Martyrdom and Meaning

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The term “martyrdom” appears widely in contemporary religious and political cultures. While the martyr feels like such a recognizable figure, it is also a concept whose precise definition and appropriate deployment feel impossible to pin down. Martyrdom is never simply a single act, but a cultural system forming and being formed by an audience or community of interpreters. This course traces the development and use of martyrdom to generate meaning out of suffering and to establish a relationship between violence, belonging, and truth. We begin with classical and early Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources, and then end with other self-sacrificial phenomena in Chinese Buddhism and Japanese samurai culture, considering along the way the felt effects of this history on the present.