Course I — Elves and Eden: The Modern Myths of J.R.R. Tolkien

Why do we tell stories? The ancient answer is to delight and to instruct. As beneficial as these goals may be, the Christian literary tradition offers even deeper theological and spiritual purposes at play in storytelling.

As one of the major voices of the Christian imagination in the 20th century, J.R.R. Tolkien offers just such a vision of the literary project. For Tolkien, story-tellers and mythmakers are "sub-creators" acting in the image of the Creator. They do not write only to delight or instruct, but rather to reveal the hidden truths of a universe ordered by divine wisdom. In "Mythopoeia," he asks, "Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream"? The answer is implied: from the God for whom we wish. 

In this course, we will examine the tradition that produces Tolkien and note his own contribution to the mythic conversation. This will include ancient Greeks such as Aesop and Plato, English Renaissance poets such as Sidney and Spenser, and, finally, modern writers such as Charles Williams and George MacDonald. We shall defend the honor of story and the power of myth against critics, and we will practice our own myth-making in the valleys and fields of Pennsylvania.

Course II — Love in the Ruins: Theology and the Ethics of Desire

There is perhaps no aspect of the human experience more broadly and consistently commented upon than eros, the nature of love and desire. For many of the ancient poets, desire was a destructive power that brought ruin upon the great kingdoms. For other ancient thinkers, desire posed an intellectual puzzle that could, if properly understood, lead to truth and to the highest good. The courtly love poets saw it as an overwhelming power to which we blissfully succumb. The Christian mystics understood desire as a disclosure of God’s very nature, and therefore as key to the soul’s spiritual relationship to the divine.

This course explores the history of eros across the Western literary, philosophical, moral, and theological traditions: from being a cosmic symbol of fertility in ancient Mesopotamian myth, to being the pursuit of the chivalrous romances of medieval courtly poetry, and finally to Christianity’s transformation of Love into a name of God. Students will read and discuss the meaning of eros in the writings of both ancient and modern authors, such as Homer, Sophocles, Vergil, Ovid, Andres Capellanus, Chretien de Troyos, Dante Alighieri, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Catherine of Siena, Shakespeare, Sigmund Freud, Evelyn Waugh, and Holy Scripture.

As students learn the various ways that love’s power has been understood, engaged, repressed, channeled, moralized, spiritualized, and theologized across history and culture, they will also be invited to reflect on the nature and meaning of eros for living well in the 21st century. In addition to the study of eros in daily seminars, students will also participate in evening workshops reflecting on contemporary moral and Christian practices of love. Students will discuss questions of Christian dating and marriage, gender, modesty, and the traditions of Christian spirituality that help grow and mature eros into chastity and charity. Thus the course invites students to reflect on love so that they can live virtuously on a journey to the God who is Love.