REL 407/507 Narratives Selves East & West, Winter 2007

Narrative Selves East and West

REL 407/507 Winter 2007 CRN 25114/5 Mark Unno

Instructor: Mark T. Unno, Office: PLC 812, Tel. 346-4973, Email: munno (at) uoregon (dot) edu
TU 2:00 p.m. - 5:50 p.m., PLC 248; Office Hours: Wednesdays 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. PLC 812

Overview
Through selected readings in religious and philosophical thought East and West, as well as through films, this course examines the manner in which narratives of selfhood are constructed and presented. Questions explored include: What is the role and character of narrative in defining selfhood? How do fractures and fissures in this narrative occur? Can a self exist without any significant narrative? What is the relation between memory, time, and space in the narrative self? In delving into these questions, we will examine 1) different versions of the narrative self, 2) models of selfhood that call into question various narratives (narrative and counter-narrative), and 3) models and theories of self that call into question the very nature of a narratively defined self. Readings include selected narratives from a Pure Land Buddhist, Taoist, and a Jewish diarist as well as secondary theoretical and methodological works. Format is lecture-discussion combination including student presentations. Assignments include three shorter papers and one longer final paper. Additional readings and a longer final paper will be required for students enrolled in REL 507.

Requirements
1. Attendance: Required. Students can have one unexcused absence without penalty. Each class missed thereafter without prior permission will result in 1-2 grade penalty for the course grade.
2. Short exams: There will be two short, in-class exams, based on materials from the readings, lectures, and course web site.
3. Medium papers & summaries: There will be two medium-length papers (2-4 pages) based on topics that will be provided by the instructor, as well as one summary (1-2 pages), to be explained.
4. Presentation: Students will make a presentation on the readings for one of the section meetings. The presenter should not summarize the reading but should use the presentation to discuss why the selected ideas-passages in question are important for understanding the reading and proceed to explain as well as raise questions about these ideas-passages.
The primary purpose of these presentations is to launch the discussion, not to demonstrate breadth of knowledge or to lead the discussion. Each presenter will prepare a handout with 2 questions and brief, corresponding quotations from the readings. More detailed instructions will be provided on the course web site.
5. Final paper: Each student will hand in a final paper of 8-11 pages double-spaced (A longer final paper of 12-14 pages will be required for those who have registered for REL507. Suggested topics will be provided. Students may choose to create their own topics with the consent of the instructor. In the case of the latter, a one-paragraph description of the topic must be submitted by email to the instructor four days prior to the due date for the peer review draft.
6. Late policy on written assignments: Three grace days total will be allotted excluding the final paper for which no extensions will be given. For the short papers, a cumulative total of three late days will be allowed without penalty. Thereafter, each late day will result in a two-point deduction from the course grade. Weekends are not counted against the grace days.
Email accounts. Students should all have email accounts. Your email address will be used to communicate with you during the course.

Grades
Short exam I 5% Summary 10%
Short exam II 5% Final paper 30%
Short paper I 15% Presentation 10%
Short paper II 15% Discussion 10%

Texts
Shinmon Aoki, Coffinman (Anaheim, CA: Buddhist Education Center, 2004).
Joan Frances Casey, The Flock (NY: Ballantine Books, 1992).
Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life + Letters from Westerbork (NY: Owl Books, 1996).
Bruce Rubin, Jacob's Ladder (NY: Applause Books, 2000) (optional text).
Burton Watson, Zhuangzi: Basic Writings (NY: Columbia University Press, 2003).
Course Reader REL 407-507 Narrative Selves East and West.

Weekly Schedule REL407-507 Narrative Selves East & West
(Reading assignments are to be completed by the date under which they are listed.)
CR = Course Reader; RT = Required Text

Week 1 (1/9) INTRODUCTION: Course Syllabus and Narrative 1
The Notebook (film)

Week 2 (1/16) Phenomenologies of Time and Self; Autobiographical Subjectivity in Question
Paul Brockelman, Time and Self: Phenomenological Explorations, 7-17, 71-83 (CR1).
Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training, 108-146 (CR2).
Jerome Bruner, "The "Remembered Self'," 41-51 (CR3).
Michel Foucault, "What Is an Author?" 101-120 (CR4).

Week 3 (1/23) Uncovering, Recovering and Creating Self-Narrative
Hilde L. Nelson, Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair, 1-35, 176-188 (CR8). Paper 1 due in class.
Elspeth Graham et al, "Pondering All These Things in Her Heart," 51-71 (CR9).
Sue Campbell, Relational Remembering: Rethinking the Memory Wars, 25-45 (CR10).
Joan Frances Casey, The Flock (RT).

Week 4 (1/30) Memories of the Self: Christian and Freudian
Mark Freeman, Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative, 25-49, 222-232 (CR5). Exam A in class.
Martin Conway, Autobiographical Memory: An Introduction, 16-28 (CR6).
Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, 88-99, 140-155 (CR7).
The Butterfly Effect (film).

Week 5 (2/6) Zhuangzi's Daoism: Narrative, Perpectivalism, and the Dao.
Zhuangzi, 1-140 (focus pages: 31-49, 62-63, 78-81, 94-95, 126-140) (RT).
"The Ten Oxherding Pictures," in How to Practice Zazen, 26-45.

Week 6 (2/13) Shin Tradition of Pure Land Buddhism: Narrative Oceans of Karma and Light.
Mark Unno, "The Borderline between Buddhism and Psychotherapy," 139-158 (CR12).
Shinmon Aoki, Coffinman, xiii-xvi, 3-111 (RT).

Week 7 (2/20) Spiritual Autobiography: Jewish, Christian, Jungian, and Beyond Paper 2 due in class.
Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life (RT).
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 1-5, 256-263 (CR15).
Tom Kasulis, Intimacy or Integrity: Philosophy and Cultural Difference, 1-26 (CR 14).

Week 8 (2/27) Alternate Realities: Buddhist Liberation, Christian Redemption, Daoist Perspectivalism Exam B in class.
Film: Jacob's Ladder
Bruce Rubin, Jacob's Ladder (optional).
Sandy Gunther, "An Alternate View of Reality . . . in Jacob's Ladder," 1-10 (CR13).
Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature," x-xx, 253-274, 290-298 (CR16).
Cora Jean Robinson, "The Conflict of Science and Religion in Dynamic Sunyata," 101-113 (CR17).

Week 9 (3/6) Buddhist Karma: Narrating the Unfathomable
Film: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, . . . and Spring Again

Week 10 (3/13) Conclusions and Beginnings: Wrap-up lecture, student presentations, discussion. Fin paper due in class.

Course Reader, REL 407/507 Narrative Selves East & West
Phenomenologies of Time and Self

1. Paul Brockelman, Time and Self: Phenomenological Explorations, 7-17, 71-83.
A phenomenology of the narrative self.
2. Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training, 108-146.
A Zen Buddhist phenomenology of thoughts and self-reflection

Autobiographical Subjectivity in Question
3. Jerome Bruner, "The "Remembered Self'," in Ulric Neisser & Robyn Fivush, eds., The Remembering Self: Construction and Accuracy in the Self-Narrative, 41-51.
"Self" as perpetually rewritten story
4. Michel Foucault, "What Is an Author?" in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow, 101-120.
Ideological power and authority in the author

Autobiography and Memory from Augustine to Freud
5. Mark Freeman, Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative, 25-49, 222-232.
Reflections on Augustine's Confessions
6. Martin Conway, Autobiographical Memory: An Introduction, 16-28.
Three theorists of autobiographical memory including Freud
7. Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, 88-99, 140-155.
Animism->Religion->Science; Oedipal origins in the scene of the "primal horde"

Recovering, Discovering, and Uncovering Self through Narrative
8. Hilde L. Nelson, Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair, 1-35, 176-188.
Counter-stories that heal the self
9. Elspeth Graham et al, "Pondering All These Things in Her Heart: Aspects of Secrecy in the Autobiographical Writings of Seventeenth-century Englishwomen," in Women's Lives-Women's Times: New Essays on Auto-Biography, eds. Trev Lynn Broughton and Linda Anderson, 51-71.
Writing the self in secret
10. Sue Campbell, Relational Remembering: Rethinking the Memory Wars, 25-45.
Contestation in Remembered Accounts of Childhood Abuse

Models of Selfhood
11. "The Ten Oxherding Pictures," in How to Practice Zazen, 26-45.
A Zen narrative of self as oxherder and oxen.
12. Mark Unno, "The Borderline between Buddhism and Psychotherapy," in Buddhism and Psychotherapy Across Cultures, ed. Mark Unno, 139-158.
The narrative self as deeply heard, with specific reference to Shin Buddhism.
13. Sandy Gunther, "An Alternate view of Reality: Understanding Mystical Experience in Jacob's Ladder, unpublished paper, 122-130.
Narrative strands in the film Jacob's Ladder.

Genealogies of Selfhood
14. Tom Kasulis, Intimacy or Integrity: Philosophy and Cultural Difference, 1-26.
Intimacy and integrity: Eastern and Western views of the self-in-culture
15. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 1-5, 256-263.
The postmodern fragmentation of the ethical self and its recovery through Aristotelian virtue.
16. Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution, x-xx, 253-274, 290-298.
The death of nature via Descartes and alternative women's narratives of self-nature as roads not taken
17, Cora Jean Robinson, "The Conflict of Science and Religion in Dynamic Sunyata," in The Religious Philosophy of Nishitani Keiji: Encounter with Emptiness, ed. Taitetsu Unno, 101-113.
The death of nature and religion and their mutual revival in Buddhist emptiness-oneness.