HUMA 370 - Spirituality, Literature, and the Wild

The untamed spaces around and inside of us—the wild—invite and sometimes demand a spiritual response. Literature in the form of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry has long been a venue for spiritual investigations of the wild. This is the domain we will explore in “Spirituality, Lit & the Wild” as we ask such questions as: What is the spiritual significance of the wild as found in literature? In what ways does literature of the wild support or question the claims of religious traditions, and how do its themes of spirituality speak to the secularization of the twenty-first century? How do we relate these topics from the perspectives of age, class, culture, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, race? How might literature of the wild offer an eco-spirituality, an environmental ethic, or ways to understand the changes our planet is experiencing? Combining disciplines of religious studies, literature, and environmental ethics, our sources on literature and the wild will help us explore these and other questions.

Credits: 5
Grade Mode: Letter
GUR Attributes: HUM