God, Work, Poetry

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course examines theology and poetry as two forms of attentive living directed toward love of God and neighbor through a comparative consideration of the meaning of work and the experience of time. These issues are examined in each of the four main parts of the course. In the first part, we examine attentiveness as a distinctive intellectual and spiritual problem for our time. In the second part, the focus will be on social scientific theories of work and how these relate to recent studies about subjectivity and the valuation of work in digital spaces (especially workplaces). In the third part of the course, the focus will shift to the construction/disciplining of subjectivity in Christian liturgical and monastic practices, focusing especially on the interplay of communal prayer and manual labor that has traditionally been part of Christian monastic discipline. In the fourth part, we conclude with a consideration of the work of creating and "reading" art (especially poetry and painting) in light of the social changes to work and the theological interpretations of work studied in the preceding parts of the course.