Literature and the Religious Imagination
(Fall 2013 – September 9 to November 19)
Professor: William Hamilton, Ph.D.
Phone: 336-855-5461
Email: hamilton.uncg@gmail.com
Course Description: This course forages in the thick, tangled vegetation growing
through the cracks between literature and religion. This gnarly topography is the stuff of
great literature, rich in metaphor and emotional complexity. Indeed, religious conflicts,
personal moral dilemmas, and flights of religious fantasy have fueled the best literature
around the world for millennia. The canons of the world’s religions enshrine the most
enduring works of the spiritual imagination, but over centuries those sacred writings have
been redacted, manipulated, and pressed into service by kings, emperors, plutocrats, and
politicians. Although it would be impossible to predict which contemporary works of
fiction, drama, and poetry might be used to promote this or that ideology in future
economic and political arrangements, the writings we’ve selected draw deeply from the
well of the human spirit. They share a common yearning for spiritual and psychological
wholeness, and freely employ the metaphors of religious imagination to breathe life into
their characters and believability into their stories.
Through critical reflection and dialogue on contemporary literature, we will develop a
deeper understanding of the problematic relationship between religion and the postmodern world and how that tension impacts politics, sexuality, ethics, and artistic
expression. We will explore how writers grapple with the basic human questions of
identity, wholeness, community, loyalty, fidelity, ethical action, meaning, and
spirituality.
While we expect to develop a critical understanding of why literature and spirituality
form such an uneasy yet fruitful relationship, our primary task is to enjoy reading and
talking about great literature and to see how writers use religious language in practicing
their craft.
Learning Objectives: The course will equip students to be conversant about the uses of
religious and spiritual language in literature. Students will be able to identify and analyze
spiritual, theological, and moral implications in contemporary literary works and discuss
how writers use religious language to explore meaning, purpose, and moral identity;
respond to social and cultural conflict; and grapple with human frailty. Finally, students
will have an opportunity to explore ways they may incorporate religious and spiritual
metaphors and images into their own writing.
Written Assignments:
During the ten weeks of the course, students are required to submit five critical-reflective
essays (1000 words/3 pages max.) on the writers from any five separate weekly
categories (genres). Essays on particular writers are due during the week devoted to
discussion on those writers and will be returned within a week. At the end of the course,
each student will present a final critical-reflective essay (2000 words max.) on one of
the classics of Western Spirituality. With the professor’s approval, this final project could
take the form of an original short story, a cycle of poems, a one-act theatrical piece, or a
screenplay in response to one of the “classics” of Western spirituality. Each student must
also submit an annotated reading list for a course you would teach called “Literature
and the Religious Imagination.” I am asking that seminar participants share their work
with colleagues by posting their essays and syllabi on the course website.
Seminar Topics and Reading Schedule: Poems discussed in week 1 are available online
at no charge. Students may purchase literary works from Powells.com (used), Amazon, or
other sources. The calendar below arranges readings and discussions by themes and
genres.
A note on academic integrity: Never let me find a single plagiarism in your writing. I
want original analysis in your own words. Period. If you feel you must borrow someone
else's words, document the source fully. If you don't understand how serious I am, please
review UNCG's policies on plagiarism: http://sa.uncg.edu/dean/academic-integrity/
Week 1: The Essential Ecstasies: Poetry and Spirituality (select poems from one of
the following authors)
Emily Dickinson – The Complete Poems (http://www.bartleby.com/113/)
Gerard Manley Hopkins – Poems (http://www.bartleby.com/122/)
Rainer Maria Rilke – The Duino Elegies
(http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/Rilke.htm)
Lao Tzu – Tao te Ching (Stephen Mitchell)
(http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html)
Second Isaiah – Isaiah, Chapters 40-55 (KJV, RSV, NRSV, NEB)
Week 2: Selections from the Hamilton Canon (choose one of the following)
Lao Tzu - Tao te Ching
The Baghavad Gita
The Dhamapada
The Beloved Disciple – The Gospel According to St. John
The D Source – The Book of Daniel
Anonymous Gnostic Writer – The Gospel of Thomas*
Anonymous Gnostic Writer – The Gospel of Mary*
*James Robinson, ed. – The Nag Hammadi Library
Red Pine – The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma
Week 3: Writers treating Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam (choose one)
Orhan Pamuk – Snow
Naguib Mahfouz – The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
Hermann Hesse – Siddhartha
Gita Mehta – A River Sutra
Week 4: (Mostly) Catholic Writers in the Deeper South (choose one)
William Faulkner – Light in August
John Kennedy Toole – The Neon Bible
Flannery O’Connor – Wise Blood
Walker Percy – The Second Coming
Week 5: North American Protestant Writers (choose one)
Robertson Davies – The Rebel Angels
Norman Maclean – A River Runs Through It
Marilyn Robinson – Gilead (2005) or Home (2009)
John Updike – A Month of Sundays
Week 6: Conflicts Arising from Christian Missions (choose one)
Barbara Kingsolver – The Poisonwood Bible
Peter Matthiessen – At Play in the Fields of the Lord
Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart
Mischa Berlinksi – Fieldwork
Week 7: North American Jewish and Orthodox Writers (choose one)
Jeffrey Eugenides – Middlesex
Cynthia Ozick – The Cannibal Galaxy
Chiam Potok – The Chosen
Mark Salzman – Lying Awake
Week 8: Science Fiction and the Religious Imagination (choose one)
Walter M. Miller – A Canticle for Leibowitz
Philip K. Dick – VALIS
Dorothy Bryant – The Kin of Atta Are Waiting for You
Ursula LeGuinn – The Left Hand of Darkness
Weeks 8-10: “Classics” of Western Spirituality (choose one)
Fyodor Dostoevsky – The Brothers Karamazov
Umberto Eco – The Name of the Rose
Jose Saramago – The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
Thomas Merton – The Seven Storey Mountain
Doris Lessing – Memoirs of a Survivor
William Gaddis – The Recognitions
Dialogue Circles:
The course requires active participation in five of the weekly genre dialogues that
correspond to the genres and writers you choose for your five essays, plus the larger
discussion on the classics of Western Spirituality. The professor will host weekly
dialogue circles that correspond to the genres in the calendar. Students may participate in
weekly genre blogs on Blackboard or live video chat rooms via Skype Groups.
Grading:
Five essays – 10 points each, total 50 points
Participation (Attendance/active engagement in six dialogue circles) – 20 points
Final project – 20 points
Annotated reading list – 10 points