Writing Intensive
ENGLISH 105W
INTRODUCTION TO ISSUES IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Instructor: S. OGDEN ogden@sfu.ca
SUMMER 2007
The God Fiction
Blog address: http://thegodfiction.blogspot.com
So, we live in a consumerist secular mass-culture among a wired generation of irony and self-fulfilment. On Sunday churches are empty and malls are full, and TV evangelists share Paris Hilton’s sexual ethics .... and her YouTube bandwidth. Why the Hell then is our culture still passionate about a God Who isn’t there? In this course we consider this paradox by reading fiction by five authors who have especially strong engagements with the Christian God: two powerfully against, two powerfully for, and one …. well, one pleasingly uncertain.
This course will improve understanding not only of the arguments, feelings and cultural consequence of both believers and atheists, but also of ways in which novels that engage the God problem become themselves a contributing influence on the meaning which culture gives to religion. The course texts are chosen for the immediate force of the literary treatment of their respective themes. Lecture will present the material fairly and in its full vigour, without respect for personal pieties: this is, as Monty Python saith, the right room for an argument.
PREREQUISITES: None
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Pullman, Philip The Amber Spyglass
Greene, Graham Brighton Rock
Coupland, Douglas Life After God
Wood, James The Book Against God: a Novel
Rice, Anne Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt
RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
Chesterton, G. K. Othodoxy
Harris, Sam Letter to a Christian Nation
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
10% Participation
15% Three individual writing presentations
20% Group Polemic Project
20% Mid-term paper (1500 words with revision)
35% Final examination
ENGLISH 105W
INTRODUCTION TO ISSUES IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Instructor: S. OGDEN ogden@sfu.ca
SUMMER 2007
The God Fiction
Blog address: http://thegodfiction.blogspot.com
So, we live in a consumerist secular mass-culture among a wired generation of irony and self-fulfilment. On Sunday churches are empty and malls are full, and TV evangelists share Paris Hilton’s sexual ethics .... and her YouTube bandwidth. Why the Hell then is our culture still passionate about a God Who isn’t there? In this course we consider this paradox by reading fiction by five authors who have especially strong engagements with the Christian God: two powerfully against, two powerfully for, and one …. well, one pleasingly uncertain.
This course will improve understanding not only of the arguments, feelings and cultural consequence of both believers and atheists, but also of ways in which novels that engage the God problem become themselves a contributing influence on the meaning which culture gives to religion. The course texts are chosen for the immediate force of the literary treatment of their respective themes. Lecture will present the material fairly and in its full vigour, without respect for personal pieties: this is, as Monty Python saith, the right room for an argument.
PREREQUISITES: None
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Pullman, Philip The Amber Spyglass
Greene, Graham Brighton Rock
Coupland, Douglas Life After God
Wood, James The Book Against God: a Novel
Rice, Anne Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt
RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
Chesterton, G. K. Othodoxy
Harris, Sam Letter to a Christian Nation
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
10% Participation
15% Three individual writing presentations
20% Group Polemic Project
20% Mid-term paper (1500 words with revision)
35% Final examination
2 comments:
Will Orthodoxy and Letter to a Christian Nation be examined in class, or are they brought in mainly to enhance the rest of the literature?
Also, I want to mention that I'm currently reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and was surprised by how many concepts covered in your fiction course are covered by Dawkins (ie. ontology, Clarke's third law..). It's an interesting representation of those of us whom are confidently "beyond god."
Dear Adam: those two texts will enhance the fiction. They are the best books to get a sense of the polemics & didacticism underlying the art.
Look forward to seeing you in lecture in a week (already!)
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