Hello and Welcome to RS 300: Living Myths of War & Peace! I know that most of you are here because this class fulfills and UD Area C GE, as well as the DCG (domestic) and the W writing requirements. And “Living Myths?” That’s probably means the class is about Zeus or Thor or maybe the Marvel Cinematic Universe, right?
No. This is a class about the United States of America, about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and about how deeply embedded war is within those stories. It’s about myth, but it’s about myth in a way that maybe you’ve never thought of. (Don’t worry, though: the MCU makes an appearance, here and there…)
BUT FIRST: this website is your syllabus. It contains answers to most, maybe all, of the questions you will have regarding course requirements, logistics, schedule, and policies. Please read through every page, and familiarize yourself with the layout. You will spend most time with your Course Calendar, as that is the document that will keep you on track with assignments and due dates. I suggest that you bookmark the Course Calendar to your web browser, for easy access and regular review.
Okay, back to the fun stuff. What follows is a brief introduction to the course.
When we talk about myth here, we’re not talking about make-believe, about stories that may be interesting and may be wonderful but are ultimately false. When we talk about myth here, we’re talking about the truths we hold to be self-evident. We’re talking about the meaning of America, the value of the individual, the purpose of the nation.
And a great deal of this narrative will be difficult to face. Consider this something of a blanket trigger-warning for the semester: the narrative we will follow is fraught with horrific violence. Very often through the nation’s history, that violence is racialized. Gird yourselves. The semester will be upsetting. You’ll find on Canvas, under Course Information, a Student Wellbeing link. You’ll find resources there. Please don’t hesitate to use them.
The semester will be upsetting, but it is my hope that it will also be inspiring. There are few myths more compelling than one that calls each of us to participate in the creation of an ever more perfect union. And in a world gone crazy as this one seems to have, there is desperate need for cooperative, self-reflective citizenship. I do not believe that we can be good participants in our national community without knowing this history, without making a real effort to understand as many perspectives on this history as possible.
The promise of this course is two-fold: by the end of the course, if you do the work required, you will understand American history in a newly contextualized way. And, again if you do the work required, then by the end of the course you will have a greater capacity for seeing and evaluating the American mythos (mythos is a singular word, referring to the entire body of mythic narratives), as it is manifested in music, literature, film, politics, news media, social media, sporting events, and your own interpersonal relations. The is a course about the stories that we live into and against, the narratives that define us, and which we in turn help to re-define. The Religious Studies Department’s central objectives are these: we encourage students to explore the world’s wisdom traditions and to engage directly a diverse variety of worldviews. This class represents such a project, within an ostensibly secular cultural environment.
Plagiarism Policy
I have a zero-toleration policy for plagiarism of any kind. Academic honesty, civic trust, and the demands of personal integrity all require that we own our own thoughts, our own expressions, and that we allow others the same right, and expect of them the same responsibility. Do not pass off the work of others as your own, and you will be fine. Any breach of the plagiarism policy will result in an immediate ethics report filed with the Dean of Students, as well as likely failure in the class. If there’s any confusion about what constitutes plagiarism or what characterizes academic honesty, click the link below.
Meet Your Teacher!
Sara Jaye Hart, PhD
I’m a first-generation college student who grew up in a small southern California farm town before attending UC Santa Cruz, where I double-majored in Literature and Philosophy, with a concentration in Religious Studies. Then I spent some years in Boston, where I earned a PhD in Religion and Literature. It was art and poetry that brought me to Religious Studies: all the artists, authors, and poets I loved leaned heavily on a religious literacy that informed and enriched their work, and I wanted to understand that. My scholarly focus has always been extra-ecclesial manifestations of religion — those places where we see belief and ritual, expressions of meaning, value, and purpose, outside of the context of the church or temple or mosque. Since graduate school, I’ve been especially focused on the American context, on what RS scholars call American Civil Religion. This class is a natural outgrowth of those interests. America is currently politically polarized to a degree unmatched since the Civil War; the goal of this class is to bring us all to a greater awareness of how myth and history intertwine, and of our own (individual and community) relationship to the foundational creeds of the United States.
RS 300: Living Myths of War & Peace 