Immortality

3 Credits

In this multidisciplinary course, we will explore the long history of Western thinking about immortality in its many senses: figurative survival through memory of great deeds, personal salvation after death, elevation to status as a literal god, restoration to bodily life, and collective survival as a species. We will see how hope, skepticism and changing expectations of immortality shaped the epic poetry, philosophy, religious literature, novels, and art of the Greeks and Romans.