“A genius and an apostle are qualitatively different. All thought breathes in immanence, whereas faith and the paradox are a qualitative sphere unto themselves. Genius is immediateness. Genius is born. An apostle is not born: an apostle is called and appointed by God, receiving a mission from him. Authority is the decisive quality.”
Søren Kierkegaard, “On the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle” (1847)
What does it mean to live a Christian life? What is conversion, and what are its costs? What is the vocation of the disciple – or apostle – and how does a believer navigate a secular, sinful, indifferent, or repressive world? Why would anyone embrace suffering or martyrdom? How could the religion of the Crucified lead C.S. Lewis to become “surprised by joy”? How could it give Kierkegaard a sense of “authority”?
These are the kinds of questions raised in spiritual autobiographies and biographies of saints, and they are the primary topics of this class. We will begin with canonized saints, starting with the original spiritual autobiography, the granddaddy of them all: St. Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions (397-400 AD). From that point we will leap across centuries to encounter the life of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the Catholic Church’s first canonized Native American saint whose life was chronicled by Fr. Pierre Cholonec in 1696. Our third saint is St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) whose “little way” is depicted in her classic Story of a Soul which has been translated into over fifty languages. Our examination of Christian (mostly Catholic) lives in literature will conclude in the mid-twentieth century with three English-language bestsellers: the American Trappist monk Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day’s The Long Loneliness (1952), and Oxford don C.S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy (1955), each of them situating their life stories in modern contexts that we will all recognize.
This course satisfies the following CURRENT English major/minor requirement: Pre-1642, Pre-1830, Pre-1900, Identity & Difference
This course satisfies the following NEW English major/minor requirements: Time: Medieval, Time: 18th & 19th Centuries, Time: Contemporary/Modern
Course Requirements:
This course requires regular attendance and active participation in lectures and discussions. Students will complete a series of short papers and a final project. There will also be regular reading quizzes. This class has a no-electronics policy and promotes viewpoint diversity.
Intended Audience:
This course is open to all undergraduates across all departments and programs. It is offered in the spirit of the “religious turn in literary studies” (google it) which means it creates a space for questions pertaining to transcendence as opposed to limiting our discussions to the sphere of immanence. That said, it will be an academic course, not a churchy religious experience. All are welcome: Christian, other religious, atheist, agnostic, just-reading, or “questioning.” This class will be a safe space for discussions of First Causes, Last Days, and other important but neglected topics.