01 TTH8 CAC 13297 SIERRA SC-119
01-Contemporary Literary Spiritualities
By some accounts, recent “postmodern” literature is the “death of God put into writing” (Carl A. Raschke): it reduces religion to a shimmery human construction outside of which lies nothing, a vast empty universe. If this is so, then why does so much of this literature effuse with mysterious spiritual energies: living deities, (super-)human forces exceeding the grasp of science, loves that heal, bind, and never fail? In this course, we will probe the spirituality of a selection of writings and cinema produced within the past three decades. What is going on here? How useful is the label “postmodern” for it? How does this spirituality “speak back” to the traditional religions of the West, such as Christianity and Judaism? And how does it channel religious ideas that are non-Western, non-traditional, in character? Ultimately, we will see how this spirituality speaks to concrete social issues such as inter-racial oppression, the domination of women by men, and the legacy of colonial exploitation. Might it be that God dies, only to return in liberating ways unimaginable in previous modes of thought?
No prior familiarity with postmodernism will be assumed or necessary. We will define our understanding of it in terms of the above discussion. We’ll be reading such texts as Michelle Cliff’s, No Telephone to Heaven, Toni Morrison’s Paradise, Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” Henry Dumas "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" (1970), Charles Johnson, Oxherding Tale (1982). We will also do a film screening of possibly Magnolia or American Beauty.
|
