I've abstracted descriptions for courses I've taught, along with selected syllabi and a lecture from an online course. You'll also find a list of courses for which I've developed proposals and have preliminary syllabi available.
St. Norbert College
In Judaism and Christianity, we will examine the historical and contemporary relation of Jews and Christians, through a study of critical events (primarily the Holocaust), literature, and theology.
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Lake Forest College, St. Norbert College [May-term 2012]
Gender debates have received extraordinary attention in the last 40 years (What is it? How does it develop? What difference does it make?), but related questions have occupied human discourse for millennia, often with the same strident, polemical outcome that has become familiar today. This course seeks to explore how philosophy has undertaken this conversation and how philosophical method can inform the debate.
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St. Norbert College
This course considers the roles and influence, immediate and enduring, of European women mystics and theologians in the 12th through the 14th century. It focuses on representative women of medieval Europe’s religious communities and the beguines of that period who lived outside community.
University of Chicago - Undergraduate College
This is a two-quarter section of a venerable Humanities Core course: Human Being and Citizen. The course catalog provides the description upon which we will rely: Socrates asks, “Who is a knower of such excellence, of a human being and of a citizen?” We are all concerned to discover what it means to be an excellent human being and an excellent citizen, and to learn what a just community is. In addition to providing a deeper appreciation of who we are as human beings and citizens, this course also aims to cultivate the liberating skills of careful reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Students will make substantial progress toward our final goals in the Autumn Quarter and demonstrate competency by the conclusion of the Winter Quarter. These goals comprise the capacity to • develop a close reading of a primary text that reflects rigorous thought, • participate actively in productive, collegial discussion of a text, and • articulate in essay form an effective, engaging argument about an appropriately narrow aspect of a text.
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Herman Sinaiko was one of the founding faculty for Human Being and Citizen, a venerable course in the Humanities Core at the University of Chicago. I was his TA and the writing instructor for his section of Human Being and Citizen for two years.
For a tribute written at his death, see http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2011/10/05/herman-l-sinaiko-longtime-college-professor-and-plato-scholar-1929-2011.
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St. Norbert College [Scheduled for Spring 2012.]
This course engages the Western cultural tradition through the human experience of war, using literature and film as well as historical sources. We will study and discuss the experience of combatants and related non-combatants in the Trojan War, the apocalyptic battle described in the biblical Revelation to John (“Armageddon”), the American Civil War, the 19th century Chechen conflict with Russia, World War I, and the Vietnam conflict.
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St. Norbert College
In courses like RELS 114 (which fulfill the G1L requirement), we work to develop a deeper understanding of the Christian theology and the Catholic Christian heritage, in order to clarify our own values in that context. Specifically, this course examines the nature of religion in human experience, engages the personal and communal dimensions of faith, and critically analyzes basic questions in Christian theology.
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Lake Forest College
This course explores fundamental religious questions such as the nature of evil, the meaning of suffering, concepts of the transcendent, and how traditions define a religious life. Working with field trip experiences and a lecture/discussion format, we will use primarily personal narratives to explore a range of religious traditions: Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, syncretism, Magic, Native American religion, and Buddhism. Our objectives are to acquire beginning knowledge of a representative sample of world religions, to explore some of the core questions addressed by religious studies, and to develop skills that apply generally to the study of religion.
Lake Forest College
Religion deals with questions of the human self (defined in various ways) and the relationship of the human and the transcendent, usually understood as the divine. After a brief introductory consideration of ancient approaches to these questions, we will focus on the three Abrahamic traditions and their understandings of self and salvation.
Midland University
This course explores the development of Christian doctrine from the first centuries through the present. We will read excerpts from primary sources and an introductory text and will focus on the spiritual, historical, and theological importance of key Christian teachings.
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Expert in , constructive theology and contemporary religious thought
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