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Honors Course Archive: Summer 2009

  • Honors Civ (2)

    • Honors 251 A: Theories of Justice
      SLN 13713

        Louis Wolcher (Law School)
        Office: 335 William H. Gates Hall, Box 353020
        Phone: (206) 543-0600
        wolcher@u.washington.edu
      M T W TH
      1:30-3:20
      MGH 206
      Credits: 5
      Limit: 35 students

      A - Term

      What is justice? Is it possible for a person to know that he or she is acting justly? What criteria must a society fulfill in order to be considered just, or at least reasonably just? Does justice necessarily proceed from the so-called "social contract"? And what is the relation between justice and law? Do we have a moral duty to obey the laws of a just state, and, conversely, to disobey the laws of an unjust state? When it comes to punishing wrongdoers who have both violated the law and acted unjustly, is vengeance the same as justice? This class considers these and other kindred questions by means of a close reading of many of the answers (both ancient and modern) that Western thinkers have given to them. The goal is to make possible critical thought and informed debate about the important theme of justice in public and private life.

    • Honors 397 A: African Christianities as Tales of Faith, Consequence, and Power
      SLN 13719

        Clarke Speed (Anthropology)
        landogo@u.washington.edu
      M-F
      1:10-3:20
      MGH 206
      Credits: 5
      Limit: 15 students

      B - Term
      Class is limited to 15 Honors + 10 SIS students

      This summer Comparative Religion and Honors course is open to all students interested in the ways in which Christianity moves and takes hold in new populations. We assume complexity and radical change. While theological in orientation, one need not be any particular Faith or have mission experience to see the power in how a sacred Thou generates a new religious and social order. In a slight twist, we start, and finish with, the same complex Christian parables but watch them become culturally inscribed into different signs and historical contexts. Ultimately, the parables are answerable in the particular and idiosyncratic as well as universal and absolute. They do translate across time and space, but don't translate well. Mindful of the pitfall of translation versus the reality of re-interpretation, we jump into a topic not often taught and one filled with controversy - Christianity in Africa.

      As a philosophical course we must come to agree that we can study the theological content of Christianity in Africa at institutional and symbolic levels. But this summer I am interested in seeking the african christ at levels of soul, and as an alterity of knowing. We aim to unpack his transformative presence on its own terms. In essence, through an african-christ with his own african epistemologies that have pragmatic social consequences. Moving away from the comfort of comparison, we find a theomachy (a battle of god, son, and spirit) and a theogony (the genealogy of human souls with God) generating a huge distinction between a universal Western Christ and the range of particular african theomatics and gonics: If we unpack this further, we explore the theories and methods of a few african christianities as a condition of otherness.

      Digging further, we find african daughters cloaked behind african sons. Women, in essence mothers and grandmothers, are at the core of african christian community world making. These inverted spaces and agents are what the african hermeneuticists V. Mudimbe and E. Bongmba might call the controverted meanings of mystical otherness. Controversion is where so-called marginal agents invert the logic of domination for other purposes. So, using african-centered ideas we engage in a planned intellectual and spiritual dyslexia. Simply, where differences exist between Christian stories told for, and about, Africans; and christian stories africans tell for, and about, themselves.

      We read work by Isichei, Achebe, Oduyoye, Bongmba, and Bediako. Individual grades are based on three Two-Page (single spaced) Concept Papers (#1/20%, #2/25%, #3/35%); a Presentation and Précis on assigned readings (10%), a Concept Noteboook and participation in a Friday tutorial (10%).