Core Studies (CORE)

CORE 101. First Year Seminar: Enduring Questions. (4 Credits)

This course introduces students to practices of integrative thinking by engaging challenging, theologically significant enduring questions in a seminar-style course organized around a theme tied to the faculty member's specialty. The course will have three interrelated components: foundations for addressing the value and purpose of liberal arts education, focused study of the abiding liberal arts question "What is the good life?," and exploration of a related perennial question chosen by the instructor. All components of each seminar will emphasize integrative intellectual practice and model the integration of faith and learning in the liberal arts context. Please note these descriptions are for the last 4 weeks of the course and do not describe the focus for 2/3 of the semester and the first 12 weeks of the course.

General Education: SHAR

CORE 131. Holistic Human Flourishing. (1 Credit)

CORE 131 provides a foundation for students to achieve a holistic, distinctly Christian understanding of their physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational well-being. Designed to be taken within the first year of a student’s Wheaton career (and ideally combined with Passage), Holistic Human Flourishing will introduce students to the theological, biological, and social scientific concepts and practices needed to develop lifelong habits of physical and emotional health, Christian discipleship, and life in community that will enhance their undergraduate education and their service to church and society.

General Education: SHAR

CORE 301. AIS: Human Trafficking: Causes, Consequences and Responses. (4 Credits)

This course examines the causes and consequences of human trafficking from diverse disciplinary perspectives, including political science, economics, history, theology and psychology. The course covers the definitions and historical development of sex and labor trafficking and critically reflects on diverse efforts to reduce trafficking in human beings, including Christian responses to slavery over time.

General Education: SHAR

CORE 302. AIS: Political Science Fiction. (4 Credits)

This course takes up important works of science fiction to engage on important themes in moral and political theory and the interrelation of philosophical reflection, imaginative literature, and theological commitment.

Tags: LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 303. AIS: Making the Modern Middle East. (4 Credits)

This course introduces the modern Middle East drawing upon a variety of disciplinary perspectives including history, post-colonial theory, and religious studies. The historical and geographical scope of the course will be from the final decades of the Ottoman Empire to the formation of modern Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. Special attention will be given to the cultural impact of imperialism and contemporary political and social trends in the region. Other course themes include European and American involvement in the Middle East, the growth of Islamic reform movements and Arab nationalism, Zionism, competing visions of womanhood in Islam and Judaism, religious fundamentalism (Christian, Islamic, and Jewish), and the history leading up to the Arab Spring. Our goal will be to understand how we as Christians can respectfully engage the Middle East in cultural encounters, whether through foreign policy, cultural productions, travel, humanitarian work, academics, missions, and so much more. (cannot satisfy HP secondary tag in transition gen ed).

Tags: GP, HP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 304. AIS: Christian Environmental Stewardship. (4 Credits)

Students will examine the biblical mandate for creation care and develop a personal response to the call for stewardship of land and creature. This course will provide students with a basic understanding of ecosystem biology and provide the framework for which students can understand the need for resources and the impact of resource extraction on human health, while providing a biblical and theological lens for developing an appropriate response.

Tags: SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 305. AIS: Spiritual Formation in Young Adulthood. (4 Credits)

Explores the development of faith during the years of emerging adulthood (18-29), focusing on the connections between Christian spiritual formation and the psychological and sociological dimensions of this life stage. Emphasizes the formation of faith within the context of emerging adult identity, worldview, vocation, morality, sexuality, and church participation.

Tags: SI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 306. AIS: Drugs, Society, and Religion. (4 Credits)

This course examines the psychological effects and neurobiological mechanisms of action of psychoactive drugs. Drugs are used in the treatment of psychopathological disorders, recreational substances of abuse, and in some cultures for religious rituals. This course is designed to provide undergraduate students interested in the mechanisms of action of drugs on the brain, how they are understood in different societies, and how they have historically been used for recreational and religious purposes.

Tags: SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 307. AIS: Cosmology. (4 Credits)

Cosmology refers to the scientific study of the large scale properties and history of the physical universe as a whole. Utilizing the methods of science, it seeks to understand the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe. Cosmology also refers to philosophical inquiry into the history and general structure of the universe, especially with respect to questions of origin, fundamental elements, causality, laws and agency. Drawing upon these disciplines, this course aims toward formulating a fully informed, deeply integrated understanding of the world in which we live, move, and have our being.

Tags: PI, SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 308. AIS: Engaging Arts in the City. (4 Credits)

A multi-arts experience and analysis course in Chicago (or other city) comprised of a series of site visits to art events/performances/organizations chosen for their embodied, authentic responses to life. Site visits may include professional or educational productions that have musical, theatrical, dance, visual arts, or any kind of collaborative arts focus. Through seminar presentations, discussions, and final projects, students will learn how to decode what inspires an artwork's creation, and how to listen and respond to cultural and art modality otherness. Prerequisite: Department approval, admission to Wheaton in Chicago. Additional course fee required: $200.

Tags: VPA

General Education: SHAR

CORE 311. AIS: The Good in the Great Plagues. (4 Credits)

An interdisciplinary consideration of major infectious disease epidemics throughout history. This course is a survey and analysis of the impact of epidemic diseases and their potential beneficial outcomes. The diseases discussed will include leprosy, several pandemics of plague, tuberculosis and AIDS, among others. The biological basis for the diseases will be presented along with the historical and social context for each. An emphasis will be placed on the intersection of scientific and theological perspectives on the impact that major infectious diseases have had.

Tags: SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 312. AIS: Native Chicago: American Indians in the Midwest. (4 Credits)

This course examines Native American communities from diverse disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, history, and theology. Students will study the culture, social structures, and history of indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes Region from the development of human societies in North America to the twentieth century. Topics include: Early Indigenous Communities, Cross-Cultural Contact with Diverse Ethnic and Racial Communities, Native Responses to Christianity, Conflict and Collaboration in Colonial America, Indian Removal and Resistance, and Contemporary Issues such as Treaty Rights, Gaming, Cultural Preservation, and Education.

Tags: DUS, SI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 313. AIS: Sport, Faith, and Social Change. (4 Credits)

Sport and athletes have often been agents of social change, at times challenging norms and assumptions concerning identity, personhood, gender, race, and sexuality. In this class, we will examine how sport and moments in sport history has served as a public stage to perform dramas of social change leading to larger movement activities that impacted culture. Students will apply theories and explore research of mediated sports events to understand their impact and gain perspectives on how sports may be exploited to enact social change. This class will examine sport in three dimensions: as an artifact of our society and mediated history; as an arena where social, cultural, and political issues are contested; and as a vehicle for spiritual reflection and growth. We will examine how we can encounter the Holy in the midst of sports and its impact on developing a critical assessment of one's values.

Tags: DUS, SI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 314. AIS: Economy & Society. (4 Credits)

Economic sociology has sought to understand the beliefs, norms and institutions that shape and drive the global economy. Markets, organizations, and individual economic actors cannot be understood outside of their social and cultural context. In interacting with texts primarily by sociologists and economists, in addition to historians, anthropologists, and political scientists, this class aims to use a broader social scientific approach to understand the relationship between economy and society, and the ways in which social networks, norms and institutions matter in economic transactions.

Tags: SI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 315. AIS: Social Network Analysis. (4 Credits)

This advanced integrative seminar is designed to give students the basic tools to ascertain if particular missionaries, based on their primary documents, were engaged in a "holistic" Gospel or one that conflated non-spiritual enterprises. Basic Greek tools, historical methodologies, and social network analysis (NodeXL) will be utilized in this course.

Tags: SI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 316. AIS: Sport Psychology. (4 Credits)

A survey of the theory, research, and applications of psychology pertaining to sports. This course will prepare students to: 1) discuss and understand the psychological factors that influence involvement and performance in sports, 2) apply psychological research and theories to one's own sports involvement as a participant (e.g. teacher, coach, athlete, etc.). The course will examine psychological variables that can hinder or enhance athletic performance, which may include attention, arousal, motivation, relationships, mental imagery, gender and diversity issues, eating disorders, and substance abuse. Prerequisite: PSYC 101 recommended.

Tags: SI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 317. AIS: Media Revolutions from Gutenberg to Google. (4 Credits)

From Gutenberg to Google, communication technologies have changed how people work, live, think, interact, and collaborate. They have bound humans together in unprecedented ways, opening up new individual possibilities but also unleashing disruptive collective energies. Together we will explore how "new media" - from the first printed books of the fifteenth century to the networked computing devices of the twenty-first century - have shaped the modern world. This is an interdisciplinary course. We will learn about theories and methods different disciplines use to study the media and will develop critical tools for understanding our own ongoing digital and information revolution.

Tags: HP, SI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 318. AIS: Faith, Reason, and Politics in Islam. (4 Credits)

This course examines the development of Islamic political philosophy from its origins under Muhammed in the seventh century through to its central role in modern day politics throughout the world.

Tags: GP, PI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 319. AIS: Tragedy and Philosophy. (4 Credits)

This course is an exercise in using philosophy to study literature, and literature philosophy. We take several works of classical and modern tragedy that are pivotal in their respective literary and thought worlds, and place them in conversation with both one another and certain key philosophical treatments of the genre. Our goal is both to better understand the essence of tragedy, and the way in which its core themes illuminate our sense of what it means to live a good human life. Key figures in the course include: Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Shakespeare, Schelling, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus, Arthur Miller, Martha Nussbaum, and Bernard Williams.

Tags: LE, PI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 321. AIS: 'Holla If Ya Hear Me': Engaging Hip-Hop Culture. (4 Credits)

On August 11, 1973, a Jamaican-American named Clive Campbell hosted a house party at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx with little more than a couple of turntables and amplifiers. Music and cultural historians often regard Campbell's party as the founding event for what has come to be known as hip-hop. Almost fifty years later, hip-hop thrives as one of the most popular, yet controversial, forms of cultural expression in contemporary society with footholds in music, fashion, art, business, activism, and politics around the globe. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this course will examine the origins, themes, and social impact of rap music as an outgrowth of hip-hop culture. This course will prepare students to critically engage and evaluate popular forms of cultural expression with academic rigor and biblical principles.

Tags: DUS, VPAM

General Education: SHAR

CORE 322. AIS: What is Money Good For? A Comparative Global Investigation. (4 Credits)

What is money good for? Why do some people have so much and others so little? Can a person deserve prosperity? How should we spend our money? How do our purchases shape who we are? Why should we give, and how? If you wrestle with these questions, you are not alone. People across the world find ways to answer these questions, and their diverse answers are likely to surprise, confound, convict, and also inspire us. In this course we consider a wide spectrum of responses to moral questions about money from the United States and around the world. We read works by Christians, anthropologists, and other theorists in order to craft more nuanced Christian responses to these questions. Along the way, we gain perspectives on cultural diversity and the causes of economic inequalities both within the United States and around the world.

Tags: DUS, GP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 323. AIS: Humanitarian Disasters and Recovery. (4 Credits)

Exploration of scientific and social understanding of humanitarian disasters including the causes of natural and human-caused disasters, approaches to prediction and mitigation, impacts on communities and societies, approaches to recovery and care, resilience, theological implications and the role of faith-based responders.

Tags: SI, SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 324. AIS: Black Bodies in Literature and Theology. (4 Credits)

Literature and theology are disciplines uniquely equipped to help us learn about and respond to the viscerality of race and racism in the United States. They help us engage the difficult stories of embodied people--people created in the image of God and redeemed by a savior who made the particulars of the visceral body his own. Through reading and discussion of contemporary African American literature and theology, we will acknowledge and lament sin against black bodies and look for healing and redemption. This seminar will help students consider the ways their own embodied experience is implicated in the conversation about race and racism in the United States as well as to receive and respond to the experiences of others in the community of the love of the Trinity.

Tags: DUS, LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 325. AIS: Nature, Environment, and Society. (4 Credits)

An interdisciplinary exploration of contemporary environmental issues and problems. The understanding of the natural world will support the analysis of the role of society in creating, perpetuating and addressing these challenges. The role of personal and cultural responsibility for stewarding the natural environment will be emphasized. Field and classroom investigations will focus on the Black Hills context. Additional course fee required: $50.

Tags: DUS, SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 326. AIS: Classics of Christian Devotion. (4 Credits)

This course examines the human longing for a relationship with God. Competing with this deep desire is the complexity of external and internal barriers. The best of Christian writers have recognized that this yearning for God must integrate both the interpretative and affective dimensions of awareness. Built on the foundation of differing methods of interpretation, this course is structured around the literary genres of narrative, visionary discourse, hymns, prayers, sermons, letters, autobiography, aphorisms and novels that both inform and transform the cultivation of intimacy with God. These classic texts are from both the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions. Since many contemporary Evangelicals are unfamiliar with their own spiritual heritage, this course compares and contrasts Evangelical spiritual texts with pre-eighteenth-century Roman Catholic and Protestant literature.

Tags: LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 327. AIS: Propaganda and Image in Everyday Life. (4 Credits)

Propaganda techniques have saturated everyday life. By studying primary sources from ancient and modern authors, and applying the lessons of 20th century propaganda campaigns to today's public persuasion, students will critically engage distinctions between propaganda and ethical communication, between truth and image, and between the artificial and the real.

Tags: PI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 328. AIS: Mary, Mother of God. (4 Credits)

This course is a tour through millennia of Christian perspectives on the Virgin Mary. Anchored in exegesis of Scripture, students evaluate church tradition as expressed through apocryphal, theological and devotional texts, with a special emphasis on visual art. Together we ask which aspects of the Marian tradition can be affirmed or celebrated, and which aspects should be criticized or rejected. Student projects examine historical theology, visual art and feminist concerns with an eye toward how the Marian tradition can enrich the contemporary church. Students are strongly encouraged to have taken BITH 213 (New Testament Literature and Interpretation) before enrolling in this class.

Tags: HP, VPAV

General Education: SHAR

CORE 329. AIS: Neurobiology and Spiritual Formation. (4 Credits)

Engages students in considering the nexus between the anatomy and physiology of the brain and the spiritual formation of human persons from a Christian worldview. Students will be required to examine how each of these disciplines informs the other, to learn a variety of epistemologies from different disciplines and apply them to this area, to intelligently critique research and applications, and to integrate neurobiological research with spiritual practices and formation of human persons. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.

Tags: SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 332. AIS: Women Writing Theology. (4 Credits)

This course explores works of literary and theological merit by women investigating ideas about God, the self, and society. Drawing on writings of women from different eras, cultures, and backgrounds, the course encourages students to dialogue with fiction and non-fiction writings, including novels, poetry, life writings, and systematic theologies, by women to understand better how women have communicated theological ideas through a wide range of literary and theological forms.

Tags: LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 333. AIS: Country Behind the Curtain: Public Institutions & Private Life in the German Democratic Rep. (4 Credits)

During its 40-year history, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), aka East Germany, was divided from its western counterpart by ideologies, alliances and institutions - and, after 1961, by a fortified border that came to symbolize the Cold War. Through interaction with post-1989 oral histories, prose and poetry from East German authors, and pre- and post-unification films, students in this AIS will explore the fundamental paradoxes between public institutions and private life in the GDR, wrestling with the central irony that private convictions and aspirations became a key factor in its dissolution.

Tags: HP, LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 334. AIS: Race, Theology, and Place in Chicago. (4 Credits)

A theological investigation into Christianity and racial segregation in Chicago. This course explores the importance of geographical location for racial reconciliation, developing a vision for church unity rooted in place.

Tags: DUS

General Education: SHAR

CORE 335. AIS: The Holocaust and Contemporary Jewish Experience. (4 Credits)

Written and oral analysis of depictions of the Holocaust in various national literary and cinematic media and of contemporary Jewish authors in German-speaking countries; exploration of issues facing contemporary Jews in German-speaking Europe. Includes research paper.

Tags: GP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 336. AIS: Energy for the Future. (4 Credits)

An examination of the science, history, and social impacts of energy generation and use in the U.S. and global contexts; Christian perspectives on personal and societal decision-making regarding future energy generation and use.

Tags: SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 337. AIS: Justice, Law and Society. (4 Credits)

This course investigates traditions of thought on the nature of justice and law, especially in the western tradition. It introduces students to general theories of jurisprudence and explores histories of legal traditions that are rooted in the ancient worlds (e.g. Near East, Greece, and Israel) and how they have influenced and differ from modern American contexts.

Tags: HP, PI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 338. AIS: The Physics of Sound. (4 Credits)

Basic concepts of sound and acoustics, including the following: vibrations, waves, instrument design, fundamentals and overtones, musical scales, harmony, noise, physical and physiological production, detection of sound waves, acoustical properties of materials and enclosures. Discussion and investigation of sound in the human context of psychology, physiology, neuroscience, and aesthetics, as well as how some areas of investigation of sound, such as human perception, are yet to be fully understood. Additional course fee required: $60.

Tags: SP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 339. AIS: Remembering Africa's Oral Past. (4 Credits)

This course equips students to both appreciate and analyze how intergenerational communities on the African continent have preserved knowledge of their pasts through sophisticated and emotive musical traditions. The course's focus on musical and other oral sources empowers students to access the historical knowledge of communities which chose to invest their intellectual energy in song and poetry rather than written text, while also equipping students to appreciate how beautiful and intellectually complex music and poetry flowed from the particular historical experiences of composers and performers in Africa.

Tags: HP, VPAM

General Education: SHAR

CORE 341. AIS: Can Stress Promote Flourishing? The Effects of Stress on Brain and Behavior. (4 Credits)

The overall goal of this course is to help students understand how stress can promote flourishing. Students will gain a deeper understanding of the basics of brain function and how the brain manages the response to stressors, how stressors affect several aspects of behavior, and how to protect the brain from the negative effects of stressors. In addition, two underlying themes will emerge throughout the course, including a discussion on the nature of persons and the concept of both control and agency for the proper understanding of stress.

Tags: SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 342. AIS: Dante's Commedia as Poetry, Philosophy, and Theology. (4 Credits)

This course examines Dante's Commedia as an "encyclopedic" poem, a term that the Dante scholar Giuseppe Mazzotta has used to characterize the poem's educational ambitions. This is a poem with a deep intellectual program; it takes on many of the great philosophical and theological questions of its own time, and ours, too. What is the nature of the soul? What is just punishment? What is the highest good? Yet it does this not within the context of a philosophical treatise but an imaginative journey through the regions of the afterlife, taken by the poet himself. Our aim in this course is to analyze the poem in all of its overlapping dimensions - as a great poem of ideas, as a spiritual evaluation and testimony (a confession?), as a travelogue that doubles as a series of philosophical dialogues, as a mosaic of unforgettable images.

Tags: LE, PI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 343. AIS: Creation Care: Values and Virtues. (4 Credits)

An interdisciplinary consideration of scientific and theological thinking in the context of worldviews toward environmental issues and our relation to creation. The course will address historical and contemporary environmental issues in conjunction with values held in human-creation relationships historically and socially. Values held in Christian and non-Christian views and practices regarding the created world will be examined in light of the virtues that influence our awareness and responsive actions. Christian values and virtues in the context of Christian character will be considered relative to creation care. These considerations will cultivate academic and spiritual maturity by considering one's relationship to our Creator and creation. The course will also address theological underpinnings as they relate to the intersection of Christian faith and how one lives their life in light of a call to care for God's creation. BIOL 241 recommended.

Tags: SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 344. AIS: Gender and Global Health. (4 Credits)

An interdisciplinary approach to using a gender lens to understand the global patterns of health and disease. While focusing on gendered inequalities, students in this course will describe and analyze how ecology, social class, and race interact with gender and impact the global burden of disease. Students will also consider how our Christian call to love our neighbor impacts our response to the disparities seen in the global burden of disease.

Tags: GP, SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 345. AIS: Water, the Essential Resource. (4 Credits)

An overview of our most important natural resource - water. Topics include occurrence, chemistry, physiological requirement for water, effects upon past and present civilizations, surface and groundwater flow, global water supply, water pollution, water exploration and extraction. Field trip fee.

Tags: SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 346. AIS: Diversity in American Theater. (4 Credits)

This course invites students to engage with questions regarding diversity in the United States through the lens of theater. By exploring various ways that American playwrights have grappled with diversity and by placing these plays within complex theological, historical, and literary contexts, students will be encouraged to reflect not only on patterns of injustice and inequality that they see represented but also on the unique power that drama has to help its audience to experience the world from someone else's perspective.

Tags: DUS, VPAT

General Education: SHAR

CORE 347. AIS: Technotexts. (4 Credits)

This course examines the relationship between texts and the media--oral, written, and digital--through which they are conveyed. The course begins by considering the relationship between word and voice, our material being practices of oral storytelling and spoken word poetic performance. The second and longest unit of the semester examines the literary possibilities opened up by different forms of "the book" - including the illuminated manuscript, the printed book in the West, and the Torah scroll. The final unit examines how verbal artists are engaging with the digital technologies. Throughout the semester, participants will not only be consumers of media; they will also be makers: each unit will involve a "making" exercise in which we practice one of the techniques that we have been studying, including oral performance, letterpress printing, and digital storytelling.

Tags: LE, VPAV

General Education: SHAR

CORE 348. AIS: Wheaton College as an Institution. (4 Credits)

This course examines Wheaton College as an institution and an organization. This includes examining how the college developed over time and its organizational structure and logic. We will consider how social forces from American society, including religious movements and race, class, and gender, as well as internal decisions affected the College. The final project involves analysis of primary and secondary sources in the Special Collections in the Library.

Tags: DUS, HP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 349. AIS: Babies: Prenatal Development, Birth, and the Newborn. (4 Credits)

In this course, we will draw from biological and psychological research to engage in an in-depth exploration of prenatal and newborn development. We will cover influences on prenatal development, changes to the mother and fetus throughout pregnancy and prenatal development, a variety of considerations around childbirth, physical development and functioning in the newborn, and the early parent-child bond. We will also explore childbirth practices around the world. Students will be encouraged to integrate a Christian perspective with a variety of other scientific and popular perspectives on pregnancy, birth, and babies.

Tags: SI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 351. AIS: Cults, Power, and Politics. (4 Credits)

This course examines how cults influence, and are influenced by, politics. We will discuss the structure of cults and the psychological/relational manipulation of cult members. The course will then shift toward how state regimes use cult personalities to further entrench their positions of power using examples from North Korea, China, and Russia. Additionally, we will discuss how religious cults have threatened political structures using examples from the Münster Rebellion, Branch Davidians, Peoples Temple, Scientology, and many others. Finally, students will evaluate warnings of cult behavior in religious and political structure as well as judge Christian practices of discernment and intervention.

Tags: GP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 352. AIS: Applying Cognitive Psychology to Educational Practice. (4 Credits)

An interdisciplinary seminar that examines how findings from cognitive psychology can be used to improve learning in educational settings. Specific cognitive processes such as working memory, long term memory, metacognition, and language processing will be discussed as will specific tasks in educational settings such as math and reading. This course will also emphasize theological perspectives on cognition, learning and teaching.

Tags: SI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 353. AIS: Biology and Politics. (4 Credits)

This course is an interdisciplinary consideration of the biological basis of political attitudes and behavior. It leverages concepts from genetics, neuroscience, endocrinology, physiology, and psychology to study political phenomenon, introduces students to key methodological techniques and research findings from the field of biology and politics, and challenges students to evaluate the biology and politics research agenda from a Christian perspective.

Tags: SI, SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 354. AIS: Nature's Beauty. (4 Credits)

In his Philosophical Theology, F.R. Tennant insists that, "Nature is sublime or beautiful, and the exceptions do but prove the rule." This course attends to nature's beauty from a diversity of perspectives. Aesthetics, a branch of philosophy, asks: "What is beauty?" Philosophy also wonders why, as in: "Why is there beauty?" The sciences offer a Darwinian theory of beauty, one that reduces our experience to its roles in survival and reproduction. At the same time, the sciences offer a non-reductive role for beauty in theory confirmation. Theologians, on the other hand, insist that the beauty of nature reflects the very nature of God and testifies to God's presence and goodness. Nature's Beauty draws on each of these disciplines in order to understand the place and significance of beauty in the life of the Church.

Tags: PI, SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 355. AIS: Boundary Waters. (4 Credits)

This course explores the boundaries between Christian faith and Native American culture in the Great Lakes region, as well as the boundaries between ourselves and God in Christian spirituality informed by Indigenous art and thought. Evoking the history of Christian missions in the Midwest, students engage in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola supplemented by Indigenous Christian reflection. Concluding papers place student experiences in conversation with an investigation of a minority group in the United States. Additional course fee required: $150.

Tags: DUS, VPAV

General Education: SHAR

CORE 356. AIS: Global Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. (4 Credits)

The matter of Christian-Muslim relations cannot be ignored these days. This course covers fundamental information about global Islamic communities, and focuses on the major aspects of relations between Christians and Muslims including missiological and theological reflections. Topics are devoted to the most significant intellectual interpretations and encounters, that in recent years have led the way towards new developments in recognition and acceptance. It offers an excellent understanding for future relations between Christians and Muslims. The course is relevant to all those who are interested in cross-cultural work, ministry in Muslim contexts, and Christian-Muslim relations generally.

Tags: GP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 357. AIS: Theology and Film. (4 Credits)

This course explores the relationship between Christian theology and film. It seeks to cultivate an appreciation for and an understanding of both how the particular claims of the Christian faith frame our viewing and interpretation of film and how film might inform, challenge, or enhance our faith. In order to develop a broad perspective of film, this course will intentionally engage with a variety of films from a diversity of cultures, while also providing an opportunity for a careful analysis of one particular cultural context. Theological topics to be considered include film in relation to creation, theological anthropology, suffering, redemption, community, and eschatology.

Tags: GP, VPAV

General Education: SHAR

CORE 358. AIS: War and Justice. (4 Credits)

War is, it seems, a relatively permanent feature of human civilization. This course gives students an opportunity to explore a wide range of moral, philosophical, and theological perspectives on war and the degree to which it can be fought justly. We will focus especially on the development of the "just war" tradition and its realist and pacifist critics and how contemporary developments - the erosion of national sovereignty, technological advances, and the like - affect how we should think normatively and theologically about war.

Tags: PI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 359. AIS: Pictures and Words as Poetic Images. (4 Credits)

An advanced integrative seminar that introduces students to the joys and value of imagination and creativity. It explores the poetic interconnections between words and images through creative exercises and artistic collaborations. No technical knowledge of photography or art required.

Tags: LE, VPAV

General Education: SHAR

CORE 361. AIS: Visual Rhetoric: An Interdisciplinary Approach. (4 Credits)

This course will introduce students to persuasive techniques in images and to the use of visual metaphor and visual narrative. We will perform close readings of images and create our own visual arguments, using composition fundamentals (e.g., color, shape, direction, texture, light - or its absence) and figurative elements (e.g., metaphor, synecdoch, metonymy, hyperbole, and personification). Throughout the semester, we will analyze and design images and consider the ways in which visual representations are manifested in various fields of study as we survey images from disciplines that include graphics/information design, fine arts, art history, advertising, and cultural studies. Theorists will include Mariani, Saussure, Peirce, Tufte, Bolton, Grusin, Newbold, Barnes, Patterson, Gunther, van Leeuwen, Golombisky, Hagen, and Lester.

Tags: VPAV

General Education: SHAR

CORE 362. AIS: Christianity - Asia to America. (4 Credits)

A study of the indigenization of Christianity in Asian American and Asian contexts.

Tags: DUS, GP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 363. AIS: Nation at War: Great Britain 1914-1945. (4 Credits)

As students explore the history and literature of Great Britain from the onset of World War I to the conclusion of World War II, they will be asked to grapple theologically with many of the challenging questions that arise during a time of war. Using both primary and secondary historical sources, students will investigate the complexities of the political, social, and economic realities of the time. They will also be asked to think about particular responses to these complexities from writers such as T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, and Dorothy L. Sayers. As students move back and forth between the history and the literature, they will gain deeper insights into this time period and begin to understand the different ways that historians and literary scholars approach the past. They will also position these insights within a theological framework as they draw on Scripture and other theological sources to help address the questions that arise during this difficult time in British history.

Tags: HP, LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 364. AIS: Protestants and Poverty through the Modern Era. (4 Credits)

This course seeks to equip students with integrative resources for reflecting as Christians on the issue of poverty and the practices of poor relief in the United States today. The course will employ a historical method that traces the history of Protestant understanding and treatment of poverty during three eras: Reformation, Post-Reformation, and Modern American. In each period, students will study the social, biblical, and theological history of Protestant engagement with poverty in so far as the issue was perceived and addressed. They will examine the ways in which particular forms of engagement intersected with matters such as race, gender, culture, and economics, and will learn to read critically so as to ascertain both what is highlighted by a particular form of engagement and what may have been hidden by it. Through readings, discussion, presentations, and experiential learning opportunities, students will be equipped with integrative resources for addressing the complexity of current-day concerns relating to U.S. and global poverty. At the end of the course, students will complete an integrative research paper that incorporates, historiography, draws from Protestant history, and reflects on scriptural and theological mandates relating to the poor in response to current-day challenges faced in Chicago.

Tags: DUS, HP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 365. AIS: Christianity and Space. (4 Credits)

The course "Christianity and Space" seeks to examine the growing fields of astronomy and space exploration in conversation with the disciplines of history and theology. In the coming decades as humanity's presence expands in our Solar System to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, challenging questions will arise that will require a Christian response from the resources of theology, biblical exegesis, and history. Through this course, students will survey the history, technological approaches, and methodology of space exploration while also gaining a foundation in the broader history of Christianity’s relationship with science including recent historiographical developments within that field of study. Through stimulating readings, lectures, group discussion, integrative and interdisciplinary research papers, experiential learning, and group projects, this course seeks to equip students to think holistically about Christianity and space exploration. These skills will be further honed as students participate in a semester-long Mars settlement simulation group project that requires thinking through key questions of ethics, politics, and theology.

Tags: HP, SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 366. AIS: Roots of Celtic Christian Spirituality. (4 Credits)

Pressing social and political issues have generated increasing interest in Celtic Christian spirituality. Many Christians, as well as many from outside the Church, are attracted to this ancient form of worship. Is this trend promising for the revitalization of the contemporary, evangelical church? This course will offer insight into Celtic Christianity by means of a thorough examination of its roots. We will look closely at, first, the philosophical origins of the dominant themes of the early medieval Irish church. Grasping these philosophical, theological and ecclesiastical roots requires seeing them in their proper social and political context. To that end, we will survey the historic milieu in which these ideas took root. Finally, we will also examine the outworking of the Christian mission in Ireland and beyond. Reflecting on the underlying theological commitments, the lives and times of those who developed Celtic spirituality, will provide rich resources for the restoration of the contemporary Christian Church.

Tags: HP, PI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 367. AIS: The Holocaust and the Holy Land: A Literary Exploration. (4 Credits)

This course offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary exploration of the complex interplay between the Holocaust and the establishment of the modern State of Israel. We will analyze the historical, cultural, and moral implications of these two interconnected narratives and seek to foster a deeper understanding of the events that have shaped contemporary Jewish identity and the broader geopolitical landscape—a landscape that has been profoundly affected by the Holocaust, or _Shoah_.

Tags: GP, LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 368. AIS: The Other America: Literature of the Caribbean. (4 Credits)

Foreigners tend to perceive the Caribbean strictly as a tourist space—a tropical haven of sandy beaches, crystal-clear waters, swaying palm trees, and smiling natives. But what J. Michael Dash refers to as “the other America” can be found only in the literature and the history of these culturally vibrant islands—spaces that Antonio Benítez Rojo describes as expanding “outward past the limits of [their] own sea.” This course will examine Caribbean literature with respect to history, language, culture, diaspora, creolization, and globalization. Students will investigate the commonalities and the contrasts that emerge in the writings from these ethnically and linguistically diverse societies. Students will also become familiar with key words and terms associated with literature of the Caribbean while analyzing authors and critics from the Anglophone, Francophone, and Hispanophone Caribbean islands.

Tags: GP, LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 369. AIS: The Rhetoric & Philosophy of James Baldwin. (4 Credits)

The Rhetoric and Philosophy of James Baldwin. Explores the non-fiction writing of James Baldwin, a towering public intellectual of the 20th century who wrote penetratingly about race, politics, faith, love, and trauma. Through discussions, short papers, seminar presentations, and final projects, students will learn about the rhetoric and philosophy informing many of Baldwin’s texts and his life-long commitment to promoting justice, mercy, and understanding across and within racialized communities.

Tags: DUS

General Education: SHAR

CORE 371. AIS: J.R.R. Tolkien and Environmental Stewardship. (4 Credits)

This course explores what J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy writings have to teach us about ecology and environmental stewardship and how the study of ecology can enrich our engagement with Tolkien’s stories and our own.

Tags: LE, SIP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 372. AIS: Existentialism. (4 Credits)

In this class we will explore why we are all soul-achingly anxious and depressed. Our conversation partners are a set of loosely associated thinkers who have come to be called the “existentialists,” figures like: Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Simone Weil, Miguel de Unamuno, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre. While there are more academic reasons for gathering these figures under a common banner, the short of it is that each is passionately committed to interrogating our collective despair. It’s not all doom and gloom though: Taken together, the existentialists develop a powerful vision of redemptive love. Falling in love with this conception of love is the chief goal of this course.

Tags: LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 373. AIS: Hope and Whiteness. (4 Credits)

This course explores a scholarly understanding of both hope and whiteness and how these shape our social world, looking at different philosophical and anthropological accounts of hope, whiteness, and their forms of intersection. Amidst the writing of scholars of race and whiteness, we will encounter a debate: Is there room for hope? Is racism so entrenched in the United States and the world that we can never be extricated from its discourses, practices, and effects? If there is room, what might such hope look like? How might hope as regards to race relations be relevant to robust Christian hope? In this course, we’ll consider a range of responses to these questions. Ultimately students will seek a more rugged, theoretically and theologically grounded understanding of both whiteness and hope so that they might “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Pet. 3:15).

Tags: DUS, PI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 374. AIS: The Persecuted Church. (4 Credits)

Persecution of Christians is on the rise in many parts of the world. Suffering for one’s faith in Jesus Christ comes in many forms. Believers are insulted, isolated, humiliated, discriminated, arrested, beaten, tortured, burned, and even killed for their faith. This course will look at the state of Christian persecution around the globe, the nature of persecution, the reasons for persecution, systematic injustice and brutal laws leading to persecution, and how Christians respond to persecution.

Tags: GP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 375. AIS: Theater Practice and the Other. (4 Credits)

How can engagement in theater practice (conceiving, creating, directing, designing and performing in plays) combined with a Christian theological understanding create empathy and a movement toward compassion for the experiences and struggles of individuals and groups who seem fundamentally different? Students enrolled in CORE 375 will be introduced to the basic skills of theater making, and then will practice those emerging skills in the conception and development of a solo performance project in which they will embody the experience of an identified 'other' to an audience in a theater piece. Additional course fee required: $100 for Chicago play attendance.

Tags: DUS, VPAT

General Education: SHAR

CORE 376. AIS: Harry Potter: Theology and Literary Imagination. (4 Credits)

The Harry Potter series has been a global phenomenon, read by children and adults worldwide. Its success is easy to understand, given Rowling’s masterful storytelling. What is often missed, though, is the series’ substantive theological engagement: The books take up classic theological claims and develop those claims. Rowling achieves this theological work through both her creative appropriation of Christian images and symbols and her use of established literary traditions, namely genre fantasy. In this course, we will read all seven of the Harry Potter volumes in conversation with theological questions, including the nature of God, suffering, immortality, hope, virtue, sin, and salvation. Moreover, we will explore the notion of a Christian literary imagination and consider what it means to bring together literature and theology.

Tags: LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 377. AIS: Shakespeare by the Numbers. (4 Credits)

Using Shakespeare’s plays and poems as a test case, this course will explore the ways in which statistical methods common in mathematics can be applied to the interpretation of literary texts and to debates over composition and authorship. Students will begin by learning traditional stylistics—metrical, rhetorical and lexical analysis, including the use of concordances—and getting a basic grounding in the literary culture of the late 16th century. They will then explore computational stylistics and data visualizations using tools like Voyant and Palladio as we consider the contrast between what literary scholars now call “close” and “distant” reading. Students’ final papers will combine literary critical and quantitative methods to make an original argument about some aspect of Shakespeare’s works. The course will also give us occasion to reflect on the way two apparently different disciplines—mathematics and literary criticism—both tend towards God as they seek the divine order that lies behind phenomenal reality.

Tags: AAQR, LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 378. AIS: Best and Worst of Christian History: Key Lessons for Today. (4 Credits)

This Advanced Integrative Seminar guides students through key figures and events of Church history, with special attention to the first thousand years. It explores the many and varied ways in which Christian leaders and communities in the founding centuries of the Faith embodied and betrayed the way of Jesus Christ.

Tags: HP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 379. AIS: Pilgrimage Routes and Marketplace Impact. (4 Credits)

This course will explore the economic impact that pilgrimage has had in Spain on the medieval Camino de Santiago and Japan's Kumano Kodo route. Both Unesco heritage sites, as pilgrimage has grown in popularity, so has the once rural areas begun to build up economically. The Kumano Kodo is a sister Japanese Camino for the Camino de Santiago, and one can also receive a dual Compostela certificate by completing both. The course will examine motivations for each pilgrim site's popularity and research how wars, pandemics, and environmental changes affect the sites' popularity and the community surrounding them and opportunities for human flourishing.

Tags: GP, HP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 381. AIS: Poetry & Devotion. (4 Credits)

The content of this seminar is organized around this overarching question: In what ways does devotional poetry nurture one’s expression of Christian spirituality? The topics of the course are addressed within the cross-disciplinary intersection of Christian spirituality with English literature and writing. Specifically, the genre of devotional poetry is explored as a means through which the student experiences and expresses her or his relationship with God.

Tags: LE, VPA

General Education: SHAR

CORE 382. AIS: Christianity in Romantic England. (4 Credits)

Students will explore the intersection of British Romantic literature and Christian theology through a thematic survey of the figures, movements, and diverse ideas that shaped England between 1789 and 1832. Students will gain a greater understanding of disparate Christian religious movements during the period and consider challenging philosophical questions about God, miracles, war & peace, the poor, women’s rights, education, and global missions that gripped the nation. Through close literary and theological analysis of works of poetry and prose, experiential learning opportunities, and research and writing projects that encourage multidisciplinary perspectives, students will develop a wider knowledge of the Christian tradition, reflect critically on the Christian faith, and set some of the most influential literature in the English language in a robust theological context.

Tags: LE, PI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 383. AIS: Christianity in Korea. (4 Credits)

A historical and theological study of Christianity in Korea. Only offered as part of Wheaton in Korea.

Tags: GP, HP

General Education: SHAR

CORE 384. AIS: Of Fields and Flora: The Art of Careful Living. (4 Credits)

This course invites students to explore the relationship between living a full and flourishing life and the stewardship of the natural world. We will examine both the popular resurgence of agrarian values as represented by figures like Wendell Berry as well as recent trends in conservationism. Additionally, and in the spirit of the course’s readings, we will look to take our study outdoors and acquaint ourselves with the fields and flora of our immediate environment. Our modest thesis is that careful attention to the world of plants—cultivated and wild—is an essential component of a life well lived.

Tags: PI

General Education: SHAR

CORE 385. AIS: Hybrids in Borderlands: Mixed-Race Literature. (4 Credits)

“Hybrids in Borderlands: Mixed-Race Literature” will explore the multifaceted representations of mixed-race identity in literature, identifying themes, motifs, and literary techniques employed by authors to explore this topic. In a world that is increasingly diverse and interconnected, understanding the experiences of individuals with biracial or multiracial backgrounds is essential. Through a diverse selection of literary works spanning various genres, historical periods, and cultural contexts, students will examine how mixed-race identity has been depicted, contested, and celebrated in literature. This course provides a unique opportunity to analyze the intersection of race, identity, and culture while fostering a deeper understanding of the experiences of mixed-race individuals.

Tags: DUS, LE

General Education: SHAR

CORE 391. AIS: Sports and Christianity in America. (4 Credits)

Sports have a played a vital role in American life, including among Christians. How Christians have thought about and engaged with sports has changed over time. Drawing from the interdisciplinary field of sports studies, theology, and history, this class will situate sports and Christianity within significant themes in US history including race, gender, religion, and class from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries. The course incorporates the many voices populating American history, including men and women from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups.

Tags: DUS, HP

General Education: SHAR