and ca.1600. These will include the rise of the city-states and principalities of Italy, the early capitalist economy of Europe, the rise of Humanism, the call for Reform in the Church, the place of the family in Renaissance life, and the role of women in society and in the humanist movement. Students will also examine the “problem of the Renaissance,” i.e. the various interpretations that historians have offered in the 19th and 20th centuries. Our means to addressing these various aspects of the Renaissance will be by reading primary resources, by examining the art of the period, and by studying significant examples of secondary literature on the period. Classical and Modern Languages ML 270-21: Faith, Reason, and Art in Italian
Literature This course will begin with an introduction to the significance and meaning of encyclopedic knowledge in the Middle Ages, as seen through St. Augustine—knowledge which can be defined as a logical space, a framework within which the entities of the world are interpreted and classified. We will read St. Bonaventure’s On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology. In this classical treatise, Bonaventure portrays all of the varied forms of human knowledge, as then known, into a unity. He portrays how all of the arts, including philosophy, must lead back to theology and how they are not to stand as an independent and self-sufficient discipline. Philosophy PL 220-52: Medieval Philosophy The Christian philosophical tradition emerged most perspicaciously in the medieval period. The purpose of this course is to reconstruct the emergence, and to pay particular attention to the way in which medieval philosophers shaped the foundations of the intellectual analysis and criticism integral to the Catholic intellectual tradition. We will begin with an analysis of early Church Fathers (Iranaeus and Origin), move to the early medieval period (Augustine and Boethius), and then to works of the High Middle Ages (Lombard, Anselm, and Aquinas). Finally we will examine the transition from the medieval into the modern period prompted by the Franciscan thinkers Scotus and Ockham. The overall aim of the course is to give students both a competence in and an appreciation of the extraordinary depth of thought present in these thinkers. PL 230-51: Christian Thinkers The purpose of this course is to present a historical and critical examination of some salient examples of Catholic thinkers who stand within the general tradition of Christian philosophy. The course will begin by presenting a working definition of Catholic philosophy: a metaphysics that has a particular concern for the question of being. Then we trace the development of this tradition from Augustine and Anselm, through Aquinas and Scotus, into the tradition Neo-Scholasticism. We will make a critical assessment of how Catholic philosophy, as a Christian philosophy, relates to the tradition of philosophy as a whole. PL 306-51: Philosophy and Literature Issues such as the human person, personal freedom, good and evil, and human sociability considered in "Les Miserables," "The Phantom of the Opera," "Jean de Florette," and "Manon of the Springs." Movies and music used to illustrate experiences and situations. PL 315-51: Bioethics Bioethics provides a range of theoretical underpinnings to assist in the resolution of clinical dilemmas presented by the practice of modern medicine. In order to answer the question “what ought I do?” patients, their families, health care professionals and religious advisors face increasingly complex challenges to traditional views about the sanctity and value of human life. In this Catholic Studies course, we will examine five main bioethics concerns contrasting a faith based perspective provided by Catholic tradition and Magisterium with secular bioethics perspectives. We consider 1) valuing life, personal autonomy over life and death, in an age when life can be manufactured 2) creating life, and the ethics of assisted reproduction, and genetically engineered human and animal life 3) modifying life, and the ethical limits of transplantation, genetic modification, and the use of stem cell technologies 4) ending life, and the ethics of assisted suicide, withdrawal of artificial life support of nutrition 5) real life, and the adequacy of bioethics theory to underpin pastoral advice, and the practical resolution of ethical dilemmas in medicine and biotechnology. PL 420-41: Metaphysics We will attempt to understand what kinds of things there are in the world through the questions of Being and related concepts of existence, thing, property, event, matter, mind, space, time, and causality. PL 425-41: Philosophy of the Human Person Philosophical reflection on some fundamental and enduring questions about human beings and their relationship to the universe. Includes classical and contemporary sources. Political Science PO 320-10: Christian Democracy in Europe Christian democracy is one of the most important contemporary political movements in Europe. Development of Catholic political and social thought from the French Revolution to the present; and the role played by Christian Democratic parties in eight centuries today. Religious Studies RL 101-41: Introduction to Religious Studies Introduction to the academic study of religion. Topics include the nature of religion; the human search for meaning; revelation; symbol, myth, and ritual; faith as it relates to reason, experience, and morality. Introduction to the areas of scripture, theology, ethics, and religious traditions. This class is designed to prepare students for courses at the 200 and 300 levels. RL 200-41: Old Testament Introduction This course is an introduction to the scholarly study of Sacred Scripture in the Roman Catholic Tradition. More specifically, it will examine the historical and cultural environment of the Old Testament, its nature and composition, its religious and theological developments, and its significance for today’s Christians. RL 232-51: Jesus, Person, and Savior Who is the real Jesus, the person who inspired his early disciples in spite of persecution and who continues to attract followers? Is his existence a verifiable fact? What evidence is there for Jesus’ life and resurrection? What do we know of his Jewish heritage and the context of the land, culture and history of the first century? What was the nature of his miracles and healings? Why was it necessary for early Church councils to define Jesus as fully human and fully divine, and how does that happen in a person without interference? What are theologians saying about his self-knowledge? Did Jesus know from infancy that he was the son of God? If not, why not? And what about other religions: How are we to understand the plan of salvation rooted in Jesus as we dialogue with those who do not hold him as the universal Savior of humankind? These are the kinds of questions we’ll answer in this course. We will consult primary as well as secondary sources, debates over the centuries, and interests of contemporary theologians as we expand our knowledge and experience of Jesus and his message. RL 308-51: Word of God in Catholic Perspective The course begins with what is most basic in Christian theology, that is, the word of revelation by which God tells human beings who God is, how He is near to them, and what He is doing to bring them to the fullness of life. In this revelation, Moses and the Prophets of ancient Israel served as spokespersons for God. God’s Son, Jesus, came forth as one “who taught with authority,” and in His death and resurrection brought the revelation of God to its supreme and most concentrated expression, as Jesus’ apostles announced and taught this. To God’s revelation the biblical books give fundamental witness. They are the “canonical” accounts of God’s word and of the human response of faith. They are books composed by writers in Israel and earliest Christianity who were “inspired by the Holy Spirit,” so they might give valid witness to God. In the last part, the course will examine ways of drawing out of the biblical text its meaning as God’s word of truth, as encouragement in faith, and as light for living. RL 326-21: History of the Papacy Rome, the ‘Eternal City’, central in the history of Western culture, changed form Antiquity to Modern times passing through a medieval evolution that made the capital of the Roman Empire the centre of Christianity. To understand how and why Rome became the most important city of Christendom it is necessary to reconstruct the historical evolution of the Papacy. Indeed, the presence of popes in Rome shaped the city role, culture, politics and architecture of the Eternal City. This course will study topics related to the evolution of the papal primacy from Late Antiquity to the Medieval period in relation to the Byzantine Empire, where Constantine founded the “New Rome”. In the course we will analyze the relation between the Rome of the Roman Empire and the centre of Christianity: how the heritage of the Roman Empire influenced the role played by the papacy and how the new imperial see reacted against the evolution of the papal primacy. RL 364-51 and 52: Christian Sexuality It is widely held today that the human race is undergoing a massive cultural mutation in the area of sexual values, ethics, and behaviors. Christian Sexuality explores this claim from the perspective of the church’s wisdom and teaching and, from the prospective of human experience, wrestles with the mystery and meaning of human sexuality as revelatory of our deepest urgent longings for communion with God. RL 376-41: Franciscan Movement This course will study the Franciscan Movement from its birth in the life of St. Francis of Assisi to its modern-day manifestations. Through reflections upon the historical and spiritual aspects of the movement, the course will give the student an overall perspective of the Franciscan experience, identifying its unique and vital charism within the Roman Catholic Church. RL 399B-1: The Catholic Experience This course will focus on three constitutive elements in the Catholic experience: [1] theological reflection that supports a spirituality of contemplative action, [2] moral individual and social choices that witness to the authenticity of that spirituality, and [3] creative efforts to symbolize this theological inquiry, spirituality, and moral commitment, especially through narrative. There will be three central texts in this inquiry: Barron’s And Now I See, Spohn’s Go and Do Likewise, and Curtis, editor, Faith, Short Fiction on the Varieties and Vagaries of Faith.
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