Religion and Literature

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In A Secular Age, Catholic philosopher of religion Charles Taylor traces the rise of secularity in the West, examining how we have come to inhabit an age where disbelief in the transcendent is not only optional, but the default setting for many. Through the vantage point of literature, this course will consider the arc traced by Taylor and explore how the shift from enchanted cosmos to disenchanted universe is manifest in the content and form of literary works themselves. Assigned works of fiction and poetry will be enjoyed and discussed in their own right, and also in light of Taylor’s narrative of secularity. A key focus of the course will be encountering modern literary responses to what Taylor calls “the immanent frame,” with particular attention to texts that seem to crack open that frame and recover--or at least glimpse--a reenchanted cosmos.