Women's Studies - Resources and Suggested Courses

Forms:

Suggested Courses:

Spring 2024:

FORGIVENESS AND (ITS) RESISTANCE: TRAUMA, GENDER, AND POWER

(CERS-4100)

This course explores interpersonal forgiveness from philosophical and theological perspectives, with insight from social sciences and lived experience. The course will consider power dynamics involved in forgiveness, including race, gender, and pressure from religious and political institutions to forgive too easily. We will examine moral emotions such as anger, which play a crucial role in social justice movements, and how to hold this in tension with a positive concept of forgiveness. We assess how an understanding of trauma requires a more complex notion of forgiveness. We will whether or not forgiveness ought to be conditional and what those conditions ought to be; consider the relationship of love and justice with regard to forgiveness; examine forgiveness in collective and political contexts, including in South Africa and Rwanda; and finally consider self-forgiveness. This course is designed for MA, MDiv, DMin, and PhD students.