University of Winchester
MLA Semester 1, 2014-15
Thursdays 10.00am
LA 1009 Athens and Jerusalem
In your MLA programme over the next three years, ‘motion’, and ‘movement’, will be very
important themes. We will see them appearing in religious, scientific, philosophical, political and
cultural thinking. We will see how at different times and in different traditions they will be used to
define what counts as truth and error, as right and wrong, as God, as facts, as the critique of
identity, and as protest, resistance and change. It is impossible to overestimate how important
motion and movement are in the ways that meaning is constructed in the world.
You will see many movements between this module and First Principles, and in Freedom is to
Learn (a) and (b), in semesters 1 and 2. We are keen for you to bring material ‘across’ the
modules… even in the second essays…
In this module, and right at the beginning of the programme, it seems appropriate to consider the
meaning of movement between what is defined as the ‘Eternal’ and what is defined as the merely
‘human’. To explore the relationship between them we will look at how various traditions have
thought that the two spheres can relate to each other. And the movements that operate this
relation are down, up and across. Down refer to the descent of the Eternal into the earthly, or into
finite time; up refers to ideas like transfiguration in which human beings are raised to the Eternal;
and across… well, let’s wait and see what part this plays in the relation between up and down.
First 6 sessions: Weaving Eternity into Time
Introduction: In other modules in Year One, you will spend a great deal of time in Athens, and the
ancient Greek tradition. By way of contrast, in this module, we journey to Jerusalem. In the first 6
sessions we will trace the descent of the Eternal into History by exploring the text at the heart of
the Jewish tradition, the Hebrew Bible.
Week 1 (25th September)
Introduction to module: In Between
Jacob’s Dream: And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached
to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it [Gen.28.12]. Jesus to
Nathaniel: Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending on the Son of Man [John 1.51]. Krishna to Arjuna: I come in to being age
after age [B-G 4.8] Heaven meets earth in people. Some of these people are climbing up the
ladder in between, some have come down. An introduction to the two-part module, unraveling
the key concepts and themes of divine descent (incarnation) and human ascent (transfiguration)
and the relation between saints, heroes, self-sacrifice and transcendance.
Reading:
Handout 1: Athens to Jerusalem: Underlying Principles
Handout 2: Standpoint
Hebrew Bible (Christian: ‘Old Testament’): Genesis chapter 28 (Jewish Publication Society or RSV
or AV versions)
New Testament Gospel according to John chapter 1 and 11 (RSV or AV versions)
Bhagavad-Gita Chapter 4 (Oxford World Classics, OUP, 2004)
Levinas, E. Entre Nous Thinking-of-the-Other Chapter 4 (Continuum, London, 1998)
LA 1009 Athens and Jerusalem
Weil, S. Grace and Gravity Chapters: The Cross (p79f) and Grace and Gravity (p1f)
Week 2 (2nd October)
Heaven and Earth
Heaven meets earth in nature. We shall explore the two Creation stories in Genesis and look at the
interpretive method called PARDES (the fours layer of meaning to be unearthed in the text
through creative exploration). We shall learn about the Hebrew Bible. Why do Christians still call it
the ‘Old Testament’?
Reading:
Handout: PARDES
Handouts: A Variety of Creation Stories
Handout: Introduction to the Bible
Hebrew Bible (Christian: ‘Old Testament’): Genesis chapter 1-2 (Jewish Publication Society or RSV
or AV versions)
Sarah, Rabbi E. Trouble-Making Judaism Part One, chapter 1 (David Paul Books, London, 2012) –
Extracts
Week 3 (9th October)
Unexpected resources: trans and gender in the Hebrew Bible
Using an essay by Rabbi Elli Sarah, and an in-depth Biblical study of the tales of the Special One,
Joseph and the female prophet, Deborah, we discover how trans and gender are treated in the
Hebrew Bible.
Reading:
Hebrew Bible (Christian: ‘Old Testament’): Genesis chapter 37(f) and Judges chapter 4 (Jewish
Publication Society or RSV or AV versions)
Sarah, Rabbi E. Joseph the Beautiful Dreamer: another way of being male (unpublished essay
2014) - Extracts
Sarah, Rabbi E. Deborah the Prophet and Judge: another way of being female (unpublished essay
2014) – Extracts
Wilchins, R. Queer Theory, Gender Theory (Alyson Publications, 2004) – Extracts
Additional reading: Adler, R. Rabbi Engendering Judaism (Beacon Press 1999)
Week 4 (16th October)
Putting the Eternal in a box
We will explore the Jewish concept of midbar (wilderness/desert/emptiness) and mishkan
(dwelling place/sanctuary) as places of encounter and meeting, using the Biblical texts and
commentaries: a) The Eternal is vividly portrayed in the Hebrew Bible in series of sacred
encounters b) the people create sacred spaces to ‘hold’ these encounters:, standing stones in high
places, the sacred box (ark), the portable Tent of Meeting and the Temple.
Reading:
Hebrew Bible (Christian: ‘Old Testament’): Genesis chapter 28, Exodus chapter 3, 15, 16, 17, 19,
25, 29, 40; I Chronicles chapter 28; I Kings chapter 8 (Jewish Publication Society or RSV or AV
versions)
Sarah, Rabbi E. Encountering the Eternal: Beyond the Tyrannical Dictator and Towards the Elusive
(unpublished essay 2014) - Extracts
LA 1009 Athens and Jerusalem
Week 5 (23rd October)
No session
Week 6 (30th October)
Seeking the Eternal in the city
Heaven meets earth in the Holy City. All three Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam
- share Jerusalem as a holy site. The city has been invaded, occupied, plundered, contested,
destroyed, re-built, shared, divided… It has been called ‘the eye of the storm of the world’. Where
is the Eternal to be found in all this?
Reading:
Hebrew Bible (AV Old Testament): Psalm 122 and commentary
Handout: Blake. W Jerusalem
Josephus The Fall of Jerusalem (Penguin London 2006)
Burton, R. To the Holy Shrines (Penguin 2007)
Handout: The Night Journey of the Prophet; the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Asqa Mosque; Via
Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; Two Walls – The Kotel
Second six sessions: Bodies on the Line: the Self-Transfigured
Introduction: In the second half of the module we will look at the ascent, as it were, of the human
into the Eternal. Looking at history through biography we will view huge movements and key
moments in history through the prism of the lives of a few extraordinary individuals. We will
compare and contrast saints with heroes and explore the themes of self-sacrifice and selftranscendence.
Week 7 (November 6th)
Anti-heroes
Moses, Jesus and Mary: these three foundational figures in Judaism and Christianity all transgress.
We study their representations in Hebrew Bible and Christian gospels and focus on Jesus the
Outsider and Jew.
Reading:
Hebrew Bible (Christian: ‘Old Testament’): Exodus chapter 2-4
Kierkegaard, S. Attack Upon ‘Christendom’ [on-line edition of Ed. Lowrie, W. University of
Princeton Press 1946]
Handout: Jesus the Jew – extracts from gospel, according to Matthew
Wood, J. Jesus Post-Christianity (unpublished teaching handbook) – extracts
Vermes, G. Christian Beginnings (Penguin 2003)
Handout: Infancy Narratives – Mary/Miriam
Week 8 (13th November)
Transgressive ‘saints’
LA 1009 Athens and Jerusalem
Francis Bacon and Tracey Emin: we study how the lives of two artists reveal the under-side of their
societies yet are transformed (descent in to hell and ascent in to heaven): using their writings and
art works).
Reading:
Handout: Images by Emin [www.saatchigallery.com/artist]
Emin, T. My Life in a Column (Rizzoli 2011)
Emin, T. Strangeland (Sceptre 2005)
Sylvester, D. Interviews with Francis Bacon (T&H London 1987)
Hoban, P Lucian Freud (comments on Bacon) (Icon, Amazon 2014)
Week 9 (20th November) Saintly ‘transgressors’
Condemned to die, Catholic saint Jeanne d’Arc took off the ‘shift’ the church captors forced her to
wear and demand her male clothes back. Burned as a witch – redeemed as a saint. We trace her
journey. The Sufi Master and poet, Rumi, passionately loved his friend and Teacher, Shams. Out of
this love, he developed an inclusive mysticism which broke the spiritual boundaries of his time and
ours .
Reading:
Pernoud, R. Joan of Arc (Penguin 1964)
Shaw, Bernard Saint Joan (Penguin Plays 1966)
Hebrew Bible (Christian: ‘Old Testament’): Song of Songs (Jewish Publication Society or RSV or AV
versions)
Barks, C. and Moyne, J. The Essential Rumi (Penguin, London 1995)
Barks, C. Rumi - The Book of Love (Harper One USA, 2003)
Burckhardt, T. Introduction to Sufi Doctrine (World Wisdom 2008) chapters 1, 4, and 8.
Further reading:
Sackville-West, V. Saint Joan of Arc (Michael Joseph, London 1936)
Week 10 (27th November)
Heroes and Broken Men
Using the diaries of the polar explorer, Shackleton, and the records of his men, we will follow the
epic journey made by a small group of men, led by him, to rescue their comrades and explore
what it tells us about the un-breakable heroic male identity. All his men were saved, some only
then to be slaughtered in the First World War. The poems of Wilfred Owen, and Pat Barker’s
Regeneration (the story of the therapist, W.H.R.Rivers, who worked with soldiers suffering from
‘shell-shock’ [PTSD]), reveal how the concept service and self sacrifice were transformed to
challenge the normative male status quo of the time.
Reading:
Shackleton, E. Escape from the Antarctic (Penguin 1999)
Worsley, F.A. Shackleton’s Boat Journey (Birlinn 2007)
Knowles, O. The Poems of Wilfred Owen (Wordsworth Poetry Library 2002)
Barker, P. Regeneration (Penguin 1991)
Additional reading:
Shackleton, E. South (Penguin 1999)
Scott, R.F. Journals: Captain Scott’s Last Expedition (Oxford World Classics 2008)
Stallworthy, J. Wilfred Owen (Pimlico 2013)
Stallworthy, J. Anthem for Doomed Youth (Constable London 2013)
Week 11 (4th December)
LA 1009 Athens and Jerusalem
Bodies on the Line
Ana Mendieta and the boxer, Muhammad Ali: we explore how these two People of Colour used
their bodies and the body in their art.
Reading:
Handout: Images of Ali
Ali, M. The Soul of a Butterfly (Bantam 2005)
Handout: Images by Mendieta
Blocker, J. Where is Ana Mendieta (Duke University Press 1999)
Additional reading:
Hauser, T Muhammad Ali His Life and Times (Portico 2012)
Bailey, D.A. at al, Shades of Black (Duke University Press 2005)
Week 12 (11th December)
The collision of heaven and earth: a traumatic crash or a love-match? We will overview the
module and trace the connections between self-sacrifice/self-loss and divine revelation; between
human despair and transfiguration. We will ask: what is the place of the holy and heroic in our
lives today?
Essays
Two essays; 50% each; 1750 words each. 3500 words in total
Essay One: due Thursday 6th Nov, to Catherine by 3.30 in the office
Using materials from weeks 1-6, describe ideas of the descent of the Eternal.
Essay Two: due week 12, Thursday 11th Dec, 3.30 to Catherine in the office.
Choose a title from one of the following:

What is a transgressive saint?

What is the relation between trangressive saints and anti-heroes?

What do you understand by ascent and descent of the Eternal?

Explore the idea of sacred journey with reference to any two traditions.
LA 1009 Athens and Jerusalem