Issues in Phenomenology: Spirituality

This semester’s version of the “Issues in Phenomenology” course will centre on the issue of spirituality. Drawing on its German roots in Hegel and Husserl, the phenomenological notion of spirituality [geistigkeit] is understood to be a (perhaps THE) constitutive factor in all human social activity. The course will look at the introduction of this notion of spirituality in Hegel and its crucial re-development in Husserlian phenomenology. It will then trace the development of that term through Derrida’s reading of Heidegger in Of Spirit and into Michel Henry’s use of spirit in his notion of a “barbaristic” culture that he finds to be currently dominant in Western culture. We will end by examining the implications of this account of spirituality for our understanding of religion and of oppression (especially sexism and racism). 

Dr. Neal DeRoo

ICS 223001 W24

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Thursdays, 2pm - 5pm ET

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 12, 2024. 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. 

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.

Dr. Bob Sweetman

ICS 120401 / 220401 W24

ICH3313H / ICH6313H L6201*

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Wednesdays, 10am - 1pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 12, 2024. 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.

Philosophical Inquiry and the Practices of Everyday Life: An Interdisciplinary Seminar on Philosophizing in a Time of Crisis (IDS)

In the first chapter of his little book Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue 1913-1922 (2006), Alasdair MacIntyre asks, “What would it have been in that period of German history in which Heidegger grew up, served his philosophical apprenticeship, and became the most influential of twentieth century German philosophers to have lived quite otherwise as a philosopher, to have consistently taken seriously both the implications for one’s life outside philosophy of one’s philosophical enquiries and the implications for one’s philosophy of one’s other activities?”

In this seminar we will explore the implications of philosophical inquiry for the everyday practices of philosophers as well as the implications of our everyday concerns for our philosophical practices, with particular attention to the relevance of our political circumstances for this exploration. We will do so with particular attention to the diverse examples offered by the early careers of three philosophers living through what Husserl called the ‘crisis’ of European thought and culture in the 1920s and 30s: Edith Stein, Martin Heidegger, and Herman Dooyeweerd. Both in our seminar conversations and in our written papers for this seminar we will consider what we may learn for our own practices from comparing these examples.

Dr. Neal DeRoo, Dr. Gideon Strauss

ICS 2400AC W24

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Tuesdays, 2pm - 5pm ET

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 12, 2024. 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. 

What Were the Women Up To? Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch

In the middle of the 20th century, four women at the University of Oxford began careers that would revolutionize the fields of ethics and analytic philosophy. Elizabeth Anscombe, Wittgenstein’s student and translator, integrated ordinary language philosophy with Aristotelian practical reasoning. Philippa Foot defended the objectivity of morality, invented the Trolley problem, and articulated a modern account of ethical naturalism. Mary Midgley challenged reductionism and sociobiology while developing a fulsome account of our relationship to non-human animals. Iris Murdoch, through story as much as treatise, brought analytic philosophy into conversation with Continental philosophy, Eastern philosophy, and Platonic moral realism. This seminar examines the philosophy and legacy of these four women, friends, pioneers, and philosophers.

Michael Buttrey

ICS 253401 W24

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Thursdays, 10am - 1pm ET

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 12, 2024. 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.

Transformative Teaching: The Role of a Christian Educator

Transformative Teaching is a course for instructional leaders as they consider their roles as Christian educators called to be transformers of society and culture by seeking justice for those who are marginalized and disenfranchised. In this course we will consider constructivism (a dominant educational theory in the twenty-first century that informs student-centred pedagogies such as Project Based Learning) through the lens of Scripture and investigate the assumptions that it makes. We will explore our calling as Christian educators to transform culture in our schools, local community, and the world.

This course seeks to help Christian educators find clarity in answers to the following questions: 

• Context: Who am I called to be as a Christian educator in my particular place and time?

• Constructivism: How does constructivism inform my practice?

• Culture: What role does education play in creating culture?

Dr. Edith van der Boom

ICSD 260006 W24*

Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MA-EL)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 5, 2024. Maximum enrolment of twelve (12) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Approved for Area 2 of the CSTC

God in Flesh and Blood: Revolutions in Christology

Although theologians often approach “Christology” by asking how Jesus of Nazareth might be best understood in terms of certain systematic concerns or doctrinal positions—a perspective that gives rise to questions such as: How are the divine and human natures of Christ related?, What are the merits of, or alternatives to, substitutionary atonement?, and How might a virginal conception thwart the transmission of original sin?—those who are more oriented to the discipline of “biblical theology” are more likely to prioritize how the New Testament portrayal of Jesus is related to the narrative movement—or movements—of the Hebrew Bible. This leads either to a different set of questions or (just as importantly) to a different angle on the kinds of questions asked above. This course, on potential revolutions in Christological thinking, will draw on contemporary NT scholarship in order to explore this latter approach.

To what extent do the OT themes of exile and return, old age and new age, help deepen our understanding of the birth and crucifixion of the Messiah? If the NT portrays the first followers of Jesus as worshipping him (and as doing so before and not just after the Resurrection), is it implicitly or explicitly calling us to worship Jesus’s humanity as well as his divinity? Does Mary’s encounter with Gabriel, who is a named presence in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament only in the Book of Daniel, indicate that her conception of Jesus is to be read apocalyptically? Is it significant that Elizabeth initially greets Mary with words otherwise associated with Jael and Judith? These are some of the exegetical and theological questions we will consider in this engagement with issues at the edge, and at the heart, of contemporary Christology. Conversation partners will include: James Dunn (Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?), Jane Schaberg (The Illegitimacy of Jesus), and N.T. Wright (The Day the Revolution Began).

Dr. Nik Ansell

ICS 240811 W24

ICT3201H / ICT6201 L6201*

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Tuesdays, 10am - 1pm ET

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 12, 2024. 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.

**NOTE: Completion of 1108AC or 2108AC is a prerequisite for enrolling in this course.

How to Finance a Vision: Setting Direction and Managing Change within Financial Limitations

How to Finance a Vision is a course for new and aspiring principals and leadership teams. The course provides frameworks and tools for leadership in making the connections between the vision of a school, the budgeting process, and fundraising.

The course starts with an introduction to Henri Nouwen’s spirituality of fundraising. It continues with an introduction to the basic financial documents that a principal should be able to read. It explores the art of communicating the story told by school budgets as a necessary element of fundraising. It concludes with the processes necessary to gain competency in working with both school boards and staffs (with an emphasis on financial and advancement staff) on the financial aspects of school management.

How to Finance a Vision is a remote learning course consisting of three synchronous discussions and three virtual school visits using online video and thirteen weeks of asynchronous online interaction.

Dr. Gideon Strauss
ICSD 260007 W24
Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MA-EL)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 5, 2024. Maximum enrolment of twelve (12) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

Meaning/Being/Knowing: The Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Implications of a Christian Ontology

Course Description TBA

Dr. Nik Ansell

ICS 2105AC W24

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Thursday, 6:00 - 9:00pm ET

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 12, 2024. 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.

**NOTE: Completion of 1107AC or 2107AC is a prerequisite for enrolling in this course.

A Cosmic Theopoetics of/for Love

This seminar will explore, question and develop Olthuis’ ‘theopoetic philosophical work.’ Despite the ever present reality of brokenness, trauma and evil, in conversation with Levinas, Derrida, Caputo, Lacan and Žížek, Olthuis argues theologically, anthropologically, psychologically and etho-politically that the universe comes from Love, continues in Love, and is headed to Love.

Dr. Jim Olthuis

ICS 140909 / 240909 F23

ICT5711H L6201*

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Wednesdays, 6pm - 9pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 15 (Note that the first class for this course takes place on September 13). 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.

Biblical Foundations: Narrative, Wisdom, and the Art of Interpretation

How can we read and experience the Scriptures as the Word of Life in the midst of an Academy that believes the biblical witness will restrict human freedom and thwart our maturity? How may we pursue biblical wisdom as we “re-think the world” when our Christian traditions seem convinced that biblical truth may be disconnected from—or simply applied to—the most pressing and perplexing issues of our time?

This course will explore the Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—as the ongoing story of and for God and all God’s creatures, paying special attention to the way in which humanity’s attempt to find its way is interwoven with the story of the Divine presence and with the wisdom and promise of creation-new creation. In asking whether and how the biblical story may find its future in our ongoing narratives, we will attempt to identify which hermeneutical methods and sensitivities might help us discern its significance for present day life, including the academic enterprise.

If Jesus is the Living Word at the heart of Scripture, does that change our understanding of where biblical truth is coming from and where it is going? Does the Bible have an implicit, sapiential pedagogy that we have misconstrued? Can the familiar Reformed themes of creation and covenant, election and eschaton speak to us in new, reformational ways? These are some of the questions we shall explore together as we reintroduce ourselves to the biblical writings.

Dr. Nik Ansell

ICS 1108AC / 2108AC F23

ICB2010H L6201*

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Thursdays, 6pm - 9pm ET

(MWS, MA, MA-EL, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 15 (Note that the first class for this course takes place on September 14). 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.

Critical Theory and Religion: The Frankfurt School and Beyond

This course will explore the different interpretations of religion emerging from the Critical
Theory of the Frankfurt School. First generation thinkers in this school understood religion,
especially Judaism and Christianity, to be integral to modern social and cultural evolution.
Religion must be studied, they felt, because it can both display forms of pathological
socialization and yet be a resource for a critique of, and eventual emancipation from, oppressive social realities. After exploring key writings of the first generation of Critical Theorists, the course will examine Jürgen Habermas’s evolving appreciation of religious contributions to social justice and conclude with a selection of readings from contemporary thinkers influenced by the Critical Theory tradition broadly understood, such as Judith Butler, Seyla Benhabib, Enrique Dussel, Achille Mbembe, and María Pía Lara.

Dr. Ron Kuipers
ICS 120505 / 220505 F23

ICT5772H L6201*

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Thursdays, 10am to 1pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 15 (Note that the first class for this course takes place on September 14).  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.

Cultivating Learning Communities of Belonging

Cultivating Learning Communities of Belonging is a course for instructional leaders and school administrators in the consideration of both school and classroom cultures. Course content will include attention to social and cultural contexts, racial justice, Indigenous perspectives, human sexuality, and restorative practices and how these topics impact and form school and classroom cultures. 

This course seeks to help students find clarity in answers to the following questions:

• What is the relationship between the daily behaviour of educational leaders and the cultures of schools?

• How do we awaken our students’ knowledge, creativity, and critical reflective capacities in our schools and classrooms?

• How do racism and other forms of oppression underlie achievement gaps and alienation within our schools?

• How can classroom learning be linked to larger movements seeking to effect change in the community?

• How can school culture be a vehicle for social change?

• How do we cultivate learning communities of belonging in our schools?

Dr. Edith van der Boom
ICSD 260008 F23*
Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MA-EL)


Syllabus


Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 14 (Note that the first class for this course takes place on September 14).  Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.


*Approved for Area 2 or 3 of the CSTC

Facing the Darkness: The (Human) Nature of Evil

In this interdisciplinary theology seminar, we shall probe the origin and nature of evil by engaging key biblical, philosophical, psychological, and anthropological resources. Central to our discussions will be a sapiential (wisdom-oriented) re-reading of the Fall narrative of Genesis 3–4, set against the backdrop of the good, yet largely wild, creation of Genesis 1–2. In addition to surveying a variety of contemporary theodicies read up against the challenge offered by both “protest atheism” and the biblical lament literature (especially the book of Job), we shall also pay special attention to the correlation between victim and agent in the ongoing dynamics to “original sin” and to the concomitant role of fear in the construction of culture. In attending to evil’s (arguably) anthropocentric origin as a key to its present nature—which will prompt us to revisit our understanding of the primordial conditions of possibility along with the largely overlooked biblical connections between the Satan and the absolutization (and denaturing) of Justice—we shall also look ahead, via pondering the relationship between law and grace, to the promise of a (divine and human) judgment unto salvation.

Dr. Nik Ansell

ICS 120801 / 220801 F23

ICT3352H / ICT6352H L6201*

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Tuesdays, 10am to 1pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 15 (Note that the first class for this course takes place on September 12). 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.

Reconsidering Kant's Aesthetics

Until recently, it was customary to regard Kant as the thinker who definitively separated aesthetic knowledge from the domains of reason and morality by identifying its core epistemological activity as a kind of judgment that he qualified as a matter of taste. The postmodern rejection of the “modernist” practice of aesthetic theory, however, has done much to undermine Kant’s position in both the arts and in philosophy. This course aims to re-examine Kant’s aesthetic theory as set out in his Critique of Judgment of 1790 from the vantage point of the art theoretical literature that preceded it vis a vis the integral place of the aesthetic in both premodern ethics and theology. In an effort to better understand Kant’s contribution to the history of thought about art and its purposes, it will seek to contextualize such “Kantian” themes as judgment, taste, genius, beauty, sublimity and purposiveness. It will also consider to what degree our understanding of Kant has been shaped by later modernist assumptions about the character of his contribution.

Dr. Rebekah Smick

ICS 120107 / 220107 F23

ICH3761H / ICH6761H L6201*

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Wednesdays, 10am - 1pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 15 (Note that the first class for this course takes place on September 13). 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.

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.

Dr. Neal DeRoo

ICS 1107AC / 2107AC F23

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Tuesdays, 2pm - 5pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 15 (Note that the first class for this course takes place on September 12). Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

The Craft of Reflective Practice

We humans make sense of things by telling stories. In this course we will learn how to do critical reflective practice, primarily by telling stories about our everyday professional lives. We will zoom in on the story of an ordinary day at work, and then zoom out to the story of our career to date, zoom out further to the story of our work community, and zoom out even further to the overarching story of God’s world. In the process we will learn qualitative research skills, receive an introduction to phenomenology (the philosophical study of lived experience), develop our own approach to praxis (that is, the craft of morally-oriented, theoretically-informed, and theory-generating critically reflective practice), and, most significantly, come to terms with who we are in what we do.

Dr. Gideon Strauss

ICSD 132501 / 232501 F23*
Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MA-EL, MWS)


Syllabus


Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 14 (Note that the first session for this course takes place on September 14). Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.


*Approved for Area 2 of the CSTC