The course will pursue the themes of hunger, the consumption of food, the formation of community, and relation to the sacred, through a sequence of readings in the Western Tradition. By reading classic works (The Odyssey the Book of Genesis, selections from the Divine Comedy, sonnets of Shakespeare, Paradise Lost) and modern works by Kafka, Mallarmé, Louise Glück, Frank Bidart, and M.F.K. Fisher, we will see how different philosophies (Greek pantheism, Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and modern atheism) have imagined the acceptance or rejection of love, life and the sacred in terms of the symbolism of food. Class work will include close analysis of literary works, even those in translation; intensive critical writing and revision; and secondary readings in literary criticism, anthropology, theology, and psychology.

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