Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: ARTS OF LIVING AND ETHICAL AGENCY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This graduate seminar analyzes the long western tradition of “philosophy as a way of life” and its attention to spiritual exercises. From ancient philosophy and late ancient asceticism to twentieth-and-twenty-first philosophers and scholars of religion, we will interrogate the interconnection between theory and practice, reflection and action, what we know and how we shape ourselves. We will look at how forming a way of life is itself an art – where (1) technical training in philosophical and religious communities includes bodily, affective, and reflective practices which allow for (2) individuals to forge their own dispositions towards acting, feeling, and thinking that challenge social norms.