Meaning and Method

How does one get at the meaning of things? How does one make sense of how people experience the world? How does one make sense of one’s own experience of the world? Is it possible to do rigorous research into human experience without dehumanizing that experience? Are there methods by means of which to study human experience that allow for the description of our discoveries in ways that share some of the nuance, luminosity, and breathtaking insightfulness that we sometimes encounter in poetry?

In this course we will consider these kinds of questions. Together we will explore phenomenologically-informed human science research practices that have been shaped by these kinds of concerns. We will experiment with our own small-scale research projects, which we will bring into juxtaposition with the exploration of meaning in key extracts from primary texts in the phenomenological philosophical tradition, in some poetry that explores concerns similar to those of the phenomenological tradition, and in the work of the environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy.

As we craft our research projects we will consider how the phenomenological tradition has informed four different contemporary approaches to doing human science research (and how our own research craft might be honed in interaction with these approaches): reflective lifeworld research as pioneered by Karen Dahlberg, interpretative phenomenological analysis as pioneered by Jonathan Smith, Mark Vagle’s post-intentional approach to phenomenological research, and Max van Manen’s phenomenology of practice.

ICSD 132501/232501 F15
Dr. Gideon Strauss
Distance

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

"They Looked for a City": Biblical, Theological and Sociological Perspectives on the City from Ancient times to the Global Era

More people live today in cities or metro-urban regions than in the countryside, and many cities today are megalopolises of ten million persons or more.  Is the city sustainable?  Can we live hopefully, faithfully and imaginatively in extreme urban contexts characterized often by inequality, poverty and violence; yet alive with vibrant cultural production?  This course will look at the meaning of the city in history, using the lens of ancient and contemporary philosophical, historical, theological, and sociological writings, even as we seek to understand our role in anticipating urban challenges for a global age.

ICSD 132201/232201 F15
Instructor: Dr. Clinton Stockwell
Distance

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Christianity and the Ecological Crisis

Critics often blame Christian culture, and sometimes rightly, for ignoring and even contributing to the global ecological crisis. This course explores the gap between a biblical view of creation and Christianity's current response to the threats and opportunities posed by our ecological crisis. In this course, we will study the work of thinkers and practitioners who desire to address this perceived gap in Christian practice and reflection. In doing so, we will consider the ideological factors that have contributed to the emergence of this crisis as well as the normative question concerning the role a robust environmental ethic should play in a Christian’s walk of faith.

ICSD 130509/230509 F15
Instructor: Chris Allers
Distance

(MWS, MA)

Syllabus

Curriculum: Organising the World for Learning

Curriculum is the selection and organisation of experience for pedagogical purposes. The criteria that determine what is selected and how it is organised articulate fundamental values about the nature of the world and our calling in it. This course will encourage critical evaluation of the criteria that are commonly employed and of how the curriculum can be shaped to better reflect a Christian worldview. Curriculum is conceived not as a static collection of materials, but as a dynamic plan that directs the learning process and governs the organically developing relationship between teachers and learners. Teachers are curriculum workers, charged with reflective responsibility as they conduct themselves in their profession. Whether adopting and adapting an externally prescribed curriculum or designing a curriculum from its inception, Christian teachers have a responsibility to ensure that the curriculum reflects a biblical worldview, in structure as well as in content, and that learners are invited to respond from their hearts in obedience to the call of God in Christ, Scripture and creation.

ICSD 120307/220307 F15
Dr. Doug Blomberg / Elaine Brouwer
Distance

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Charles Taylor and the Religious Imaginary

The notion of a “social imaginary”—the way people come to understand their social surroundings by way of images, stories, and legends—has come to play a key role in Charles Taylor’s thought. This is especially true of his most recent book, A Secular Age, in which Taylor attempts to trace the historical development of Western secularism as we experience it today. This seminar will be devoted to an in-depth study of this intellectual tour de force. Through this study, seminar participants will also consider what role Taylor’s Roman Catholic religious commitment plays in his thought, as well as the role a religiously-informed “social imaginary” might play in a pluralized global society that is deeply impacted by, but also largely at odds with, the particular social imaginary of Western modernity.

ICS 220507 F15
Dr. Ron Kuipers
Thursday 1:30pm-4:30pm

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

The Divine (at) Risk: Open Theism, Clasical Theism and Beyond

Did God take a risk in creating the world?  How are divine and human freedom related?  Can we confess God’s sovereignty in the face of evil?  This course will explore the different ways in which the God of history is viewed by advocates and critics of “Open Theism.”  Our examination will stimulate our own reflections on how we might best understand and, indeed, imagine God’s love, knowledge and power.

ICS 120803/220803 F15
Dr. Nik Ansell
Thursday 9:30am-12:30pm

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Twentieth-Century Postmodern Theories of (Inter)Subjectivity

This seminar will examine the philosophical anthropologies of four  20th Century  post-modern  Continental philosophers:  Emmanuel Levinas, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and Jacques Derrida.  In addition to focusing  on how each thinker develops a view of the human self in reaction to the modernist over-reliance on the thinking self, attention will be paid to considering each of the thinkers contributions to an anthropology in which “be(com)ing a “lover” is the epitome and mark of authentic humanity. Throughout this course we will look to the social and political implications of our anthropological theories and the conception of (inter)subjectivity they espouse.

ICS 220903 F15
Dr. Jim Olthuis
Wednesday 6:00pm-9:00pm

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Biblical Foundations

This course will explore the Bible as the ongoing story of and for God and creation, paying special attention to the way in which God's story is intertwined with that of humanity and the world. In asking whether and in what way the Bible is also our story, we will attempt to identify which hermeneutical methods might help us discern its significance for present day life, including the academic enterprise.

ICS 1108AC/2108AC F15
Dr. Nik Ansell
Wednesday 9:30am-12:30pm

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Beauty: Theology, Ethics, or Aesthetics?

Is beauty simply “in the eye of the beholder” or is it something more? Is it a way to God, a moral precept, or the specific locus for a unique kind of pleasure? This course examines a variety of subjective and objective views of beauty in the history of Western philosophy and theology from antiquity to the present (e.g. in the thought of Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Kant, Weil, Barth, and Balthasar). It will also consider the implications of these views of beauty for the production of the visual arts, music, and literary culture in Western religion and society.

ICS 220105 F15
Dr. Rebekah Smick
Tuesday 1:30pm-4:30pm

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Aristotle, Aquinas and the Scholastic Approach to the History of Philosophy

This seminar examines the scholastic approach to the history of philosophy exemplified by Etienne Gilson against the background of its foundation in the thought of Aristotle as it was appropriated by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. It examines the role that philosophy or theology's history plays in the conceptual constructions of scholastic thinkers, and what they think is truly first and deepest in the history they so study.

ICS 220401 F15
Dr. Robert Sweetman
Tuesday 9:30am-12:30pm
(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Religion, Life, and Society: Reformational Philosophy

An exploration of central issues in philosophy, as addressed by Herman Dooyeweerd, Dirk Vollenhoven, and the “Amsterdam School” of neoCalvinian thought. The course tests the relevance of this tradition for recent developments in Western philosophy. Special attention is given to critiques of foundationalism, metaphysics, and modernity within reformational philosophy and in other schools of thought.

ICS 1107AC/2107AC F15
ICT3702HF L0101 / ICT6702HF L0101
Dr. Robert Sweetman
Monday 6:00pm – 9:00pm
(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus