Jeffrey Kripal's Preface to Marcia Brennan's Flowering Light: Kabbalistic Mysticism and the Art of Elliot R. Wolfson
Complementary to 21L.001. A broad survey of texts; literary, philosophical, sociological; studied to trace the growth of secular humanism, the loss of a supernatural perspective upon human events, and changing conceptions of individual, social, and communal purpose. Stresses appreciation and analysis of texts that came to represent the common cultural possession of our time.
On Thursday 22 October the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) Great Texts Big Questions lecturer is John Higgins a highly respected Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Cape Town (UCT) who will discuss a lyric by William Blake "Never seek to tell thy love love that never told can be." Higgins will show how readings of a single poem can also serve to exemplify some of the main intellectual and analytic currents of the past forty years including radical social movements of the 60's feminism and psychoanalysis in the 70's and the recent problematization of racism and xenophobia. Professor Higgins is the Andrew Mellon Research Professor in the Archives and Public Culture project at UCT. The politics of higher education contemporary literary and cultural theory are his main research interests. One of the first humanists to be awarded an A-rating by the National Research Foundation he received the Cape Tercentenary Award of Excellence for his services to literature and culture in South Africa in 2000 and in October this year became a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.
Close readings of the major British Romantic poets (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Scott, Shelley, Keats), perhaps including some of the period's important fiction writers (e.g. Mary Shelley, Walter Scott). Some attention to literary and historical context. Lecture/discussion; at least two papers.
