What is RLST 116 all about?
Whether in fourth-century North Africa, tenth-century Japan, fourteenth-century Spain, or twentieth-century America, men and women have wrestled with the question of who they are and how they are to relate to the world. They have wondered, more abstractly, what it means to be a “self.” In this course we will examine understandings of the self across world religions, across history, and across geography. We will study the religious origins of diverse conceptions of the self and examine the lives that men and women have lived in light of these understandings. Our main window onto this topic will be autobiographical writings; by reading the words of women and men attempting to make sense of the world and their place in it, we hope to focus attention on the personal dimensions of faith and of cross-cultural contact at the same time that we provide an introduction to the world’s major religions. We will read ancient and modern classics including the Life of the Buddha, Apuleius' The Golden Ass and St. Augustine's Confessions; the Diary of Lady Murasaki, autobiographies of Gandhi and Malcolm X; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. We will also watch and discuss three films dealing with religion, community, and selfhood: The Return of Martin Guerre, A Taste of Cherry, and Promises.