Art, Religion, and Theology (ART)

ART in Orvieto is an advanced summer studies program in art, religion, and theology located in Orvieto, Italy, a magnificent hill town 90 minutes north of Rome. The program offers an ecumenical exploration of Christian understandings of the arts. It provides a three weeks residency designed for artists, graduate students in relevant fields, and other adult learners interested in engaging the intersection of art, religion, and theology.

For further details, please see the dedicated ART in Orvieto webpage.

Art, Religion, and Theology: Theologies of Art in the Christian Tradition

Dr. Rebekah Smick

ICS AiO 120102 / 220102 S23*

ICH3350HS / ICH6350HS L4101**

Syllabus

Experiential Learning in Faith and the Arts: Artists' Workshop

Dr. Rebekah Smick, and David Holt

ICS AiO 1501VAA / 2501VAA S23*

ICP3851HS / ICP6851HS 0101**

Syllabus

Experiential Learning in Faith and the Arts: Writers' Workshop

Dr. Rebekah Smick, and John Terpstra

ICS AiO 1501WA / 2501WA S23*

ICP3861HS / ICP6861HS 0102**

Syllabus

Intensive, July 9 - July 29, 2023

Orvieto, Italy

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Enrolment Notes:

Instructions on how to apply are available on the program page. February 28, 2023, is the application deadline for courses in the ART in Orvieto summer program. ICS reserves the right reject applications when the maximum capacity has been reached.

*NOTE: Each course is approved for Area 4 of the CSTC

**Attention TST students: you have to contact the ICS Registrar to complete your registration

Finding Joy in Learning

Finding Joy in Learning is a course that will inspire and support K-12 educators in their own personal journey of learning. Participants will consider a deeply Christian vision for their lives as educators and reflect on teaching practices in light of faith and spiritual practices. It is intended to guide educators on an inner journey as they pursue a path of refreshment and renewal in their work within Christian education.

This course seeks to answer the following questions:

• What is my calling as an educator?
• How should I intentionally live out my calling to teach?

Dr. Edith van der Boom

ICSD 260001 S23*

Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MA-EL)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register April 21, 2023. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*NOTE: Approved for Area 4 of the CSTC

Lead From Where You Are: Making a Difference in the Face of Tough Problems, Big Questions, and Organizational Politics

Leadership is not about personality, authority, position, influence, or power as such. Leadership is an art, a craft, a practice, to which everyone is called sometime or other, in widely different situations. Leadership can be practiced with varying degrees of authority, from any position, at varying scales of influence, and with varying access to different sources of power. Leadership is the work of motivating a group of people to act in certain ways as they shape what they share.

In this course we will explore two kinds of leadership, positional leadership and contributory leadership, and two kinds of leadership practices, algorithmic leadership practices and heuristic leadership practices. Positional leadership is the kind of leadership that comes with a particular, recognized position in a group, and contributory leadership is the kind of leadership that you can contribute regardless of your position in a group. Algorithmic leadership practices are those leadership practices for which there are clear, commonly agreed-upon procedures and goals, and heuristic leadership practices are those leadership practices for which there are not (or not yet) clear, commonly agreed-upon procedures and goals and that demand imaginative discernment. We will attend to leadership with regard to both making beneficial change happen and ensuring needed maintenance.

Dr. Gideon Strauss

ICSD 132504 / 260003 S23*

Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MWS, MA-EL)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register April 21, 2023. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*NOTE: Approved for Area 2 or 4 of the CSTC

State, Society, and Religion in Hegel’s Philosophy

This course explores the interrelation of political, social, and religious life in the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel. Readings will be drawn from Hegel’s lectures on art and religion, as well as his works Elements of the Philosophy of Right and Phenomenology of Spirit. We will explore the political and social conditions of human experience through the lens of what Hegel calls “objective spirit,” focusing in particular on how our freedom as self-conscious beings is enabled and supported by the domains of ethical life, law, and civil society. We will also explore Hegel’s account of the human engagement in “absolute spirit,” here attending to the distinctive practices of art and religion, and to how these practices are interwoven with social and political life. We will also consider Hegel’s role in the historical construction of the modern West’s category of religion, and on what is involved in thinking about religion and religious difference (and Hegel’s philosophy itself) beyond Eurocentrism.

Dr. Andrew Tebbutt

ICS 153303 / 253303 S23

Intensive, July 3 - August 11, 2023

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Tuesdays & Thursdays, 1 pm - 3 pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register June 30, 2023. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Attention TST students: if you are interested in taking this course for credit, you must petition your college of registration to count the course credit toward your degree program.

The Soul of Soulless Conditions: Marxists on Christianity, Christians on Marxism

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.” --Karl Marx

Although Marxists and Christians have found plenty of reasons to be mutually suspicious, prominent voices in both historical communities explored creative ways of relating to one another, politically and ideologically, throughout the 20th century and beyond. Through dialogical exchanges, party documents, revolutions, organizing, and theological reflection, important questions were raised, if not always solved. Were the first Christians communists? Does materialism disqualify Christians from Marxist analysis? Can Marxist political parties accommodate Christian believers, and how far can Christians go in participating in Marxist revolutions?

This class will explore these questions by reading several Marxists on Christianity (e.g. Lenin, Luxemburg, Castro) and several Christians on Marxism (e.g. McCabe, Soelle, West) to better understand where these perspectives found points of agreement and disagreement. Because neither Marxism nor Christianity are entirely unified traditions of thought, the selection of authors will aim to represent at least some of this diversity, although privileging voices that made an effort to bring these two discourses closer together in some way. Reading these traditions together, we will try to uncover how Christianity contributes to the soul of soulless conditions, and also what it might mean to embody that soul in the flesh of political organization.

Dr. Dean Dettloff

ICS 132902 / 232902 S23

Intensive, June 5 - July 14, 2023

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Mondays & Wednesdays, 7 pm - 9 pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register June 2, 2023. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Attention TST students: if you are interested in taking this course for credit, you must petition your college of registration to count the course credit toward your degree program.

Faith, Freedom, and the Meaning of Politics: Liberalism and Its Discontents (IDS)

The political liberalism that has shaped the constitutional arrangements of many nations and that has been hegemonic in international relations since 1989 is currently facing the most serious challenges of recent decades. In international relations the liberal world order is facing challenges from autocratic states like China and Russia and from movements like political Islam. In the North American context liberal democracy is facing serious challenges from a new nationalism and from Christian integralism. In this interdisciplinary seminar we will focus on reading key texts in the current debate conducted in the English language between contemporary proponents of liberalism, nationalism, and integralism, engaging these texts with help from the work of the critical theorist Raymond Geuss and two pluralist philosophers in the Reformational tradition, Jonathan Chaplin and Lambert Zuidervaart, and with contextualizing reference to the work of one Canadian political philosopher, James Tully.

Drs. Ron Kuipers, Gideon Strauss

ICS 2400AC W23

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Tuesdays, 6pm - 9pm ET

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 13, 2023. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

Finding Joy in Learning

Finding Joy in Learning is a course that will inspire and support K-12 educators in their own personal journey of learning. Participants will consider a deeply Christian vision for their lives as educators and reflect on teaching practices in light of faith and spiritual practices. It is intended to guide educators on an inner journey as they pursue a path of refreshment and renewal in their work within Christian education.

This course seeks to answer the following questions:

• What is my calling as an educator?
• How should I intentionally live out my calling to teach?

Dr. Edith van der Boom

ICSD 260001 W23*

Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MA-EL)

Syllabus

*NOTE: Approved for Area 4 of the CSTC

How to Coach A Strong Team: Leading People, Building Institutional Capacity, and Securing Accountability

How to Coach A Strong Team is a course for current and aspiring school administrators who want to cultivate their people skills. The course will focus on the competencies involved in having crucial conversations and coaching colleagues for professional development purposes, while also providing opportunities for learning about the competencies relevant to talent acquisition and employment termination. The backbone of the course will be a series of meditations (in the Reformational philosophical tradition) on being human: imaging God in the world.

How to Coach A Strong Team is a remote learning course consisting of six synchronous sessions including three school visits and a debriefing session with an expert practitioner, thirteen weeks of asynchronous online interaction, and the writing of a playbook by each student taking the course for credit. All of the synchronous sessions will be by means of online video, with the possible exception of one of the school visits. The exception may include an on-site, in-person option as part of a hybrid package, depending on circumstances. Team auditors will have access to five of the six synchronous sessions (including the school visits and the expert practitioner debriefing) and a team audit study guide for reading and talking through the course materials in their team contexts.

Dr. Gideon Strauss

ICSD 260005 W23

Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

Dates TBA

(MA-EL)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 13, 2023. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

Nothing Can Separate Us…!: The Dialectical Materialism of Slavoj Žižek

This seminar will map out the Dialectical Materialism of Slovenian philosopher, psycho-analyst, and cultural critic Slavoj Žížek. A communist and atheist, Žižek's thought is an original Lacanian inspired repeat of Hegel that recalibrates Materialism. Žížek's incisive structural insights will be explored even as his faith in the Void as the eternal traumatic Real is contrasted with faith in the steadfast Love of God.

Dr. Jim Olthuis

ICS 140908 / 240908 W23

ICT5704HS L0101*

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Wednesdays, 6pm - 9pm ET (Starting January 18, 2023, and finishing April 19, 2023.)

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 13, 2023. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Attention TST students: if you are interested in taking this course for credit, you must petition your college of registration to count the course credit toward your degree program.