{"id":5663,"date":"2016-10-28T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/dont-take-love-for-granted-a-new-course-challenges-our-preconceived-ideas-about-romance-eroticism-and-religion\/"},"modified":"2025-01-21T14:10:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T22:10:33","slug":"dont-take-love-for-granted-a-new-course-challenges-our-preconceived-ideas-about-romance-eroticism-and-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/dont-take-love-for-granted-a-new-course-challenges-our-preconceived-ideas-about-romance-eroticism-and-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t take love for granted: A new course challenges our preconceived ideas about romance, eroticism and religion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n    \n                                          \n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-hero \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-hero\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n<div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--image\">\n\n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n              \n      <img\n                            data-src=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/story-2451-768x432.jpg\"\n          data-srcset=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/story-2451-768x432.jpg 768w\"          data-sizes=\"(min-width:1200px) 75vw, (min-width:768px) 83vw, 100vw\"          class=\"lazyload\"\n        \n                  alt=\"Don\u2019t take love for granted: A new course challenges our preconceived ideas about romance, eroticism and religion\"\n        \n        \n                                      \/>\n\n    \n    \n  \n  \n\n<\/div>\n  \n      <div class=\"image-caption\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  Gian Lorenzo Bernini\u2019s iconic 17th-century sculpture, &#8220;The Ecstasy of Theresa of Avila&#8221; shows the 16th-century saint in the midst of a mystical, ecstatic experience.\n\n\n<\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  \n  <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n          <nav aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\" class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n        <ul>\n                      <li><a href=\"\/news\/stories\/\">News<\/a><\/li>\n                      <li><a href=\"\/news\/stories\/\/?category=faculty\">Faculty<\/a><\/li>\n                  <\/ul>\n      <\/nav>\n    \n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--page-title\">\n\n    \n  <h1>Don\u2019t take love for granted: A new course challenges our preconceived ideas about romance, eroticism and religion<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n    \n          <div class=\"subtitle\">\n            \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  In a new Thematic Option course, \u201cLove and Its Reasons: Eros and Transcendence,\u201d USC Dornsife\u2019s David Albertson of religion charts the evolution of changing beliefs about love and religion through the ages by exploring seminal texts from a wide range of authors, including Plato, Dante and Kierkegaard.\n\n\n<\/div>\n      <\/div>\n    \n           <strong class=\"author-field\"><span >By<\/span><a href=\"mailto:communication@dornsife.usc.edu\">Susan Bell<\/a><\/strong>\n    \n          <span class=\"post-date-field\">October 28, 2016<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--social-share \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--social-share\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"content-wrapper\">\n    <span class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list\" style=\"line-height: 32px;\">\n      <span class=\"title\">\n        Share\n      <\/span>\n                        <a class=\"a2a_button_copy_link\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/#copy_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Link\">\n            <span class=\"a2a_svg a2a_s__default a2a_s_copy_link\">\n              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cc--rich-text \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--rich-text\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n      \n<div class=\"f--field f--wysiwyg\">\n\n    \n  <p>\u201c<em>Eros<\/em> shook my mind \/ Like a mountain wind falling on oak trees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite their contemporary sound, these stirring lines are not taken from the lyrics of a popular indie-rock song. In fact, they were penned more than 2,600 years ago by the Greek poet Sappho.<\/p>\n<p>That knowledge makes it easy for us to see them as yet another testament to what we in the modern world tend to assume is the unchanging, eternal nature of love.<\/p>\n<p>However, <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/cf\/faculty-and-staff\/faculty.cfm?pid=1016452\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">David Albertson<\/a>, associate professor of <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/religion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">religion<\/a>, who is challenging our long-held ideas about love in his Thematic Option course, \u201cLove and Its Reasons:<em> Eros<\/em> and Transcendence,\u201d would question that assumption.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI doubt many USC students think of love as something with a history that can be studied in faculty research and taught in the classroom, but we\u2019re doing both this term,\u201d Albertson said of the new freshman humanities course.<\/p>\n<h2>Questioning love<\/h2>\n<p>The mysterious experience of love has been central to western art and literature for centuries \u2014 so much so, Albertson argues, that in our popular culture, in film, music and romantic literature, we tend to take love for granted. However, the topic of love has also played a major role in philosophy and religion throughout the ages.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough it\u2019s disorienting for us to think about love outside the familiar frame of romance in popular music and film, in fact there are many deeper questions that can be asked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"news-image-landscape news-image-right\">\n<figure style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/migration-uploads\/Albertson2-2451.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of David Albertson\" width=\"350\" height=\"225\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Associate Professor of Religion David Albertson. (Photo by Peter Zhaoyu Zhou.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cOur course tries to broaden students\u2019 thinking about love and their conceptual vocabulary about different experiences of love, desire and ecstasy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Are there many kinds of love or just one? How does love alter the boundaries of the self? Is sexual desire a property of body or soul? How is it that love is both joyful and painful? These are some of the questions students are pursuing through extensive reading of texts, both ancient and modern, including works by Plato, Ovid, Augustine, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe and Kierkegaard, as well as a range of medieval women mystics.<\/p>\n<h2>Love and religious desire<\/h2>\n<p>To introduce students to the concept of love and religious desire, Albertson invited them to consider Gian Lorenzo Bernini\u2019s iconic sculpture, \u201cThe Ecstasy of Teresa of Avila.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think when someone\u2019s speaking about love in terms of religious desire that it boils down to a projection of some physical reality,\u201d Albertson said. \u201cTeresa is shown having a mystical, ecstatic experience, but it looks at first like a physical, erotic experience that\u2019s been projected into the religious sphere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Albertson says, this is a mistake. \u201cIn the ancient world, at least, and for many authors of the Middle Ages, women and men, it was quite the reverse. They considered that any sort of physical, sexual experience was simply an inadequate shadow of the real, erotic experience that the soul was having with the divine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In fact, in mystical literature, love often has nothing to do with another human individual. Instead, love is the contemplative and mystical quest to unite one\u2019s soul with that of the divine beloved, what some authors even call an intellectual discipline of \u201cerotics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s explicitly supposed to be an erotic encounter or even fusion of the soul with God,\u201d Albertson explained. \u201cFor thinkers like Plato and even for some ancient Christians, physical manifestations of desire in the body were only an after-image of the real thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such beliefs are at the root of a long-standing question in Christian thought, especially in Christian mysticism \u2014 is it easier to reach mystical union with God through the intellect, knowledge and the mind, or through love, the will and desire?<\/p>\n<h2>The evolving concept of love<\/h2>\n<p>Freshman Michelle Olson, who is majoring in interactive entertainment at <a href=\"https:\/\/cinema.usc.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">USC School of Cinematic Arts<\/a>, said she was motivated to take Albertson\u2019s course after studying Fyodor Dostoyevsky\u2019s <em>The Brothers Karamazov<\/em> in high school. \u201cAs someone who thoroughly enjoyed the novel\u2019s deep religious themes and who found it profoundly changed my personal views on love and religion, I was excited to see what other sort of prominent philosophies about love and its relation to God were out there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>She was surprised to discover how many early Greek philosophers took a deeply pessimistic view of love. \u201cOne poem in particular written by Sophocles in <em>Antigone<\/em> painted love as something tyrannical and destructive \u2014 a perspective on love we don\u2019t often see in modern writing,\u201d she said. Comparing this negative view of love with subsequent philosophies allowed her to understand how perspectives on love evolved over the centuries, she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cViewing complex topics like love through different philosophical and religious lenses is incredibly enlightening and allows me to better form my own views and better understand those of others,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<h2>New translation to fill gap in scholarship<\/h2>\n<p>Albertson will soon be adding to the available scholarship on the subject with his new translation project, \u201cThe Tegernsee Debate on Love and Reason: Mystical Letters and Treatises in Late Medieval Germany,\u201d for which he was recently awarded a three-year <a href=\"https:\/\/www.neh.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Endowment for the Humanities<\/a> grant. This resulting volume will translate 15th-century Latin texts from an important Benedictine monastery in Germany, and will also examine how such Christian notions of love and reason found common ground with Judaism and Islam.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis project will fill a gap in existing scholarship,\u201d he said, \u201cand provide an English version of some fascinating texts I\u2019d like to read with USC students in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n  \n        \n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-related-stories \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-related-stories\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n    \n                  <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/course-explores-magic-witchcraft-and-healing\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >Course explores \u2018Magic, Witchcraft and Healing\u2019<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n              <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/5-favorite-love-stories-for-valentines-day\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >5 favorite love stories for Valentine\u2019s Day<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n              <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/the-real-st-valentine-was-no-patron-of-love\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >The &#8216;real&#8217; St. Valentine was no patron of love<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n            <\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a new Thematic Option course, \u201cLove and Its Reasons: Eros and Transcendence,\u201d USC Dornsife\u2019s David Albertson of religion charts the evolution of changing beliefs about love and religion through the ages by exploring seminal texts from a wide range of authors, including Plato, Dante and Kierkegaard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":5666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,17],"tags":[1030,71,75,141,104,610],"class_list":["post-5663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty","category-student","tag-david-albertson","tag-history","tag-humanities","tag-literature","tag-religion","tag-thematic-option"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Don\u2019t take love for granted: A new course challenges our preconceived ideas about 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