Course Info

Browse the Course Catalog Course Search

Course Info for RELG - 275 - 01, Fall 2023
Class number: 3022 Title: Existentialism and Religion Department: Religious Studies
Career: Undergraduate Component: Seminar Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 19 Current enrollment: 17 Available seats: 2
Start date: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 End date: Thursday, December 21, 2023 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: MW: 10:00AM-11:15AM, LSC - 133 Instructor(s): Jones, Tamsin
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Humanities Requirement
Course Description:
This course engages some of the most basic questions of human existence, as understood by a wide variety of philosophers, artists, poets, and theologians in the 19th and 20th centuries. What does it mean to be human? How do we lead authentic lives? We examine the many ways in which existentialism can be understood as a critical engagement with basic philosophical, theological and social assumptions in regnant Western thought: rationalism, religion and moral positivism. We look at some of the major themes of existentialism (contingency, ambiguity, death and finitude, absurdity and authenticity) and how they constitute what it is to exist as a person. Finally, we examine different examples of religious existentialism.