Writing About Faith

Undergraduate

Writing about Faith takes on the challenge of articulating spiritual reality, and the quest toward it, at a time when hunger for meaning at its height, yet shared religious language is often fraught or nonexistent. Students will discover how contemporary writers in various genres— nonfiction, poetry, and fiction— dramatize encounters with God and God’s absence, and students will write their own work based on prompts from the reading. We will explore three major phases of the spiritual quest, “Attentiveness,” “Devotion/Vocation,” and “Revelation/Redemption.” In both our reading and writing, we will search for compelling, authentic expressions of ideas and experiences that are often considered “untranslatable.” We will read primarily American writers, with examples from different religions and cultures, alongside atheist and agnostic authors interested in ultimate meanings. Each week, readings will be paired with writing prompts, and at the end of each of the three thematic units, students will submit a piece of writing in one of the three genres we explore. At the end of the course, students will submit a culminating work in the genre of their choice. Th 1:30pm-3:25pm