The Symbol, the Icon and the Body: An Examination of Christian Semiotics

ARTH 100.302
Tuesday & Thursday, 9:00 - 10:30
Instructor: Andreas Andreopoulos
PHF Mellon Fellow History of Art

The concept of symbol is of central importance to Christian worship and thought. It covers concepts as fundamental and diverse such as the Creed (the “Symbol of Faith”), iconography (the icon in Early Church is not a simple representation, but it coveys a sense of the presence of the metaphysical), the liturgical tradition, and even the Communion Body (the Orthodox Liturgy refers to the Communion body and blood of Christ as the “signs of the body of Christ”, at the same time holding them to be of the same essence as the body and blood of Christ). Naturally, the concept of the symbol here indicates a presence that is communicated through the symbol, instead of an absence, usually associated with the modern understanding of symbols and symbolism. This seminar will try to outline the magnitude and the depth of the issue in the main three fields of doctrinal formulation, iconography and liturgies, to propose several ways to address and study it, and examine the thought of the Fathers of the Church who have commented for various purposes on the significance and the role of the symbol.

This seminar will attempt to outline the ways worship and belief are expressed, find common threads among all of them, and point, through them, to elusive meaning of religious thought and expression that can be found beyond languages, theoretical or doctrinal formulations, signs and conventional representations, touching upon the innermost part of faith and belief.

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Magic and Witchcraft in the Christian west, 400-1700

HIST 101.301
Days & Times TBA
Instructor: Michael D. Bailey
PHF Mellon Fellow, History

This course will explore the history of magic and human conceptions of supposed supernatural power in western culture from the early days of Christianity to the dawn of the modern era. Particular points of emphasis will include definitions of magic and the relationship of magic to both religion, on the one hand, and to science, on the other. A major theme of the course will be the rise of belief in diabolical witchcraft in Christian culture and the great witch-hunts of the late-medieval and early-modern periods. The main focus will be on Western Europe, but a section on witchcraft in colonial America will also be included. In exploring the boundaries between approved religion, superstition, and science, this course is directly relevant to the topic of belief. In addition, through the topic of the witch-hunts, the course will explore how beliefs can shape human actions, and entire human societies, in this case toward extremely negative ends. Students will engage with issues of religious extremism and justifications of violence and persecution grounded in religious belief.

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Music and Christian Worship in Contemporary Culture

MUSC 016.001
Tuesday & Thursday, 3:00 - 4:30
Instructor: Sidney Boquiren
PHF Mellon Fellow, Music

The principal goals of this course are to examine the numerous ways that Christians today worship through music; to study how these differences express and formulate identity, serving to unite as well as articulate boundaries among Christians; and to learn, develop, and apply methods of critical analysis to work and experiences within as well as outside the classroom and beyond this course. During the course of the semester, students will develop a critical ear through listening to and aurally analyzing a variety of musical examples examined in different contexts. This course is not aimed only at musicians and Christians. Indeed, prior musical knowledge is not required for this course. Additionally, non-Christian students will enrich class discussions by providing a perspective that allows for questioning and even challenging practices and beliefs regarding the role of music in worship that are commonly, perhaps blindly, accepted by Christians. And while Christian faith will be the principal focus of the course, there will be opportunities for forays into other religious and spiritual traditions as they intersect with the practice of music.

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Francis Bacon and the Interpretation of Nature: the Dissociation of Human Knowledge and Belief

ENGL TBA
Monday & Wednesday
3-4:30 Instructor: Yaakov Mascetti
PHF Mellon Fellow, English

In this seminar, it will be our objective to trace the development of Francis Bacon’s reformation of human investigation into the secrets of nature, and to acquire a close understanding of the texts in which the English thinker initiated a cultural movement which “aimed at liberating men from fears.” Bacon has been traditionally considered as the buccinator novo temporis, the initiator of a reformation of philosophy that led to man’s “sovereignty” of the world. The general program of this process was the “disenchantment of the world,” a substantial work of cultural reformation aimed to undermine aprioristic and occultist conceptions of existence. Traditional explanations of cosmological phenomena, and mediaeval elaborations of classical philosophies of nature contributed, from Bacon’s perspective, to the creation of epistemological myths, and to the “substitution of knowledge for fancy.” Belief was thus opposed to the empirical truth of facts and of objective observation. Knowledge represented, for Bacon, the epistemic encounter between the individual and the secret workings of nature, and not between man and God. Our readings of Bacon’s earlier writings like the Filum Labyrinthi, the Valerius Terminus and the De Sapientia Veterum, together with an in-depth analysis of the Advancement of Human Understanding and of the Novum Organum will therefore lead us to a closer and more compelling understanding of the English philosopher’s dualist sundering between the human and the Divine, and to acquire a less biased comprehension of his re-formed conception of belief, knowledge and contemplation.

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Magical Modernities

ANTH 025.301
Tuesday & Thursday
3:00 - 4:30
Instructor: Kate Ramsey
PHF Mellon Fellow, Anthropology

There has long been an expectation in the West that magical belief would be extinguished by the force and spread of Enlightenment thought, scientific rationality, and secularism. Yet human belief in, practice of, and fascination with “magic” has proved far more resilient than predictions of the world's inevitable “disenchantment” foresaw. In this seminar, we will historicize the development of the concept of “magic” in Western thought, and go on to examine case studies that illuminate the contemporary significance of supernatural belief in different socio-cultural locations. Topics will include the relationship of magic and modernity in colonial and postcolonial contexts; the representation of magical modernities in literary movements such as “magical realism,” the magic of cinema; and the place of magical belief in the contemporary United States. Texts will include works by Mary Douglas, E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Carlo Ginzburg, Gabriel García Márquez, J. K. Rowling, Michael Taussig, Keith Thomas, Max Weber and others.

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