Beauty, Suffering, and the Cross

Catalog description

This is a course about how a genuine encounter with beauty undermines and reorients our otherwise abstract theological or medical 'explanations' of suffering. By paying close attention to works of literary and visual art, this course seeks to engage the various critiques of appealing to beauty in the face of suffering and begin articulating the radical theological and ethical implications of the Christian contention that the cross is the symbol of beauty par excellence. Instructor consent required