Professor Anita Houck
Saint Mary's
College
Religious Studies 339
"Religion & Literature"
How do poets and authors envision the divine, and can their visions teach
us about the nature of God? What can literature tell us about our own
lives, and can it help us understand the lives of others? In what ways
can literature guide us in making moral choices? This seminar will
examine how literature can address our deepest questions--and how it
can't. We'll look together at a range of texts that use literature to
address religious issues: critical essays, movies, and literary works of
various genres, mostly from the Christian tradition. Among the texts
we'll study will be Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamozav.