RELI 125 - Love and Death

This course explores possible relations between love and death in human life, illustrated in theory, fiction, and film. We shall raise such questions as: How does love differ according to the kind of relationship in which it finds expression (for example, parental love, friendship, sexual intimacy, love for strangers and enemies, neighborly love, self-love, love for learning, love for justice, and devotion to a transcendent reality)? What does love require in regard to how we live and die? How does our awareness that death is inevitable inform our views and experiences of love? What role does love play in the significance we attribute to death? As we raise all of these questions we will repeatedly ask: What difference do racial, gender, class, age, sexual, and religious differences make in how we love and how we die. (4 Credits)