Showing posts with label MWS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MWS. Show all posts

Imagining the World with Ricoeur: Narrative, Action, and the Sacred in Ricoeur's Hermeneutic Phenomenology

This course will focus primarily on two essay collections by Paul Ricoeur: From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II, as well as Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination. These collections cover (roughly) a period from the early 1970’s to the early 1990’s. Together, they form an excellent introduction to Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology, which he developed as an alternative to those theoretical options, such as psychoanalysis and semiotics, with which he struggled throughout the 1960’s.  


In addition to exploring Ricoeur’s evolving thoughts on such topics as textual interpretation, action, imagination, revelation, and a religious imaginary, these essays will also serve seminar participants as an effective springboard into Ricoeur’s larger thematic works, such as Rule of Metaphor, Time and Narrative (Vols. I-III), Oneself as Another, or Memory, History, Forgetting. Beginning with From Text to Action, the seminar will explore the general shape of Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology, including such themes as text, action, explanation, understanding, ideology, and utopia. 

With this basic grasp of Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology in hand, we will go on to explore his understanding of the disclosive force of religious texts and uses of language in the anthology Figuring the Sacred. Among other things, Ricoeur there ponders how Christian communities might best face the task of appropriating a textual heritage from which time has distanced them, and concerning which they have lost a certain original naivety. This seminar will explore Ricoeur’s recommendation that Christians risk assuming a “second naivety” as they take up the responsibility of receiving and interpreting their religious tradition for a new generation. Imagining the world with Ricoeur, we will discuss how his recommendations on this score might help or hinder our effort to find meaning and inspiration amidst the crises and fragmentations that run through contemporary life.


Dr. Ron Kuipers
120504 / 220504 W27
ICT3732HS / ICT6732HS L0101*
Online Synchronous
Thursdays, 3:00pm - 6:00pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 8. Maximum enrolment of 12 students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

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

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.


120107 / 220107 F26
ICH3761H / ICH6761H L6201*
Online Synchronous
Thursday, 10am - 1pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)




Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 11 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.


1108AC / 2108AC F26 **
ICB2010H L6201*
Online Synchronous
Wednesdays, 6:00-9:00pm ET

(MWS, MA, MA-EL, PhD)




Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 11. 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: Approved for Area 1 of the CSTC.

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.



1107AC / 2107AC F26
Remote (Online Synchronous)
Tuesdays, 6:00-9:00pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)


Required Books:
Vollenhoven, D. H. T. Introduction to Philosophy. Sioux Center, Iowa: Dordt College Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-932914-65-1. [ICS Library Reserve Shelf: BD28 .V65a 2005].  Must be purchased
Purchasing links: Amazon CA
* Also available through 21five website, or
* Chapters/Indigo website.

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 11. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations. 

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 how to contribute leadership when we have a particular, recognized position of authority in a group, and also regardless of our position in a group. We will learn how to contribute leadership when our group has clear, commonly agreed-upon procedures and goals, and when there are not (or not yet) clear, commonly agreed-upon procedures and goals (so that we must practice imaginative discernment). We will learn how to contribute leadership both to make beneficial change happen and to ensure needed maintenance.



132504 / 260003 S26*
Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)
(MWS, MA-EL)

Dates/Time

Thursday, April 23, 2026, 6:30 - 9:30 pm ET

Thursday, May 7, 2026, 6:30 - 9:30 pm ET

Thursday, May 21, 2026, 6:30 - 9:30 pm ET

Tuesday, August 11, 2026, 1 - 4 pm ET

Wednesday, August 12, 2026, 1 - 4 pm ET

Thursday, August 13, 2026, 1 - 4 pm ET





Required Books


Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register April 17, 2026. Maximum enrolment of twelve (12) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.


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

Pragmatism, Race, and Religion

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition born in the United States and now influential worldwide. At its core, it is a way of thinking about the human condition between past and future: we inherit the traditions that shape us, yet remain open to creative and hopeful new possibilities. This course examines how Pragmatism has interacted with—and been shaped by—the religious traditions that form part of its cultural context.

Students will explore questions such as:

  • How do the passions and moral commitments of Pragmatism connect with religious concerns?
  • How does the pragmatic claim that ideas are measured by their practical consequences relate to religious belief, moral life, and community?
  • How does Pragmatism’s suspicion of traditional “supernaturalist” theology influence how we think about God, religion, and human responsibility?
  • What have pragmatists proposed as faithful and responsible ways for religious communities to live within a democratic society?

A central focus of the course will be the question of race. We will study how the Black experience in America has shaped the evolution of Pragmatist thought, especially through the tragic, absurdist, and hopeful tones of the Blues. The course will explore how Black Pragmatists both affirm and challenge the melioristic hope often associated with American Pragmatism.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • Analyze key texts from major Pragmatist thinkers—both White and Black—and explain their views on religion and democratic life;
  • Explain how race has influenced the development of Pragmatism as a philosophical tradition;
  • Evaluate the strengths and limitations of Pragmatism for understanding religious belief and practice;
  • Reflect critically on the relationship between White and Black Christianity in America;
  • Discuss how Pragmatism sheds light on issues such as colonialism, White supremacy, and identity in pluralistic democracies.

Ultimately, this course invites students to consider how Pragmatism can help us navigate divided societies, imagine more just futures, and attend to the stories that shape human communities.


Dr. Ron Kuipers
ICS 120501 / 220501 W26
ICT3771/ICT6771*
Online Synchronous
Thursdays, 2pm - 5pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)



Required Books

1. Dewey, John. 1934. A Common Faith. New Haven: Yale University Press (120 pages). Students are required to purchase a copy of this book for the course. Please note that online copies do exist for free, including this one. For students who wish to buy a print or eBook copy, Amazon CA sells the paperback for $30 CAD, or the Kindle edition for $13 CAD. Indigo also sells the paperback for $25.


2. Du Bois, W.E.B. 2017. The Souls of Black Folk, with The Talented Tenth” and “The Souls of White Folk.” New York: Penguin. (272 pages). Students must purchase a copy of this text. Please note it is widely available online, including on the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg. Students will also readily find used paperback copies of this text at bookshops.


For students wishing to purchase copies, Indigo sells several different editions, including the 2008 paperback for $15 CAD. Amazon CA sells both Kindle and paperback; the paperback edition is $10 CAD. Students will also readily find used paperback copies of this text at bookshops.


3. James, William. 1956. The Will to Believe: Human Immortality and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Dover. (70 pages). Students must purchase a copy of this text. Please note it is widely available online, including at the Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg. Amazon CA sells the print edition for $14 CAD. Indigo sells the print edition for $16 CAD. Both Amazon and Indigo sell eBook versions as well.




Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register January 9, 2026. 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.

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.


ICS 1108AC / 2108AC F25 **
ICB2010H L6201*
Online Synchronous
Wednesdays, 6:00-9:00pm ET

(MWS, MA, MA-EL, PhD)




Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 12. 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: Approved for Area 1 of the CSTC.

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 F25
ICH3757HF L0101 / ICH6757HF L0101*
Dr. Rebekah Smick
Thursdays, 10am - 1pm
Online Synchronous


(MA, PhD)

Syllabus


*TST students have to register with the ICS Registrar to complete registration. ICS reserves the right to decline late registrations due to limited space.


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 F25
ICT3730HF / ICT6730HF L0101*
Online Synchronous
Tuesdays, 10am - 1pm EST

(MWS, MA, PhD)



Required Books:

Richard Rice, The Future of Open Theism: From Antecedents to Opportunities (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020).

Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 12. 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.

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 F25
Remote (Online Synchronous)
Tuesdays, 6:00-9:00pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)


Required Books:
Vollenhoven, D. H. T. Introduction to Philosophy. Sioux Center, Iowa: Dordt College Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-932914-65-1. [ICS Library Reserve Shelf: BD28 .V65a 2005].  Must be purchased
Purchasing links: Amazon CA
* Also available through 21five website, or
* Chapters/Indigo website.

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 12. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations. 

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 how to contribute leadership when we have a particular, recognized position of authority in a group, and also regardless of our position in a group. We will learn how to contribute leadership when our group has clear, commonly agreed-upon procedures and goals, and when there are not (or not yet) clear, commonly agreed-upon procedures and goals (so that we must practice imaginative discernment). We will learn how to contribute leadership both to make beneficial change happen and to ensure needed maintenance.



ICSD 132504 / 260003 S25*
Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MWS, MA-EL)



Required Books


Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register April 18, 2025. Maximum enrolment of twelve (12) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.


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

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 F24
Remote (Online Synchronous)
Tuesdays, 6pm - 9pm EST

(MWS, MA, PhD)




Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 13, 2024ICS 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.


ICS 1108AC / 2108AC F24 **
ICB2010H L6201*
Remote (Online Synchronous)
Wednesdays, 6:00-9:00pm ET

(MWS, MA, MA-EL, PhD)




Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 13, 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: Approved for Area 1 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.


ICS 120801 / 220801 F24
ICT3352H / ICT6352H L6201*
Remote (Online Synchronous)
Tuesdays, 10:00am-1:00pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)




Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 13, 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. 

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 F24
Remote (Online Synchronous)
Tuesdays, 2:00-5:00pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)




Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 13, 2024. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations. 

The Aesthetics of Compassion

The emotion of “pity” (eleos) or “compassion” is at the heart of Athenian tragedy, the great forbear of Western tragic drama. For Aristotle, creating feelings of pity and fear in an audience was thought to provoke a catharsis of those emotions that enabled a positive moderation of our passionate natures. But, as George Steiner has observed, the subject matter of tragedy places those emotions in a register beyond the ordinary. As fundamental human responses to extraordinary human suffering, they signal the “core of dynamic negativity” that underwrites authentic tragedy. Raising the problem of human pain and fragility in the face of circumstances potentially beyond human control, representations of human suffering have a metaphysical and, more particularly, theological dimension that has long provoked philosophical interest in the dynamics of tragic drama. In this course, we will examine the interface between philosophy and works of tragic drama as that interface pertains to the psychology and aesthetics of compassion. Looking to such writers as Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Augustine, Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche and Simone Weil, we will investigate the place of compassion in Western philosophy and theology and the roles that art and imagination have played in the stimulation of compassionate response. 



Dr. Rebekah Smick
ICS 120104 / 220104 F24
ICH5751HF L0101*
Remote (Online Synchronous)
Thursdays, 10:00am-1:00pm ET

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus


Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register is September 13, 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.

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 F24*
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 6 (Note that the first session for this course takes place on September 12). Maximum enrolment of twelve (12) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.


*Approved for Area 2 of the CSTC