Peter O'Leary

Walt Whitman?s influence on American poetry is as prodigious as it is constant. Even today, one-hundred and twenty-five years since his death, the force of his verse continues to be felt. In this course you will conduct a thorough investigation and reading of Whitman?s poetry, including and especially the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, and also his subsequent major poems, including ?Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,? ?Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,? ?I Sing the Body Electric,? ?As I Ebb?d with the Ocean of Life,? and ?When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed.? You will also read Whitman?s major prose, including ?Specimen Days.? With Whitman in hand, you will explore part of his legacy by reading poetry by Hart Crane, Federigo Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Allen Ginsberg, and Ronald Johnson. Alongside, we will read essays by D.H. Lawrence, Robert Duncan, Harold Bloom, and C.K. Williams. And we will watch the film Howl.

'No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.' (T.S. Eliot.) 'Wayward Puritan. Charged with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is antinomian.' (Susan Howe.) Poets relate to literature in the way they delve into its historical matter and context. Just so, they transform the art by disobeying its widely-held presumptions. In this workshop, we will study the works of five seminal poet-critics-Ezra Pound, T.S.Eliot, Charles Olson, Susan Howe, and Nathaniel Mackey-in an effort to bring reading and writing (about these poets and about your own work as well) into a mutually elucidating act. We will be especially interested in how these poets relate to each other's work, with special attention paid to correspondence. To that end, your work in this course will be undertaken on a manual typewriter in the form of letters exchanged with your classmates.

Seven thunders! Seven seals! Blaring trumpets and clashing cymbals. A seven-headed hydra. A lamb on a throne of blood. Stars falling to earth. The beginning and the end. And an angel saying, ¿What thou seest write in a book.¿ The metaphors and the agitation of the Book of Revelation are intense. They draw from the deepest sources of the imagination: Awe at life, magical beasts and powerful forms, proclamations of power, and fears about life¿s end. Written 1900 years ago, the Book of Revelation continues to feed the imagination. In this course, first we will read Revelation closely, looking at it in the context of the genre and meaning of apocalypse in the tradition of the Abrahamic religions. Second, we will read Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer, an uncanny novel about an ecological catastrophe that may be an alien invasion. Alongside, we will read Pope Francis¿s encyclical Laudato Si¿, his discussion of the moral and religious flaws that have caused climate change. Third, we will consider ¿The Leftovers,¿ a television series that concerns the aftermath of a global, apocalyptic event that happens in the near future in which 2% of the world suddenly vanishes in a Rapture-like event. And throughout this course, we will consider the question: What will a modern apocalypse look like?

Esotericism refers both to a field of knowledge hidden from common view and a moral reality suggesting secrecy, occultism, danger, conspiracy and vast quantities of arcane lore and revelation. This course introduces students to a basic theory of esotericism - hidden knowledge revealed to the enlightened or initiated ? while exploring historical instances of esotericism beginning with the Neo-platonists and Alexandrian magicians, and discussing movements such as Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, the Freemasons, Renaissance Magic, Theosophy; fields such as astrology, alchemy, mysticism, witchcraft and music; and figures such as Hermes Trismegistus, Isaac Luria, Marcilio Ficino, and Carl Jung. Texts will include a general history, source texts, selected essays, and some films.

A monolith manifests in orbit around Jupiter, emitting a signal. A beacon? A winter-bound planet¿s denizens are androgynous with powerful predictive powers. An aberration? Space travel is enabled by the ingestion of enormous quantities of a geriatric spice a messianic figure suddenly learns to manipulate. A drug trip?! Among popular genres, science fiction is the riskiest conceptually and among the trickiest to master. Because of its relative narrative freedom, science fiction has been a place for some of the wildest, most outlandish, yet frequently astute speculation on the experience of religion that can be found in all modern literature. In this course, you¿ll read some novels (by William Gibson, Frank Herbert, and Ursula K. LeGuin), short stories, (by Ted Chiang, Arthur C. Clarke, and Raccoona Sheldon), and view some films (2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, and Close Encounters), and study the work of some theorists of religion (Freud, Jung, Le¿vi-Strauss, and Eliade). Assignments vary, but they might include some or many of the following: weekly reading responses, quizzes, papers, and exams.

Christianity has been the dominant religious and cultural idiom of the West for the past 1700 years, defining the West?s history, politics, literature, and spirituality. Because of this supersaturation, much of Christianity?s texture and depth is taken for granted, misunderstood, or lost. In this course, we examine scripture, theology, mysticism, and art so as to recover some of Christianity?s hidden knowledge, especially from the complex vantage of the United States, the most successful and powerful Christian nation in the history of the world. In addition to readings from the New Testament, we read the work of scholars, historians, and artists including Bernard McGinn, Vladimir Lossky, Linda Woodhead, Marilynne Robinson, and Chester Brown. Assignments vary, but they might include some or many of the following: weekly reading responses, quizzes, papers, and exams.

A detailed investigation of one or a few topics in religious studies with an eye to addressing contemporary interests.