JAN 304 - End of the World

Course Meeting Days & Times:  MTThF, 9:15 AM-11:45 AM

Instructor(s): Harter, Wayne

Email: wharter@stmarys-ca.edu

Fee: $0

Course Description:  If you’re like me-after a long day doing my bit for shared inquiry, for the common good, social justice and all that-there’s nothing quite like a good story to round-off the rough edges of the day!  Everything falls sweetly into place with the opening lines of high adventure, of promise of better things to come-of a story that begins with the End of the World.

Maybe friends and family are a little discomforted by this attraction to a future wherein most of them are vaporized in the first chapter.  Dreams of nuclear holocaust or viral pandemic for “getting things off to a good start” are, quite frankly, not what jumps to mind when one thinks “inspirational reading”.  No, not at first.

This course looks at three very different, but typical depictions of global destruction.  Students will examine the “three ways” in light of fundamental doctrines of the Catholic philosophical and theological tradition.  They will discover good reasons, and not-so-good reasons, for counting “right as rain” our persistent fascination for stories of the

Apocalypse.

Prerequisites & Notes
TRS 97 or 281 or 189 or 380-389 or PHIL 120 or PHIL 220

Credits: 3