HUM4630 Extremism: The Fanatic, The Militant, The Sectarian
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits
This course is committed to exploring “extremism” through the formation of dangerous sects: i.e. underground movements, secret societies, forbidden associations, cult gatherings, urban gangs, martial arts orders, outlawed artistic circles, rebel cadres, and terrorist units. We will use contemporary literary works from around the world to examine the way in which these dangerous, hidden alliances experiment with ideas of concealment, seduction, power, strangeness, and sacrifice in order to create antagonistic counter-currents to everyday society. We will therefore also study the many forms that such outsider factions can take as they banish themselves and plan their hostile-ecstatic return to the surface: revolutionary, criminal, religious, mystical, magical, and avant-garde. Ultimately, this topic will allow us to penetrate one of the darker quarters of the human imagination in the modern age, following the extremist mind into its most subterranean possibilities, where a certain intense passion/hatred toward the world allows one to generate an alternative reality of the most excessive nature.
Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)