Welcome to HUMN 400-001/HONR 385-007: Spiritual Struggle in Literature and Popular Film

Important Course Documents

• Course Syllabus An electronic copy of the syllabus handed out in class.
• Term Paper Course term paper details

Readings and Other Links

Introduction: The Spiritual Question
• More Award-winning (including Academy-Award nominated) short film by Mark Osborne
• Chapter XX from Varieties of Religious Experience by William James. The definition of religion from a scientist's perspective.
• Religion from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran The definition of religion from a poet's perspective.
• The Inconsolable Longing from the sermon The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis. A western Christian perspective.
• On God from The First and Last Freedom, by Jiddu Krishnamurti. An Eastern Buddhist-like perspective.

The Struggle for Faith

Field of Dreams

• Abraham and Isaac from Genesis
• Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
• Confessions by Augustine

  Contact

• The Will to Believe by William James

  Signs

• Book of Job from the Old Testament
• The Dark Night of the Soul from Part II, Chapter 9 of Mysticism, by Evelyn Underhill
• Mother Theresa's Journal A brief excerpt.
• Synchronicity explanations from Jung, Peck, and The Police

The Struggle for Enlightenment

The Matrix

• Plato's Cave From The Republic, by Plato
• Maya and Enlightenment The concepts of Maya and Enlightenment
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

  Being There

• Dhammapada by the Buddha
• Freedom from the Known (selected chapters) by Jiddu Krishnamurti

The Struggle for Relationship with God

Star Trek the Motion Picture

• Adam and Eve's Marriage from Genesis
• Symposium by Plato (speeches of Aristophanes and Socrates)
• When a Man and a Woman Become One by Rumi

  Bladerunner

• Parable of the Lost Son from Luke
• Paradise Lost by John Milton
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Struggle to Become God

Pi

• Prometheus and Fire from Theogony, and Works and Days, by Hesiod
• Daedelus and Icarus from Metamorphoses, by Ovid
• The Fall of Man from Genesis
• Tower of Babel from Genesis

  Forbidden Planet

• Daedalus; or Science and the Future by J.B.S. Haldane
• Darwin Among the Machines by Samuel Butler

The Struggle for Meaning

I Heart Huckabees

• The Transcendentalist by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The Myth of Sysiphus By Albert Camus
• The Library of Babel by Jorge Borges

  Groundhog Day

• The Eternal Recurrence from The Gay Science, by Friedrich Nietzsche
• The Buddhist and Hindu Cycle of Rebirth With excerpts from the Upanishads
• Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
• The Cost of Being a Disciple from Luke