SYLLABUS-IN-PROGRESS

Religious Studies 3D03 (Winter 2012)

God, Reason, and Evil

This syllabus is posted at http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/danahol/3d03 and is also accessible by way of my home page (see below) and the Dept. of Religious Studies website. Details of assigments and any scheduling changes will be posted to this syllabus and/or e-mailed to participants.

updated March 23, 2012

CLASS MEETINGS: Mondays, 7-9 p.m. CNH B107

Tutorials: Mondays, 6-7 p.m., T01: MDCL/1008; T02: MDCL/1010; T03: BSB/104   

INSTRUCTOR: Dana Hollander, Department of Religious Studies**, University Hall 109.  (905) 525-9140, ext. 24759*  danahol@mcmaster.ca*  http://univmail.cis.mcmaster.ca/~danahol/

*in your phone and e-mail messages, please let me know how I can reach you by phone

Office Hours: Wednesdays, 6:45 - 7:45 p.m., or by appointment

 TEACHING ASSISTANTS

Nicole Guerriero, guerrn@mcmaster.ca, Department of Religious Studies**, University Hall B119.  Office Hours: Wednesdays, 12:30-1:30 p.m., or by appointment

Jeremy Frost, frostjp@mcmaster.ca, Department of Religious Studies**, University Hall B126/D.  Office Hours:  Wednesdays, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
**Staff in the office of the Department of Religious Studies will not date-stamp or receive written assignments.

Course Description / Course Readings / Course Requirements   |   SCHEDULE: January / February / March / April

Course Description and Objectives

In this course you will learn about (and have opportunity to reflect on) one of the classic questions that have preoccupied the Western tradition in thinking about God and religion:  Can the fact of human suffering, or of evil in the world, be compatible with the existence of a benevolent God?  As Philo puts the problem in Hume's Dialogues: "Epicurus's old questions are yet unanswered. Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?" 

The first part of the course will look at how two philosophers, David Hume (1711-1776) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), link the question of God's existence with the problem of suffering and evil.

In the second part of the course, we will turn to specifically post-Holocaust confrontations with the question of evil by looking at reports and interpretations of the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials (in 1945 and 1961), especially Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963).  How have contemporary human-made atrocities challenged us--and how do they continue to challenge us--to craft adequate moral, political, and juridical responses?

Course Readings

David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 2nd ed., ed. Richard Popkin (Hackett) [required]
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem [required]
Diana Hacker, A Pocket Style Manual, 5th ed. (Bedford/St. Martin's) [strongly recommended]
Gordon Harvey, Writing with Sources. A Guide for Students, 2nd ed. (Hackett, 2008) [optional]
You must have your own paper copy of all the texts to be discussed--with the same pagination as the edition selected for the class--whether in book or xeroxed form, so that you can mark them as you read and be prepared to refer to specific passages in class and tutorial, and when you write the exams.

Course Requirements

One Text Summary assignment (1-1.5 pages) on a selection from the assigned reading for either January 23 or January 30, to be handed in at the end of the class session on those days.  Detailed assignments to be posted.

One or two Text Preparation assignments (2-3 pages) - on the assigned readings for Feb. 13, Feb. 27, Mar. 12, Mar. 19, or Mar. 26, to be handed in at the end of the class session on the day we are discussing the selection they are on.  Detailed assignments to be posted each week.

Midterm Exam and Final Exam, which will consist of essay questions involving textual analysis (the essay questions will be made known in advance and will be open-book).

Grades will be based on the following:
McMaster University has a strict policy concerning Academic Integrity:  "Academic dishonesty consists of misrepresentation by deception or by other fraudulent means and can result in serious consequences, e.g., the grade of zero on an assignment, loss of credit with a notation on the transcript (notation reads: "Grade of F assigned for academic dishonesty"), and/or suspension or expulsion from the university.

It is your responsibility to understand what constitutes academic dishonesty. For information on the various kinds of academic dishonesty please refer to the Academic Integrity Policy, specifically Appendix 3.

The following illustrates only three forms of academic dishonesty: 1. Plagiarism, e.g., the submission of work that is not one's own or for which other credit has been obtained. 2. Improper collaboration in group work. 3. Copying or using unauthorized aids in tests and examinations."

Please let me know if you have any questions on how this policy applies to your work for this course.

Privacy of Information. Some of the communications among the instructor and the students in this course will be over e-mail and on the course website. Students should be aware that, when they access the electronic components of this course, private information such as first and last names and e-mail addresses may become apparent to all other students in the same course. Continuation in this course will be deemed consent to this disclosure. If you have any questions or concerns about such disclosure please discuss this with the course instructor.

You are advised to retain copies of any written work you submit for this class, and all your research notes, until you have received an official grade.


SCHEDULE

At certain points in the course it may make good sense to modify the schedule outlined below. The instructor reserves the right to modify elements of the course and will notify students accordingly (in class, by e-mail to participants, and by updating this online syllabus).

January 9

INTRODUCTION

No tutorial meeting this week.

January 16

HUME: God and Theodicy I

David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) [purchase book]
Tutorial Reading Assignment: They Say/I Say [in coursepack]:  pp. 38-40 and chap. 8

January 23

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: Part X

Text Summary 1 due in class from students with last names beginning in A-L.

January 30

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part XI

Text Summary 2 due in class from students who did not complete Text Summary 1.

February 6

KANT: God and Theodicy II

Immanuel Kant, "On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy" (1791), trans. George di Giovanni, in Kant, Religion and Rational Theology [essay in coursepack / book on reserve]: read to bottom of p. 26.

no Text Preparation due today


February 13

Kant, "On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy," cont'd: read up to p. 33 (i.e., skip the "Concluding Remark").  

Text Preparation 1 due in class from some students

February 27

wrap-up Kant

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begin discussion of:

Two Holocaust Trials: Nuremberg and Eichmann

Andrew Altman, Arguing About Law. An Introduction to Legal Philosophy, 2nd ed. (2001): "Judgment at Nuremberg," 43-49 [selection in coursepack / book on reserve]

Howard Ball, Prosecuting War Crimes and Genocide (1999), chap. 2: "World War II in Europe and the Nuremberg Tribunal," esp. 44-61 [chapter in coursepack / book on reserve]

Nuremberg Trial Proceedings: Charter of the International Military Tribunal [print out personal copy]

Lawrence Douglas, The Memory of Judgment. Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust (2001), chap 2: "The Idiom of Judgment: Crimes Against Humanity": pp. 38-56  ("...interstitial transgression") and pp. 63 bottom ("In The Reawakening...") - 64  [chapter in coursepack / book on reserve]

Text Preparation 2 due in class from some students

Midterm Exam Preparation Sheet distributed in class today.


March 5

MIDTERM EXAM 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.  Special Location:  Building T13: Rooms 125 and 127

Please arrive shortly before 6 p.m., as you will need to find a seat in one of the two rooms.

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8:00 - 10:00 p.m. Film Screening: The Specialist (1999; directed by Eyal Sivan; written by Eyal Sivan and Rony Brauman), CNH B107

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Wednesday, March 7, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m., additional screening of The Specialist, ABB 271

March 12

Nuremberg and Eichmann, cont'd

please review readings by Altman/Ball/Douglas  (see February 27 - note the correction in the Douglas assignment!)

"Nuremberg on Trial" (CBC Ideas, 1995/1996) [instructions for listening have been communicated by e-mail]  (parts 1 and 2 are each appoximately 53 minutes long)

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ARENDT: Eichmann and Evil

Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) [purchase book]: chap. 1: "The House of Justice"; chap. 3: "An Expert on the Jewish Question"

The Specialist (dir. Eyal Sivan, 1999) [see scheduled screenings announced above for March 5 and March 7; more information by e-mail]

Text Preparation 3 due in class from some students

March 19

No tutorials today.

5:00 - 7:00 p.m., additional screening of The Specialist, MDCL 1110

Arendt, chap. 6: "The Final Solution: Killing" (SKIP pp. 98-105 top); chap. 7: "The Wannsee Conference, or Pontius Pilate"; chap. 15: "Judgment, Appeal, and Execution," pp. 244-52, begin reading "Epilogue"

Text Preparation 4 due in class from some students.

March 26

Arendt: "Epilogue"; "Postscript" 

"Eichmann in Jerusalem: An Exchange of Letters between Gershom Scholem and Hannah Arendt" (1963), in Arendt, The Jew as Pariah, ed. Ron Feldman (1978) [copy in coursepack / book on reserve]

Text Preparation 5 due in class from some students (assignment to be posted on March 20)

April 2

Final Exam Preparation Sheet distributed in class today.


FINAL EXAM - April 9, 7:00-8:30 p.m.

  Copyright © 2003-2012 Dana Hollander