Course Catalogue 2026-2027

This course complements EMB5703 (Paul's Biographical Problems); though it may be taken independently. Pursued will be problems related to the manuscript tradition of the corpus paulinum; historical authenticity, literary unity, and chronology of the individual writings; scribal and other interpolations.

This seminar will map out the Dialectical Materialism of Slovenian philosopher, psycho-analyst, and cultural critic Slavoj Zlzek. A communist and atheist, Zlzek's thought is an original Lacanian inspired repeat of Hegel that recallibrates Materialism. Zlzek's incisive structural insights will be explored even as his faith in the Void as the eternal traumatic Real is contrasted with faith in the steadfast Love of God.

This seminar will map out the Dialectical Materialism of Slovenian philosopher, psycho-analyst, and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek. A communist and atheist, Zizek's thought is an original Lacanian inspired repeat of Hegel that recallibrates Materialism. Zizek's incisive structural insights will be explored even as his faith in the Void as the eternal traumatic Real is contrasted with faith in the steadfast Love of God.

This course will concern itself with various recent forms of natural theology (and arguments in support of natural religion) that claim to provide evidence that confirms belief in the existence of God (and/or other transcendent realities). Such theologies almost always attempt to draw on the authority of the sciences for their claims and amount to full-scale challenges to modernist claims that science has disenchanted the world. The main objective of the course is to assess the cogency of the explicit claims that a more perceptive and comprehensive view of science can restore the pre-modern optimism in the belief in the existence of God and the value of religion.

This course will concern itself with various recent forms of natural theology (and arguments in support of natural religion) that claim to provide evidence that confirms belief in the existence of God (and/or other transcendent realities). Such theologies almost always attempt to draw on the authority of the sciences for their claims and amount to full-scale challenges to modernist claims that science has disenchanted the world. The main objective of the course is to assess the cogency of the explicit claims that a more perceptive and comprehensive view of science can restore the pre-modern optimism in the belief in the existence of God and the value of religion.

Theology was established as an academic discipline in the Christian universities of the European Middle Ages. Methodologically, however, that discipline seems ill-suited for the new epistemic culture produced in the West by the Scientific Revolution and now institutionalized in the modern secular research university. This is the intellectual context in which Christian theology emerged and matured as an academic discipline and against which its ‘religious knowledge’ claims will be measured. Understanding this history is essential, therefore, in methodological discussions in all areas of the theological encyclopedia.

Theology was established as an academic discipline in the Christian universities of the European Middle Ages. Methodologically, however, the discipline seems ill-suited for the new epistemic culture produced in the West by the Scientific Revolution and now institutionalized in the modern research university. Understanding this history is essential to understanding the character and place of theology in our culture today.

Theology was established as an academic discipline in the Christian universities of the European Middle Ages. Methodologically, however, that discipline seems ill-suited for the new epistemic culture produced in the West by the Scientific Revolution and now institutionalized in the modern secular research university. This is the intellectual context in which Christian theology emerged and matured as an academic discipline and against which its ‘religious knowledge’ claims will be measured. Understanding this history is essential, therefore, in methodological discussions in all areas of the theological encyclopedia.

Theology was established as an academic discipline in the Christian universities of the European Middle Ages. Methodologically, however, that discipline seems ill-suited for the new epistemic culture produced in the West by the Scientific Revolution and now institutionalized in the modern secular research university. This is the intellectual context in which Christian theology emerged and matured as an academic discipline and against which its ‘religious knowledge’ claims will be measured. Understanding this history is essential, therefore, in methodological discussions in all areas of the theological encyclopedia.

This seminar examines that philosophical approach to the history of philosophy that travels under the name of genealogy. It does so in terms of close readings of selected texts of the tradition's two major figures: Friederich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault against the backdrop of a number of ancient and medieval examples of protreptic rhetoric. It thereby attests the thesis that contemporary genealogy is the latest manifestation of the protreptic tradition in the history of philosophy, i.e., a deliberative rhetoric designed to exhort recipients to turn (convertere) from harm to health, from falsehood to truth, from the base to the noble.

This seminar examines that philosophical approach to the history of philosophy that travels under the name of genealogy. It does so in terms of close readings of selected texts of the tradition's two major figures: Friederich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault against the backdrop of a number of ancient and medieval examples of protreptic rhetoric. It thereby attests the thesis that contemporary genealogy is the latest manifestation of the protreptic tradition in the history of philosophy, i.e., a deliberative rhetoric designed to exhort recipients to turn (convertere) from harm to health, from falsehood to truth, from the base to the noble.

This seminar examines that philosophical approach to the history of philosophy that travels under the name of genealogy. It does so in terms of close readings of selected texts of the tradition's two major figures: Friederich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault against the backdrop of a number of ancient and medieval examples of protreptic rhetoric. It thereby attests the thesis that contemporary genealogy is the latest manifestation of the protreptic tradition in the history of philosophy, i.e., a deliberative rhetoric designed to exhort recipients to turn ( convertere )from harm to health, from falsehood to truth, from the base to the noble. The course will run as a seminar in which students will be asked to produce weekly papers of 400 to 600 words on the weekly readings to prime class room discussion. In addition, each student will be required to prepare a seminar on one required text which involves written material of between 1200 and 1800 words. Finally, each student will be required to submit a course paper on a topic mutually agreed upon with the class instructor. The course paper should be 4500 to 7500 words in the case of a Master's level student and 6000 to 9000 words in the case of a ThD/ PhD level student. The grade will be the result of weekly papers (25%), seminar presentation (15%) and course paper (60%).