My Last Undergraduate Classes

Christian Marriage I've been waiting two or three years to take this introductory level class as the capstone of my undergraduate career. With 120 on the roster, I haven't been in a class this large since first semester of freshman year, but it's the professor that makes the class. Forget the fact that Fr. Gene's requirements are generally easier than a wide-open layup. This man gives you the opportunity to learn without the stress that usually accompanies it. Fr. Gene says that learning is one of the truly human experiences of joy, and his classes reflect this simple belief. He is an inspirational man that speaks with such candor and warmth that draws you in and forces you to reassess your own life. What more should learning be about? Religion, Violence, and Peacemaking Including such book titles as A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Terror in the Mind of God, and Liberating Faith, this looks to be a fascinating course. Part of the reason why I am a theology major is because of how intertwined I see the role of religion in society at large. So far, we've been reading and watching accounts of such 20th century genocides as Turkey's killing of Armenians, the Holocaust, Iraq's slaughter of the Kurds, Bosnian Serbs' mass murder of Muslims, and the Hutu elimination of Tutsis in Rwanda. Intense way to start a Tuesday and Thursday morning. The Ethics of Poverty Is poverty a tragic misfortune or a social injustice? This is another class that I took because of the professor. Fr. Hartnett, a Jesuit who spent over 20 years living and working in an impoverished community in Peru, is one of those warm and geniune people with a humble sense of compassion about him. While in Peru, he developed what he calls the "Pedagogy of Justice": experience, understanding, judgment, and action. The class is structured the same way. Right now, we're "experiencing" poverty by having guest speakers for whom poverty has been a real issue come to class and present. After that, we'll study other peoples' explanations and theories on poverty (understanding), consider what obligations the problem of poverty places on the rest of us (judgment), and finally, how it all translates to how we should live our lives (action). For the final paper, I'll be articulating my own theory of poverty and its incumbent moral obligations. Playwriting No, I didn't flunk it last semester; I just loved it and I'm taking it again. A major difference: this semester, the class is working in conjunction with a directing class, and at the end of the semester, each writer will have his or her play produced onstage. Sexy little resume builder there. Synoptic Gospels The word "synoptic" comes from two Greek words that mean "same looking" and is used to describe the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in all their similarities. This is an upper-level theology class that will go in depth with those three Gospels. From the syllabus: "source criticism, text criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism will be further enhanced by literary, theological, socio-political analysis and feminist approaches to interpretation." A little more technical than I usually care for, but I'm interested enough. I think.