Heroes, Saints, and Saviors

*New Course*

In a year of acrimonious debate with presidential contestants hurling invectives at each other, and in society pulling apart at the seams, even during the national anthem, while overseas a radical religious cult has strewn mayhem and violence in civilian populations forcing them to flee from their homeland, there is an acute need for alternative visions. This seminar attempts to do so with three interrelated positive themes.

Providing a sociological frame, we start with sociologist Pitirim Sorokin’s pioneering study: “Altruistic Love: A Study of American Good Neighbors and Christian Saints,” 1950. We then move into the first theme, “Heroes,” embodied in the recent film “Sully,” seen by millions of Americans: why was that film so popular, and how does it couple with 9/11 after 15 years, in the same locale? After this initial discussion we take up two heroes, both women who engaged in heroic careers in times of war: Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman to earn the US Medal of Honor, who engaged in spying for the North, and Joan of Arc, put on trial in 1431 with her “immodest garments suited to the male sex.”  The next unit will deal with two saints: Francis of Assisi who lived in a period of urbanization and income inequality founder of an order of voluntary poverty, and was canonized two years after his death in 1228. The second saint, Mother Walatta Petros, is a 17^th century saint of the Ethiopian Church, opposed to the Jesuit missionary influence, who wrote a remarkable biography and ethnographic study, just recently published by Princeton University Press.

To do justice to the final theme, “Saviors,” we will look at two who qualify in the 20^th Century: Mahatma Gandhi of India and Martin Luther King, Jr. of the United States. Just as the recognized founder of Christianity, they put passive resistance or non-violence into practice, as the hallmark of their civic action. And as a further common denominator, all three died a violent death.

The seminar will give much weight to class discussion, a mid-term, and a final power point presentation by a team.