Christopher Shields

Herewith our schedule.  Please have the required reading/viewing completed before the first seminar meeting of the week for which it is assigned.  As a general policy, we will discuss the reading material on Monday of each week and then explore allied topics on Wednesday, though this will shift somewhat in the second half of the semester.

Please arrive prepared to discuss the material assigned for each week.  We will tend to discuss readings and viewings on Mondays and then engage in others sorts of activities on Wednesdays, including seminar presentations of your passions outside of the public domain.  

Sign-up sheets for all class activities will be available on Google Docs.  

• Week One: Introduction to our College Seminar on Immortality
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: ‘Thinking about Death’ (D, 1); Watch: Course Introduction
• Week Two: Persons and Post-mortem Survival
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: ‘Dualism versus Physicalism’ (D, 6)
    • Watch: The Nature of Persons
• Week Three: The Soul I
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: ‘Arguments for the Existence of Soul,’  (D, 24); ‘Descartes’ Argument’ (D, 57); 
    • Watch: Arguments for the Existence of Soul, Part I, Part II, and Part III
• Week Four: The Soul and Immortality I
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: Plato, Phaedo;  ‘Plato on the Immortality of the Soul,’ (D, 69)
    • Watch: Plato, Part I and Part II
• Week Five: The Soul and Immortality II
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: Plato, Phaedo (yes, again)
    • Watch: Plato, Part III and Part IV
• Week Six: Personal Identity I
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: ‘Personal Identity’ (D, 98); ‘Choosing Between the Theories’ (D, 132)
    • Watch: Personal Identity, Part I and Part II
• Week Seven:  Personal Identity II
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: ‘The Nature of Death’ (D, 170); ‘Two Surprising Claims about Death’ (D, 186)
    • Watch: Personal Identity, Part III and Part IV
    • Listen: Shields, ‘Personal Identity’ on Philosophy Bites
• Week Eight: Living Forever I
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: Shelley, ‘The Mortal Immortal’
    • Watch: Frankenstein (1910 Version)
• Week Nine: Mid-semester Break 
  
  
• Week Ten: Living Forever II
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: ‘Immortality’ (D, 234) Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Suppl. q. 92, 93, and 94
    • Watch: Götterdämmerung, available via Hesburgh Library Course Reserve, log-in required 
      
      
• Week Eleven: Living Forever III
  • Reading and Viewing:
    • Read: Williams, ‘The Makropulos Case’
    • Watch: The Makropulos Affair, available via Hesburgh Library Course Reserve, log-in required 
• Week Twelve: Living Forever IV
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: ‘The Value of Life’ (D, 247)
    • Watch: Der Himmel über Berlin, available via Hesburgh Library Course Reserve, log-in required 
• Week Thirteen: Living Forever V
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: ‘Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan
    • Watch: City of Angels, available via Hesburgh Library Course Reserve, log-in required 
• Week Fourteen: Living Forever VI
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: Tolstoy, ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’
    • Watch: The Badness of Death, Part I, Part II, and Part III
• Week Fifteen: Fearing Death
  • Reading and Viewing
    • Read: Living in the Face of Death (D, 282); Borges, ‘The Immortal'
    • Watch: Fear of Death 
      
• Week Sixteen: Quodlibetal