Lectures and on-line presentations will be supplemented by field trips to local churches, synagogues, temples, etc., presentations from local faith practitioners, and movies. Shays Rebellion, the Battle of Mussel Slough, the war in Vietnam, the drug wars, abortion. This will allow both for an understanding of the changing platforms of the right wing in each individual country, as well as an understanding of the similarities and differences between the right wing in these three countries over the course of the past century. As a seminar, the class with consist primarily of directed discussion of assigned readings and the major written requirement will be a research paper. Topics addressed include the Richelieu administration, peasant revolt, the Fronde, Catholic mysticism, Pascal and Jansenism, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, war, taxes, and the court of Versailles.
Students can earn extra credit by discovering the true identity of the man in the iron mask.
Our cast of possible characters includes Faust, Frankenstein, Jekyll, Moreau, Strangelove, and others. The class surveys those subterranean subcultures which helped to redefine American social and cultural values and lifestyles after 1945. By examining issues of spirituality, imagination, artistic expression, and socio-cultural values, the course seeks to discover whether apparent changes in consciousness and informal philosophies provided alternatives or legitimations of American consumer capitalism in the second half of the twentieth century. A.D. Topics for discussion will include the Greek oracles and prophets, mystery cults, Eastern religions such as Zoroastrianism and their influence on the west, pagan persecutions of the Christians, and finally Christian persecution of heretics in the fourth century. Modern literature, postwar social change, and status of Japan as leading industrial nation.