[Past] 21 Mystical Literature - Spring 2018

Revised

January 1, 2018

CLASS NUMBER:

770-94

INSTRUCTOR:

ABDUL SATTAR SHAKHLY

TIME:

Mondays, 6:15 - 8:45 PM

LOCATION:

GLS Conference Room

DESCRIPTION:

This course explores and examines the tradition of mysticism in literature of world, British, and American writers. The objective is to introduce students to numerous genres and literary works that manifest a deep religious attitude or experience as a way of life and cross-cultural phenomenon. The course will focus on selected works of Dante, Milton, Blake, Wordsworth, and American Transcendentalists and their predecessors in Muslim Spain, such as Ibn Arabi, Abu Al Ala’a Al Ma’arri, and Rumi among other Sufi poets.

Close readings of texts will reveal the recurrent theme: “the direct, intuitional experience of God through unifying love”.