MODULE OUTLINE
Modern Liberal Arts
University of Winchester
Semester 1 LA3014
LA 3014 Spirit: life and death
Thursday 12:00-2:00
Weeks 1-2 MC107
Week 3 HJB 22
Week 4-6 MC107
Week 7-12 MB1
Rebekah Howes
Module Learning Outcomes
Show an ability to employ theorists critically in relation to issues surrounding the relationship between spirit
and notions of life and death
Show an ability to use concepts as critical tools in discussing issues and questions as appropriate
Show an ability to employ theoretical perspectives as critical tools
Therein, to develop a critical voice informed and deepened by appropriate use of theory as critique.
Sustain a critical relationship to ideas related to the study of life and death
Introduction
As we journey now towards the end of the degree it seems appropriate to return to the
most significant and fundamental issue that besets human existence: the relation between
life and death. What the module asks, in various ways, is whether there is a way of life (and
death) to be found in the difficulty of their relation. What is meant by this will be explored in
the following ways. We will ask why it might be that modern consciousness is not well
educated regarding the presence of death in life and in what sense this might be seen to
shape the experience of modern freedom. We will also explore the religious, spiritual and
material nature of such an endeavour in the western tradition, its political implications and
above all, the question of whether there can be any educational substance and/or integrity
to the difficulty of the truth of death in life. To this end the module will explore a number of
lives for whom the struggle, ruins and violences of modern freedom asked deeply difficult
questions of them and to what extent these questions were lived philosophically, religiously,
politically, musically and educationally. But can such lives and deaths be construed in this
way? Do we romanticise, or worse, betray the suffering of modernity when we take the idea
of education to its horrors? These are just some of the questions the module will give rise
too.
Weekly sessions/Readings/Wider reading
Week 1 Introduction
Reading
Hawthorne, N. (1967) ‘The Minister’s Black Veil’ in Great Short Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, New
York: Harper & Row
Wider reading
Cohen, J. (2005) How to read Freud, London: Granta
Lee, A.R. (1982) Nathaniel Hawthorne: new critical essays, London: Vision
Millington, R.H. (ed) (2004) The Cambridge companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Cambridge:
Cambridge Uni Press
Tubbs, N. (2008) Education in Hegel, London: Continuum
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24954256
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/05/in_your_face.html
Week 2
Reading
Caygill, H. (1996) ‘Gillian Rose Obituary’ Radical Philosophy, Vol. 77
The first six essays in Women: a cultural review, Spring 1998, vol. 9, no. 1.
Rose, G. (1995) Love’s Work, London, Chatto and Windus, pp. 96-106
Rose, G. (1999) Paradiso, London: The Menard Press pp 42-47
Wider reading
(There aren’t as yet that many works available about Rose, but there is a full bibliography at
http://www2.gsu.edu/~phlvwl/rose-bibliography.htm).
Lloyd, V. (2009) Law and Transcendence: On the Unfinished Project of Gillian Rose, Palgrave
Macmillan
Tubbs, N. (1998) ‘What is Love’s Work’, Women: A Cultural Review, Vol. 9, no. 1.
Tubbs, N. (2000) ‘Mind the Gap: The Philosophy of Gillian Rose’, Thesis Eleven, no. 60.
Rose, G. (1996) Mourning Becomes the Law, Cambridge University Press
Rose, G. (1993) Judaism and Modernity, Philosophical Essays, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers
Shanks, A. (2008) Against Innocence: Gillian Rose’s Reception and Gift of Faith, London: SCM Press
Schick, K. (2012) Gillian Rose: ‘A Good Enough Justice’, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Williams, R. (2007)’ Between Politics and Metaphysics: Reflections in the Wake of Gillian Rose’ in
Wrestling with Angels, London: SCM Press
Week 3 & 4 ‘to philosophise is to learn how to die’
Reading
Augustine (2003) City of God, London: Penguin Book, XIII 1-5
Aurelius, M. (2006) Meditations, London: Penguin pp 10, 14, 15, 18, 20, 30-33, 61, 81, 84, 87, 99-101
Hegel, G.W.F. (1977) Phenomenology of Spirit, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 113-114,
120-122
Montaigne, M. (1993) The Complete Essays, London: Penguin Classics I.14, I.19, I.20, I.42, I.57, II. 3,
II. 6, II.11, II.13, II.37,
Pascal, B. (1995) Pensees, London: Penguin Classics
Plato (1997) ‘Phaedo’ in Plato Complete Works, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc
Seneca (1997) On the Shortness of Life, London: Penguin
Wider reading
Harris, H.S. (1995) Phenomenology and System Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc
Hyppolite, J. (1974) Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Evanston:
Northwestern University Press
Hugo, V. ‘Diary of a Condemned Man’ in The Collected Works of Victor Hugo, New York: The
Jefferson Press
James, K. (2009) The deaths of Seneca, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Plato, (1997) Republic in Plato Complete Works, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company
Saitya Brata Das (2008) ‘To Philosophize is to Learn How to Die?’ in KRITIKE Vol two Number 131-49
Seneca (1974) Letters from a stoic: epistulae morales ad Lucilium, Harmondsworth: Penguin
Rose, G. (1996) Mourning Becomes the Law, Cambridge University Press
Tubbs, N. (2009) History of Western Philosophy, London: Palgrave macmillan
Week 5 Kierkegaard
Reading
Kierkegaard, S. (1993) Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University
Press
Wider reading
Chamberlain, J. & Reé, J. (eds) (1998) Kierkegaard: a critical reader, Oxford: Blackwell
Croxhall, T. (1956) Kierkegaard Commentary, New York: Harper and Brothers
Gardiner, P. (2002) Kierkegaard: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Kierkegaard, S. (1974) Fear and Trembling and The Sickness unto Death, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press
Kierkegaard, S. (1987) Philosophical Fragments, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press
Kierkegaard, S. (1990) Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press
Kierkegaard, S. (1995) Works of Love, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press
Lloyd, V (2012) ‘Gillian Rose: making Things Difficult Again’ in Stewart, J. (ed) (2012) Volume 11,
Tome I: Kierkegaard's Influence on Philosophy - German and Scandinavian Philosophy, Surrey:
Ashgate Also to be found online at http://vwlloyd.mysite.syr.edu/rose-kierkegaard.pdf
McPherson, I. ‘Kierkegaard as an educational thinker,’ Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 35, no.
2, May 2001, pp. 157-174.
Rosenow, E. ‘Kierkegaard’s Existing Individual,’ Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 23, no. 1,
1989, pp. 3-13.
Stokes, P. & Buben, A.J. (eds) (2011) Kierkegaard and Death, Indiana: Indiana Uni Press
Week 6 Shostakovich
Reading
MacDonald, I. (2006) The New Shostakovich, London: Pimlico p1-17
Fanning, D. (1995) Shostakovich Studies Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Shostakovich, D. (2005) Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich as related to and edited by
Solomon Volkov, London: Faber & Faber
Wider Reading
Edmunds, N. (2004) Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin: The Baton and Sickle, London:
Routledge
Fairclough, P. & Fanning, D. (2008) The Cambridge Companion to Shostakovich, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Fairclough, P. (2012) ‘Don't Sing It on a Feast Day’: The Reception and Performance of Western
Sacred Music in Soviet Russia, 1917-1953', Journal Of The American Musicological Society, 65, 1, pp.
67-111,
Fay,L. (2000) Shostakovich: A Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Kuhn, J. (2010) Shostakovich in Dialogue, Surrey: Ashgate
Lesser, W. (2011) Music for Silenced Voices: Shostakovich and His Fifteen Quartets, Yale University
Press
Nelson, A. (2004) Music for the Revolution: Musicians and Power in Early Soviet Russia, Pennsylvania:
The Pennsylvania State University Press
Simon, John. ‘Shostakovich and the Politics of Survival’ New Leader 87, no. 6 (November 2004): 5052.
Street, J. (2012) Music and Politics, Cambridge: Polity Press
Wilson, E. (2006) Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, London: Faber & Faber
Week 6 The captive mind
Reading
Milosz, C. (1980) The Captive Mind, London: The Penquin Group pp 54-81
Todorov, T. () The Totalitarian Experience 32-37
Steiner, G. (1996) ‘Proofs’ in The Deeps of the Sea and other fiction, London: faber &faber Ltd pp313369
Week 7 Etty Hillesum
Reading
Hillesum, E. 1999, An Interupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43, London:
Persephone Books
Wyschogrod, E. (1985) Spirit in Ashes, New haven and London: Yale Uni Press
Wider reading
van den Brandt, (2014) Etty Hillesum: An Introduction to Her Thought, Lit verlag
Burrell, D. (2004) Faith and freedom: an interfaith perspective, Oxford: Blackwell
Brenner R.F. (2003) Writing as Resistance: Four Women Confronting the Holocaust: Simone Weil,
Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum, Edith Stein, Pennsylvania State University Press
Davies, O. (2001) A theology of compassion: metaphysics of difference and the renewal of tradition,
London: SCM Press
Smelik, K. (2010) (ed) Spirituality in the Writings of Etty Hillesum, BRILL
Williams, R. (2012) Faith in the Public Square, London: Bloomsbury
Woodhouse, P. (2009) Etty Hillesum: A Life Transformed, London: Continuum
Week 8 Simone Weil
Reading
Weil, S. (1977) ‘Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies With a View to the Love of God,’ in
Waiting on God, London: Fount.
Weil, S. (1987) Gravity and Grace, London: Routledge, pp. 89-93 and 105-111
Miles, S. (1986) Simone Weil: an anthology, London: Virago, the Introduction, pp. 16-35, 40-43.
Wider reading
Bell, R.H. (1998) Simone Weil; the way of justice as compassion, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Du Plessix Gray, F. (2001) Simone Weil, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Frost, C. and Bell-Metereau, (1998) Simone Weil: On Politics, Religion and Society, London: Sage.
McLellan, D. (1989) Simone Weil: Utopian Pessimist, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
McLellan, D. (1993) Unto Caesar: the political relevance of Christianity, Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame, chapter 2.
Miles, S. (1986) Simone Weil: An Anthology, London: Virago.
Tomlin, E.W.F, (1984) Simone Weil, Cambridge: Bowers and Bowers.
Tubbs, N. (2005) Philosophy of the Teacher, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 120-129.
Weil, S. (1977) Waiting on God: Letters and Essays, London: Fount.
Williams, R. (2007) ‘Simone Weil and the necessary non-existence of God’ in Wrestling with Angels,
London: SCM Press
Week 9 Sound of the Slave
Reading
Armstrong, T. (2012) The Logic of Slavery: Debt, Technology, and Pain in American Literature, New
York: Cambridge University Press pp140-172
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1994) The Souls of Black Folk, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. P155-165
Johnson, J.W. O Black and Unknown Bards http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20149#
‘Psalm 137’ The Holy Bible, Glasgow: Harper Collins
Wider reading
Epstein, D.J. (1977) Sinful Tunes and Spirituals, Illinois: Illinois Press
Johnson, J.W. & Johnson, J.R. (1969) The Book of American Negro Spirituals, Da Capo Press
King, S.A. (2002) Reggae, Rastafari, and the Rhetoric of Social Control, Mississippi: University of
Mississippi
Moten, F. (2003) In the break: the aesthetics of the black tradition, Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press
Porter, E. (2002) What is This Thing Called Jazz?: African American Musicians as Artists, Critics and
Activists, California: University of California Press
Walvin, J. (2008) The Trader, The Owner, The Slave: Parallel Lives in the Age of Slavery, London:
Vintage
White, B. W. (2012) Music and Globalization: Critical Encounters, Indiana: Indiana University Press
Week 10 ‘half in love with easeful death’
Reading
Dostoevsky, F. (1992) Devils, Oxford: Oxford University Press pp686 - 701
Fernie, E. (2013) The Demonic: Literature and Experience, London: Routledge pp 87-97
Williams, R. (2008) Dostoevsky, Language Faith and Fiction, London: Continuum
Wider reading
Bakhtin, M. (1984) Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Bakhtin, M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, Austin: University of Texas Press
Banjerjee, M.N. (2006) Dostoevsky: The Scandal of Reason: Great Barrington, Mass: Lindisfarne
Books
Bernstein, R.J. (2002) Radical evil: a philosophical interrogation, Cambridge: Polity Press
Blake, C. & Banham, G. (2000) Evil Spirits: Nihilim and the Fate of Modernity, Manchester:
Manchester University Press
Eagleton, T. (2005) Holy Terror, Oxford: Oxford University Press chapter 4 ‘saints and suicides’
Harper, R. (1967) The Seventh Solitude: Metaphysical Homelessness in Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and
Nietzsche, John Hopkins University Press
Leatherbarrow, W.J. (ed) (2002) The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevsky, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Russell, J.B. (1986) Mephistopheles: the Devil in the Modern World, New York: Cornell University
Press
Russell, J.B. (1977) The Devil: perceptions of evil from antiquity to primitive Christianity, New York:
Cornell University Press
Week 11 Old age
Reading
Cicero, M.T. (2009) Treatises on friendship and Old Age and Selected Letters, Digireads.com
Montaigne, M. (1993) The Complete Essays, London: Penguin Classics III.2
T.S Eliot (2001) Four Quartets, London: Faber and Faber Ltd, Little Gidding II.4
Williams, R. (2012) Faith in the Public Square, London: Bloomsbury, pp 243-251
Wordsworth, W. Intimations of Immortality This can be found online. A pdf exists at
http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/odeioi.pdf
Assessment
Assessment 1: (50%)
1. Critically discuss ways in which life is mediated and/or negated by death.
(2250-2500 words; deadline: Thursday 29th October Week 6 given to Catherine in the
Office by 3.30pm).
Assessment 2: (50%)
1.
2.
3.
4.
The life and death education of x and x ; a critical discussion
Critically discuss the spirit of the captive mind
In the totality that’s false, what meaning does resistance have?
In what ways can the unknowability of death be known?
5.
‘Without God, everything is permitted’ Critically discuss
(2250-2500 words; deadline: Friday 11th December Week 12 given to Catherine in the
Office by 3.30pm).
Use Harvard Referencing
We attempt always to return work within 3 working weeks (15 days working days).
MODERN LIBERAL ARTS MARK SCHEME
We want you to be very clear about how we will mark your work and that means you must know with each
assessment what you are expected to do. We hope that this does not mean you will feel that you have to write
to a formula. We are trying to build in considerable freedom to your assessments; but as the term ‘liberal arts’
conveys, in every freedom there is a discipline, and in every discipline there is a freedom; together, we hope,
they constitute the struggle of learning.
There are (often but not always) two types of essays in MLA: the first assessment title in a module will most
often be set by the tutor and will be restricted to texts explored in the first weeks. The second assessment title
can be tutor-led, or chosen from a list of titles, or can be negotiated individually; this varies according to the
tutor and the module. This assignment can explore wider issues, employ wider reading, or explore a single
issue in depth. Students will bear some responsibility for the references consulted in the second essay,
increasing through years 1, 2 and 3.
Tutor-set assessments (disciplina)
Student/tutor-set assessments (libertas)
1st module essay
2nd module essay
Marks for
 depth of understanding specialist
terminology
 depth of understanding of set texts
 depth of understanding of
ideas/concepts
 evidence by quotation
 answering the question
 correct referencing
 word limit
Marks for
 depth of understanding of texts
 depth of understanding and
application of ideas/concepts
 evidence-based critical arguments
 depth/breadth of reading (depending
on the question)
 answering your own question
 correct referencing
 word limit
Note the difference between essays 1 and 2: the first one is marked only on your understanding of texts; the
second one is marked on understanding, on your own reading, and your emerging critical voice. Be careful
here; being critical does not mean just giving your opinions. It means making a case based on evidence from
your reading, using ideas and concepts from texts. It does not mean you have to fight for one side of an
argument or another… ambivalence will be treated with great respect. But for every essay, remember this: if
we (and you) get the title right, then by answering the question you will be doing exactly what is required.
Over years 1, 2 and 3 the levels of your work are raised by using increasingly challenging texts, ideas, concepts
and writers, and by the way you are able to employ ideas, concepts and writers from other modules across the
degree in increasingly sophisticated ways.
For all essays, then
Depending on the question you will need to




Demonstrate reflection on module material and the wider contexts from across the degree which
might impact upon it
Communicate experiences of texts and ideas as appropriate
Show knowledge and understanding of specialist terminology
Demonstrate requisite research skills in gathering, summarizing and presenting evidence including
proficiency in referencing and academic conventions.
For essay 1
Depending on the question you will need to





Show careful reading of primary sources
Show a knowledge of theoretical perspectives and/or works
Show an understanding of abstract concepts and ideas within theoretical perspectives
Show an ability to work with theorists and their concepts in various forms of assessment as
appropriate
Show evidence of engagement with texts and ideas concerned with issues raised in the module.
For essay 2
Depending on the question you will need to




Show an ability to employ theorists critically in relation to issues
Show an ability to use concepts as critical tools in discussing issues and questions as appropriate
Show an ability to employ theoretical perspectives as critical tools
Therein, to develop a critical voice informed and deepened by appropriate use of theory as
critique.
 Sustain a critical relationship to ideas related to the module
It is often hard to explain in generic terms how any particular essay could have been improved. But, cautiously,
we can say the following:
In general,
a 3rd (40-49%) may have ignored the question, may have not given much evidence of reading, may have clumsy
sentence structure, but will still have made a bona fide attempt at the work.
a 2.2 (50-59%) will have provided evidence of reading, quotations where appropriate, clear sentence structure,
attended to the question or title, but not related the material in ways which synthesise more developed and
complex thinking.
a 2.1 (60-69%) will have evidence of reading through effective selection of quotation, being able to make
specific points, and to relate material together to make broader and/or deeper and more complex
observations. At the higher end, it may have been able to relate material from across modules, or across the
degree as a whole, to synthesise separate ideas and issues into more holistic comments, ideas and problems.
The questions addressed will be getting ever more difficult and important, including those that are asked
without being answered.
a 1st (70-100%) will make a little go a long way. Quotations may carry implications beyond their precise
content; sentences will be clear but able to refine complex ideas succinctly; most importantly, it will be able to
combine the microcosm of its subject matter with the macrocosm of its place in the wider context, and these
contexts will be drawn form the overall, experience of the degree, growing obviously from years 1 to 3. No
inaccuracies of grammar or sentence construction, and no referencing mistakes are expected here. The voice
of the essay will be in control of difficult material throughout. Above all the questions asked and addressed will
be compelling in their difficulty and import.
Module Evaluations (previous year)
This was a new module which introduced students to difficult concepts concerning issues
around life and death. Overall the student evaluations were good. One student commented
that certain arguments could be made clearer otherwise it was generally ‘very good’.
Significant changes however will be made for next year so that, post-validation, the module
builds on the first two years of the degree in a more comprehensive manner.
Catalogue summary
This module is the last of three modules looking at the various meanings and interpretations
of ‘spirit’. In this module we will reflect on some of the issues raised so far, and look ahead
to ways in which spirit might be seen as at the end of any useful contribution to modern life,
or perhaps issuing in a renaissance out of the ruins and ashes of various horrors. Using
philosophical and theoretical approaches this module will think through the nature of the
‘spirit’ in relation to human freedom, language, history, time, truth and God. But to do this
requires also that we think about what it means to be human and so the module encourages
us to explore various dimensions of experience which teach us something of our humanity,
in life, and in death.