4.2 Reasons for studying religion Identify and jot down reasons that you think might prompt someone to make a study of religion. Here are some reasons in no special or 3.2 Plans for ‘resettlement’ of the Jews The occupation of western Poland after the brief campaign of 1939 gave the Nazis Lebensraum to colonise with ethnic Germans, some of whom were soon to be repatriated to the Reich (and thence, often reluctantly, to the newly annexed provinces of the Warthgau and Danzig) by new conquests. But the preparation of these provinces for the colonists necessitated the expulsion of a million Poles and Jews, who were driven east to the Nazi-controlled satellite of Poland known as the Ge 10 Comparing and contrasting Often you will find that an assignment asks you to ‘compare and contrast’ poems. There's a very good reason for this, for often it is only by considering different treatments of similar subjects that we become aware of a range of possibilities, and begin to understand why particular choices have been made. You will have realised that often in the previous discussions I've used a similar strategy, showing, for example, how we can describe the rhyme scheme of ‘Love From the North’ as si 8 Voice Is the speaker in a poem one and the same as the writer? Stop and consider this for a few moments. Can you think of any poems you have read where a writer has created a character, or persona, whose voice we hear when we read? Wordsworth's The Prelude was written as an autobiographical poem, but there are many instances where it is obvious that poet and persona are different. Charlotte Mew's poem, ‘The Farmer's Bride’ (1916) begins like this: Introduction For many centuries, ancient Egypt was seen as the source of wisdom and knowledge, about mathematics as well as other things. There was a long classical Greek tradition to this effect, and in later centuries the indecipherability of the hieroglyphs did nothing to dispel this belief. But since the early nineteenth century, when the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone by Young and Champollion enabled rapid progress to be made in translating extant Egyptian texts, the picture has changed to reveal a 5.1 Leading the fight against slavery Wilberforce’s name has been most famously associated with the issue of slavery. His success as a leader of the cause against slavery stemmed from his capacity to marshal a formidable range of argumentation, including secular as well as spiritual factors, and practical considerations as well as statements of principle. This section will examine extracts from two of Wilberforce’s writings on slavery, A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1807) and An Appeal to the Religion 4.6 Contemporary reactions Wilberforce’s underlying conservative inclinations and his vested interest in the existing social order led him to emphasise those aspects of Christianity that are conducive to stability rather than the more radical strands of Jesus’ teaching. Nevertheless, there is no doubt of Wilberforce’s absolute conviction of the reality of an afterlife and, consequently, of the spiritual perspective in which life as we know it has to be viewed. Herein was an outlook fundamentally different from th 4.5 The interaction of religion and society Now read the previous extract again with the associated commentary which draws out the key points and their significance, particularly in helping to understand the interaction of religion and society at this time. Wilberfor 4.4 Political implications In chapter VI of A Practical View Wilberforce broadens his perspective from the primarily spiritual emphasis of the earlier chapters to a consideration of the political implications of his analysis. In so doing he contributed to the ongoing debate on the French Revolution and the changing nature of British society and politics.
A Practical View can usefully be compared here with another work that gave considerable prominence to religion in the aftermath of 1789, Edmund Bu 4.2 The ‘inadequate consciousness of the real teachings of Christianity’ Following the Introduction, Wilberforce describes what he regards as an inadequate consciousness of the real teachings of Christianity among those who profess to adhere to it. This ignorance is grounded in a widespread failure to study the Bible in any depth and detail. He then expounds the Evangelical view of human nature as fundamentally corrupt, evil and depraved, as against the ‘professed Christian’ view that it is ‘naturally pure and inclined to all virtue’. In this darkly pessim 1.1 Early influences In the early summer of 1771, the clergyman and writer John Newton (1725–1807) was visited at Olney by two of his admirers, William and Hannah Wilberforce, a wealthy childless couple, and their 11-year-old nephew and heir, also named William. Newton made a profound impression on the boy. In 1785 it was to Newton that the younger William Wilberforce (1759–1833), now Member of Parliament for Yorkshire and a close friend of Prime Minister William Pitt (the Younger), turned for counsel in the Learning outcomes When you have completed your work on this unit you should have developed: a knowledge of key aspects of William Wilberforce’s political career and writings, and an appreciation of their historical and religious significance; an awareness of the relationship of Evangelicalism to cultural transitions between the Enlightenment and Romanticism; an understanding of the contribution of religion to cultural, social and political change in Britain in the Introduction William Wilberforce, the politician and religious writer, was instrumental in the abolition of slavery in Britain in 1807. This unit explores Wilberforce’s career and writings and assesses their historical significance. In particular it examines the contribution that Evangelicalism, the religious tradition to which Wilberforce belonged, made in the transitions between the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Throughout it relates Wilberforce’s career and writings to wider social and cultural de 4.1 Why was our immortality an issue? When reading about Hume's death you may have been puzzled as to why people became so worked up about Hume's attitude. The question of what, if anything, happens after death is something most of us are at least curious about, just as most of us are curious to know what we will be doing in a few years’ time. But curiosity cannot explain the venom evident in the condemnations of Hume. The reason for the hostility can be approached by considering the opera Don Giovanni. The opera i Learning outcomes By the end of this unit you should be able to: assess the specific problems concerning the health of a community; describe how medical knowledge was a resource for, and was shaped by, broader cultural perceptions of the body. 2.6 Caravaggio's sexuality ‘Caravaggio studies’ often provide good, and sometimes extreme, examples of the ways in which an artist's identity can be bound up in his work and vice versa. In the case of Caravaggio it is difficult to avoid assumptions about his sexual orientation in any modern study of his art. Bold statements sometimes presume that this is a resolved issue: he was, for example, ‘The one major painter of the late Cinquecento whose sexuality is otherwise freely expressed in his oevre’ (Saslow, 1986 1.5 Further reading Battersby, C. (1989) Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics, London, Women's Press. Kris, E. and Kurz, O. (1979) Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment, New Haven and London, Yale University Press. Soussloff, C.M. (1997) ‘The artist in nature: Renaissance biography’, The Absolute Artist: The Historiography of a Concept, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 43–72. White, H. (1990) Content Acknowledgements This unit was written by Dr Derek Matravers
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References 2.3.1 Politics MacLean was a socialist from the age of twelve, and a Marxist by the late 1930s, when he believed that the Soviet Union and the Red Army were the only agents that could defeat Fascism. However, he never joined the Communist Party, and by 1944 events in Poland had thoroughly disillusioned him about Stalin and the Soviet Union. One reason why he could never commit himself fully to Communism seems quite clear: he retained from his Calvinist heritage a deep pessimism about human nature and human
Exercise 7
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Exercise 4
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Ayer, A.J., 1954. ‘Freedom and necessity’, in Watson 1982, 15–23.
Butterfield, J., 1998. ‘Determinism’, in Craig 1998.
Craig, E., 1998. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, London and New York: Routledge.
Chisholm, R.M., 1964. ‘Human freedom and the self’, in Watson 1982, 24–35.
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