The Radical Theopoetics of John D. Caputo

This seminar will explore John D. Caputo’s Theopoetics, a "weak theology" of narratives, prayers and praise in response to the call of God in contrast to a "strong" theology of predicative claims about the existence and nature of God. 

Dr. Jim Olthuis
ICS 150907 / 250907 F21

Remote (Online Synchronous)
Wednesdays, 2pm - 5pm EST

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 17, 2021. 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.

With/Out Reason: Art and Imagination in the Western Tradition

Today the imagination occupies an august, if ill-defined, place in the popular mindset. While we might at some level link the imagination to the arts, its capacities for innovation are thought to span all human creative endeavours across the arts and sciences. In Western society today, thinking imaginatively, or outside the box, is a deeply revered feature of our strongly individualistic culture. Yet, until the eighteenth century, the products of human imagination were understood to be unavoidably communal insofar as they were thought to generate certain palpable effects. For good or ill, works of the imagination were expected to aesthetically impact all those who encountered them. They were never simply the result of abstract thought processes that functioned at a level beyond expected norms. Rather, imaginative inventions were governed by an understanding of the imagination in its most ordinary sense as that which creates mental images.

This course will examine the consequences of this understanding of the imagination for the Western tradition and how it has led to where we are today. Through an investigation of key philosophical and theological texts (e.g. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Kant, Schelling, Coleridge, Derrida) as well as works of art (e.g. Shakespeare, Blake, Wordsworth), it will look at the place of image and imagination in a variety of forms of cognition from the ‘objective’ world of phenomenon to the ‘inobjective’ world of the highest truths. It will consider the traditional place of imagination in ethical theory. And it will clarify the inextricability of the arts and artistry from this history as well as offer points of departure for a theory of imagination today.

Dr. Rebekah Smick
ICS 120106 / 220106 F21

ICH5752HF L0101*

Remote (Online Synchronous)
Wednesdays, 10am - 1pm EST

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 17, 2021. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

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

The Divine (at) Risk: Open Theism, Classical 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, image God’s love, knowledge and power.

Dr. Nik Ansell
ICS 120803 / 220803 F21

ICT3730HF / ICT6730HF L0101*

Remote (Online Synchronous)
Thursdays, 2pm - 5pm EST

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 17, 2021. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

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

After Multiculturalism: The Politics of Recognition in a Colonial Canada

POSTPONED

This course explores and critically assesses the idea of multiculturalism in the context of Canada’s relationship with Indigenous communities. Multiculturalism has long been central to Canada’s national self-identity, and for decades has been reflected in Canadian law and official state policy. To be Canadian, it is said, is to be part of a nation whose democratic institutions recognize and accommodate a plurality of cultural identities, and is to be a member of a populace that is characteristically welcoming of diversity and difference. Taking our cues from Charles Taylor’s seminal 1992 essay “The Politics of Recognition” we will explore the philosophical underpinnings of the idea of multiculturalism as representing the political imperative to recognize cultural diversity and pursue intercultural dialogue. We will then assess the adequacy of a liberal multicultural politics of recognition for addressing the relationship between the Canadian state and Indigenous communities. Here we will be guided by Glen Sean Coulthard’s 2014 work Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, which applies the work of anticolonial theorist Frantz Fanon to argue that the “recognition” of Indigenous claims and communities offered by Canadian state institutions has remained colonial in its dictation of the terms of dialogue, often in culturally and economically self-serving ways. We will also explore what forms of resistance and alternative futures are currently being imagined by Indigenous theorists and authors, as well as what possibilities exist for non-colonial forms of recognition and reconciliation.

Dr. Andrew Tebbutt
ICS 153301 / 253301 F21

Remote (Online Synchronous)
Mondays, 2pm - 5pm EST

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Brief introductory video to the course

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 17, 2021. 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.

POSTPONED

Pragmatism, Race, and Religion: Du Bois, West, and Glaude

This course will explore the work of key Black thinkers in the philosophical tradition of American Pragmatism, paying particular attention to the unique way their reflection upon racialized experience shapes and augments key themes within this thought tradition. How might the strain of tragedy and absurdity sounded by Black pragmatists inflect the sense of meliorism and hope for which American Pragmatism is well known? In pursuing this question, the course will pay particular attention to the differing religious pasts of white and black America and ponder these thinkers' understanding of the relevance and complicatedness of Black religious experience in our racially divided era.

Dr. Ron Kuipers
ICS 120501 / 220501 F21

ICT3771HF / ICT6771HF L9101*

Remote (Online Synchronous)
Thursdays, 10am - 1pm EST

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 17, 2021. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

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