Close Readings in Literature & Film

Course Description

Close reading gives attention to what an artwork says and how it says it. In this course, we will apply this practice of reading and criticism to literature and film, from the poetry of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, to short prose, to a selection of films from around the globe. By reading and viewing together, in the community of the classroom rather than individually, we will come to see how the form of art can inform its potential meanings, and how close reading may be a means of exploring theological themes such as the practice of faith, humanity’s relationship to creation, eschatological hope, the relationship of sin and grace, the sacredness of the ordinary, and yearning for the presence of God.