REL 341 - Ascesis in the Benedictine and Orthodox Monastic Traditions

The course focuses on a complex set of literary, communal, and embodied practices concerned with training and self-regulation, or ascesis, that promises the possibility of self-transformation and an experience of God. With an eye toward understanding contemporary Benedictine and Orthodox Christian monastic thought and practice, the literature of ascesis will be explored in a number of contexts: the late ancient Mediterranean; the medieval West and Byzantium; and the United States, Russia, and Greece in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Academic theories of asceticism and works addressing social-historical contexts will provide the basis for critical reflection and sustained comparison.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group II
Prerequisite(s): HUM 110 and REL 141 or REL 201
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Not offered: 2024-25
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Evaluate data and/or sources.
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.