Baseball as a Road to God

Catalog description

Baseball as a Road to God links literature about our national pastime with the study of philosophy and theology. This seminar explores ideas contained in classic texts such as Coover' s Universal Baseball Association, Kinsella's Iowa Baseball Confederacy, and Malamud's The Natural with those found in philosophical and theological works such as Eliade's Sacred and Profane, Heschel's God in Search of Man, and James' Varieties of Religious Experience. It discusses such themes as the metaphysics of sports, the notions of sacred time and space, and the idea of baseball as a civil religion. Warning: this seminar is not for the faint-hearted. It requires students to read approximately two dozen works in addition to supplemental readings as they might arise. Weekly papers also are required in which students will learn how to deconstruct sophisticated arguments, how to construct reasoned opinions, and how to value differences in opinion.