This course is the second in a series of three that explore logic as art. This course focuses on rhetorical discussion and literature. This course incorporates an analysis of practical evangelization.

This course will explain how developments in literature and the arts reflect and impact culture from ancient civilizations to Christendom’s unification (ancient civilizations through the 11th century A.D.). It will explore the historical backdrop and cultural contexts of ancient Near Eastern culture, the Greco-Roman period, the rise and fall of Rome, Constantine and the Christianization of the West through monasticism, Byzantium, the emergence of Islam, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Crusades.

This course will explain how developments in literature and the arts reflect and impact culture from Christendom’s disintegration to the rise of modernization (12th through 18th centuries A.D.). It will explore the historical backdrop and cultural contexts of late Christendom, the Protestant Reformation and Counterreformation, the Renaissance, Humanism, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution.

This course will explain how developments in literature and the arts reflect and impact culture from the French Revolution to the present day. It will explore the historical background and cultural contexts of modern literature, art, and music, from romantic revolutionaries to deconstructionist contemporaries.

This course covers especially the foundational literary, political, and philosophic accomplishments of ancient Greece. It will especially study examples of epic, tragedy, and comedy, as well as the Socratic dialogue. Particular topics to be discussed are the development and significance of the Greek polis, the role of poetry in human life especially as relates to religion and politics, and the discovery of philosophy. The instructor may also include works of Greek history and art for consideration.

This is a discussion-based class focusing on Plato’s Republic. While it is often thought of as a book describing a utopian vision, this work offers much more—a thorough analysis on everything from the nature of the human soul, the human desire for justice, and the ordering of human society. Systematic and, at points, outrageous, Plato challenges his readers to consider what it means to be just, how to best structure a society, how government ought to work, what are ideal standards for human lifestyle, how education should be carried out, and much more. What is justice? Is it good to be just? What is the best form of government? the best education? the best way of life? What are the obstacles in the way of these things? What is truth and how do we find it? This course offers a slow and close reading of the text,

offering careful analysis of the challenging ideas Plato lays out in this landmark work.

This course covers the Roman contribution to Western civilization, especially using a comparison and contrast with the Greek contribution. It will cover especially the foundational literary, political, and philosophic accomplishments of classical Rome. It will give special attention to Virgil, Cicero, and the Roman historians. Particular topics to be discussed are the transition from polis to Empire, the role and place of poetry and philosophy in Rome, and the contribution of Roman law. The instructor may also include works of Roman art for consideration.

This course covers the dialectic of classical paganism and Christianity primarily through the study of the works of St. Augustine. Topics to be covered include faith and reason, Christianity and politics, and the relationship between pagan thought and culture and Christianity. The instructor may also include works of other, Christian authors from the era as well as a consideration of classical, Christian art.

This course covers the medieval synthesis that resulted from the encounter between classical paganism and Christianity intellectually, religiously, politically, and culturally. Topics to be covered include the relationship between faith and reason, the political arrangements of what will come to be known as Christendom, and blossoming of art and literature of a Christian inspiration. Authors especially to be read are Chaucer, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Dante. The instructor may also wish to include other authors, as well as examples of medieval music.

This course covers the transition from the ancient to the modern age through the modern age’s founding. It will consider both the intellectual underpinnings of that transition through an examination of the works of the great thinkers who effected it, but also the new modes and orders in politics and society that followed upon that transition and the literary and artistic reflections on it. Authors to be considered especially include Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Descartes, and Pascal.

This course covers the development of modernity from its founding premises to its crisis in late modernity. Both the development and crisis of modernity will be considered in its intellectual, religious, political, and cultural expressions.

This course studies modern media as forms of rhetoric. It builds on the study of classical rhetoric found in the University Core through a thematic examination of the difference that different forms of media make in the communication of a message and in the act of persuasion and takes account of new forms of media made possible by advances in communications technology and cultural changes in the 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries.

Prerequisite: HUMA107