RELS 26928 - Solitude, Silence & Spirituality

Course Credit: 1
Maximum Credit: 0

SOLITUDE, SILENCE & SPIRITUALITY What do ‘solitude’ and ‘silence’ mean, as modes of religious-spiritual behavior and as practices of cultivation? This course involves comparative, historical study of practices of solitude (monastic, recluse, hermit) and silence (prayer, meditation, contemplation) in Western and Asian religious-spiritual (and non-religious) traditions. What are the structures and goals of such practices, and how might they be understood as exemplary (though exceptional) practices for a species (human) that is otherwise highly social and communicative in many ways, verbal and otherwise? [R]