MONASH UNIVERSITY FACULTY HANDBOOKS

Arts Undergraduate Handbook 1996

Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996

CLS2150

Belief and perception

Millicent Vladiv-Glover

Synopsis The subject will examine the concept of `faith' in the context of the semiotic model of meaning proposed by B A Uspensky, with special reference to the Russian Orthodox thinker, Fr Pavel Florenskey. The problem of representation of reality in literature, art and culture will then be elucidated through this semiotic model. The focus will be on the link between traditional cultural (artistic) concepts, such as the image of Christ, the Mother/Child icons on the one hand, and postmodern metatheoretical concepts, such as `sacrifice' and `violence' on the other.

Assessment Written (3500 words): 50% + Class paper (1500 words): 20% + Test (1.5 hours): 30%

Prescribed texts

• Berkeley G Three dialogues between Hylas and Philonous Prometheus Books, 1988
• Blanchot M Thomas the Obscure Station Hill, 1988
• Bourdieu P The logic of practice Polity Press, 1995
• Dostoevsky F The devils Penguin
• Elchaninov A The diary of a Russian priest St Vladimir's Seminary, 1982
• Eliot T S Four quartets Penguin
• Florensky, P Ikonostasis In: U vodorazdelov mysli: I Stat'i ob iskusstve YMCA, 1985
• Kafka F The trial Penguin
• Kis D The encyclopedia of the dead Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1989
• Merleau-Ponty M The visible and the invisible Northwestern U P, 1968
• Nietzsche F Thus spake Zarathustra Penguin
• Uspensky B The semiotics of the Russian icon Peter de Ridder, 1976
• Williams B Shame and necessity U California P, 1994
• Wittgenstein L On certainty Harper Collins