Religion 240 - Religious Thought and Spirituality in Revolutionary Russia

The 19th and early 20th centuries marked one of the most brilliant yet destructive periods in Russia's history. This course explores the spiritual and religious-philosophical ideas that fueled a renaissance in the arts as well as a political revolution, both of which had enormous impact worldwide. Based on works of art and literature, religious-philosophical and political writings, and film, it introduces students to some of the best-known radical thinkers and cultural innovators in Russia’s late imperial and Soviet past, and in its post-Soviet present. Topics include: religious faith, materialism and science; the meaning of history; “new religious consciousness”; theosophy and the occult; art, beauty and the Absolute; human creativity and god- building; divine wisdom and “all-unity”; the body, sex and spirituality. (E)