FWS: Power, Protection, and Liberation: Buddhist Paths to Flourishing

Catalog description

Buddhist texts and teachers often refer to "liberation," and "enlightenment." But what do Buddhists mean by "freedom"? How do Buddhist thought and practice address the human need for comfort and ways of inhabiting social and personal adversity? Looking at historical and modern-contemporary materials - including Buddhist writings, podcasts, and visual materials - we explore these and related questions. At the same time, working with different textual forms, we explore approaches to writing. What makes writing accessible and engaging? How can we describe richly and make our analyses and arguments clear? For academic writing and in our wider personal and professional lives, writing skills are a source of power, as well as an expression of creativity. Our assignments build writerly skills, and confidence, exploring summary, description, analysis and argument. We will write in a range of genres including more academic and journalistic pieces. Writing work takes place in and outside of class, through both independent and peer-work, and several assignments are workshopped through multiple drafts with the professor.