2013-14 Undergraduate Index A-Z
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Religious Studies [clear]
| Title | Offering | Standing | Credits | Credits | When | F | W | S | Su | Description | Preparatory | Faculty | Days of Week | Multiple Standings | Start Quarters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Ryo Imamura and Bill Bruner
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | S 14Spring | With the aging of the post-war baby boom generation, the United States population aged 65 years and older is increasing rapidly. Between 2010 and 2030 this age group is expected to double in size, from 35 million to 72 million individuals and, by 2030, will represent nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population. Relative to earlier generations, today's seniors tend to be more affluent, better educated and in better health. But the aging of the population will present challenges to institutions and individuals. This program will examine the impacts of growth of the senior population, both on the aging individual and on U.S. society as a whole.A central focus of our study will be on the social and economic impacts of an aging population. In spite of their relative health and affluence, the senior population will put stress on a number of institutions and government programs. We will try to sort out the effects on Social Security, Medicare and other programs, and consider alternative public policy responses to these impacts. We will also study the economic impacts on individuals and families. What economic and financial decisions do we face as we grow older? How can we make choices that will secure a reasonable quality of life in our senior years?We will also focus on the psychological, sociological and spiritual changes of aging and their profound impacts on individuals, families, and society in general. We will consider the many losses associated with aging but pay equal attention to the possible areas of growth and happiness such as increased wisdom, life satisfaction, inner peace and cooperative living. We will also look at the rapidly growing field of geriatric social services and meet with several Evergreen graduates who are actively involved in providing essential services to local senior citizens. | Ryo Imamura Bill Bruner | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | |||||
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Suzanne Simons and Ann Storey
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 8 | 08 | Evening | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | This two-quarter program will examine a thousand-year period of Christian and Islamic art, art history, poetry, and mysticism from roughly the 4th through 14th centuries. This was a singular period of creativity, spirituality, and change. We will study the motivating ideas and issues of the age: the dynamic influence of migrating tribal cultures on inherited classical traditions, the problem of iconoclasm, and Neoplatonic philosophy expressed through the visions of the mystics. The idea that both mystic and artist were "seers"—seeing beyond the physical into the transcendent and metaphysical—impelled them into visionary realms. We will learn about the mysticism of Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Sufi poets, and other charismatic figures as we see their visions expressed in superb mosaics, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, sculpture, calligraphy, sacred geometry, miniature painting, and sacred architecture of European Christendom and Islamic empires stretching from Spain to Central Asia. Sacred music of the era will be experienced through recordings and a possible field trip. Art workshops will enable students to move from theory to practice. | Suzanne Simons Ann Storey | Tue Thu | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||
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Ryo Imamura
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | Western psychology has so far failed to provide us with a satisfactory understanding of the full range of human experience. It has largely overlooked the core of human understanding—our everyday mind and our immediate awareness of being—with all of its felt complexity and sensitive attunement to the vast network of interconnectedness with the universe around us. Instead, Western psychology has chosen to analyze the mind as though it were an object independent of the analyzer, consisting of hypothetical structures and mechanisms that cannot be directly experienced. Western psychology's neglect of the living mind--both in its everyday dynamics and its larger possibilities--has led to a tremendous upsurge of interest in the ancient wisdom of Asia, particularly Buddhism, which does not divorce the study of psychology from the concern with wisdom and human liberation.In contrast to Western psychology, Eastern psychology shuns any impersonal attempt to objectify human life from the viewpoint of an external observer and instead studies consciousness as a living reality which shapes individual and collective perception and action. The primary tool for directly exploring the mind is meditation or mindfulness, an experiential process in which one becomes an attentive participant-observer in the unfolding of moment-to-moment consciousness.Learning mainly from lectures, readings, videos, workshops, seminar discussions, individual and group research projects and field trips, in fall quarter we will take a critical look at the basic assumptions and tenets of the major currents in traditional Western psychology, the concept of mental illness and the distinctions drawn between normal and abnormal thought and behavior. In winter quarter, we will then investigate the Eastern study of mind that has developed within spiritual traditions, particularly within the Buddhist tradition. In doing so, we will take special care to avoid the common pitfall of most Western interpretations of Eastern thought—the attempt to fit Eastern ideas and practices into unexamined Western assumptions and traditional intellectual categories. Lastly, we will address the encounter between Eastern and Western psychology as possibly having important ramifications for the human sciences in the future, potentially leading to new perspectives on the whole range of human experience and life concerns. | psychology, counseling, social work, education, Asian-American studies, Asian studies and religious studies. | Ryo Imamura | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall |