COMING ALIVE—PARTS 1 AND 2
In My Own Life Drama

IN MEMORY OF CHARLOTTE TANSEY 1922-2010
In celebrating the life of its past President and one of its founding members, the Thomas More Institute is pleased to offer a new version of one of Charlotte Tansey’s most popular courses, which was first presented in 2000-2001.

Parables and stories describe how we live and what we live through—they do not explain. This course will explore what can be said about moral impotence and the call to action.

Can we discover different kinds of blindness and do they require distinct channels to open to self-awareness and to transformation? Is there always another blind spot lurking to block our development? What happens if I reject a cue/clue, what do I do to myself as an actor? Under what circumstances might education help us discern and perhaps work through our different kinds of biases? To heal the various ways we fail to respond?

The readings include “The Dialectic of Community”, “The Subjective Field of Common Sense”, “Human Development” and “The Problem of Liberation” from Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, “Feelings” and “Belief” from Method in Theology, as well as other selections by Bernard Lonergan.

Further readings will include selections and novels: “The Book of Tobit” The Apocrypha, House of Sand and Fog A. Dubus III, Living With Other People K. Melchin, Dependent Rational Animals A. MacIntyre, Blindness J. Saramago, “Imagination” Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals I. Murdoch, Seeing Through Self- Deception A. Barnes, “Lonergan and Kierkegaard on Intellectual Corruption” E.M. Morelli, Meaning and Authenticity: Bernard Lonergan and Charles Taylor on the Drama of Authentic Human Existence B. J. Braman, “Brothers under the Skin: Voegelin on the Common Experiential Wellspring of Spiritual Order and Disorder” M. Franz, The Politics of the Soul G. Hughes (ed.), The Desiring Self W. Conn, “The Psyche and Integral Interiority” Theology and the Dialectics of History R. Doran, Lonergan, Loyola, Spiritual Direction and the Arts T. Dunne, As It Is In Heaven N. Williams, The Elegance of the Hedgehog M. Barbery.
The course is divided into Parts 1 and 2—each part can be taken on its own, or as a whole.

COURSE LENGTH: 24 weeks
DISCUSSION TEAM: Milton Dawes, Heather Stephens, Olga Sher (F), Clare Hallward (W)
FIRST FALL SESSION: Thursday September 22, 2011 at 6:15 pm
FIRST WINTER SESSION: Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 6:15 pm