TTC: "God and Mankind: Comparative Religions"

[kate_nepveu]

I've started listening to lectures from The Teaching Company. These don't really belong on the booklog, yet it feels weird to spend so much time listening to something and not review it. (Ah, habit.) So I'll put brief notes here instead.

First up is "God and Mankind: Comparative Religions," eight 45-minute lectures. The course page sums up the lectures well if enthusiastically: the course considers religious cosmologies, particularly creation myths and religious hero narratives; theodicy; rituals and communities; and the Puritan influence on America. The lecturer does a nice job of showing how to abstract up from a particular piece of information about a religion to the way the religion views the world; the rhythm of the tale of Osiris' death and rebirth pointing to dualism, for instance, or the repetition of "it was good" in Genesis's creation story, which indicates that Judaism doesn't disdain created matter as some religions do. Nothing earth-shattering, but a useful primer (or reminder) on how to analyze religious data.

However, I would have liked it to be more comparative than it was. The examples were drawn principally from Judaism and Christianity; the lecturer said this was deliberate, as those were more generally familiar to the audience. I can buy that this familiarity lets people concentrate more on understanding the points he was trying to draw out, but still, it seemed kind of a wasted opportunity. I mean, since it's so well-known, did we really need to hear about the Book of Job in such detail?

My biggest objection, however, was that there was not a single example drawn from Islam. A statement that almost all religious founders have supernatural attributes? No mention of how Muhammad fits in—which I immediately wondered. The sect to church progression, and whether religions stabilize at church or go back to sect (that is, split off denominations)? Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, and Hinduism are all discussed, but Islam gets only a passing mention of the Sunni-Shi'ite split. Even Ancient Mesopotamian religion gets time, with a lengthy description of the Epic of Gilgamesh, but not Islam.

I also have a "Great World Religions" series, and was going to listen by order of age, but I think I'm going to skip straight to the one on Islam now, out of frustration.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

Lectures are not as good at keeping me awake as fiction; I did my Continuing Legal Education requirements on audio mostly this year and sometimes I had to switch out for music. And usually I only listen in the car.

I think they do them concurrently on DVD as well, but libraries may not have them as often.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I totally totally totally recommend Bob Brier's Egyptian course. He's the most dynamic lecturer they've got. There's also Great Pharaohs by him, which is basically highlights from the larger course.

Robert Greenburg's (Greenberg?) music courses are great, too. I also really enjoyed the Tudor/Stuart history one, although I've forgotten the prof and can't be bothered to look him up at the moment. The Greek history course was good, but the prof's voice was ... soothing and it was hard to keep from falling asleep. I've got the Vikings on my iPod and keep intending to get back to them.

I got partly through the Herodotus one and liked it, but managed to lose my tape player before finishing and never got around to finishing it after I found it.

AH ... the Story of Human Language was really, really good. And Mom and I enjoyed how his metaphors tended to get a bit wacky as he got further into the course. XD (language as a cat that's jumped into your suitcase and is licking its nose at you is the one I remember most vividly.)

I've also got a bunch of the DVD art history courses to watch - Mom got a portable DVD player and started in on the video stuff and loaded me down with the ones she'd already seen.

[kate_nepveu]

Have the Story of Human Language; thanks for the rec for the History of Ancient Egypt.

The music courses are lower on my priority list; I suspect that the subtleties of the music won't come across well in my car. But it's a good idea and I'd like to try them.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

In a digression related to your previous copyright thing - last night as I was poking around the databases at the library for information on doujinshi, I found two articles in the Rutgers Law Review by Salil Mehra about copyright and the Japanese tolerance of fan works.

"Copyright and COmics in Japan: Does Law Explain Why All the Cartoons My Kid Watches Are Japanese Imports?" (Fall 2002)

"Copyright, COntrol, and Comics: Japanese Battles Over Downstream Limits on Content" (Fall 2003)

I've printed them out but havne't read more than the summaries so far, but found them through a reference in a short article by Lawrence LEssig that I've forgotten, where he mentions that Mehra presents an argument for the doujinshi tradition helping sell the original stuff, or something like that (I've slept since then; my recall is not perfect. :D)

Anyway, if you don't have access to the journal, I'll be happy to send you copies of the articles, if you're interested.

[kate_nepveu]

I'm sure I do, and thanks for the note; if I have time later I'll look at them.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

> or the repetition of "it was good" in Genesis's creation story

That's also a key marker that at one time the story was oral. Repeated phrases are a way of punctuating a long story, and a way of reminding the listener of the parts that have come before, and a way or reinforcing/foreshadowing the main events (which is why things also tend to happen in threes).

I was struck by it, looking up Gilgamesh's lament the other night (thanks to your post), and everyone he meets asks him why he looks "cheeks so starved and your face drawn?" and he responds in near-verbatim phrases every time. You also see it in folk tales (and for that matter, complicated jokes), but a lot of ancient literature shows the same pattern.

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, I think he mentioned that & I failed to paraphrase it. It's funny, I read Genesis for the same class as the Iliad, and we spent a lot of time on the oral source of the Iliad, but hardly at all on Genesis; maybe the prof thought we were sick of it by then, or maybe there's stuff I don't know about the textual history.