HEYTHROP COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Course Description, International Programmes
Course
code
Module title
DT3013
Credit value
30
Academic
level
6
The Tasks of Life: Pascal, Kafka, Weil and
Levinas
Module co-ordinator
Module staff
Programme(s) for which
chiefly intended (as core
or option)
Michael Kirwan
Pre-requisite course(s)
Co-requisite course(s)
Prohibited combination
Course aims
N/a
N/a
N/a
To enable students to:
 examine the distinctive features of four significant
thinkers - Blaise Pascal, Franz Kakfa, Simone Weil, and
Emmanuel Levinas - in relation to the constraints,
possibilities and flourishing of human life and how they
view human life in relation to God, religion and ethics.
Learning outcomes
Core
Option
BD/BA Theology, DipHE Theology,
Theology
BA Theology with English
CertHE
Knowledge and Understanding
Students will be able to:
 Examine the distinctive features of these four thinkers and
their ideas on human life, God, religion and ethics
 Consider their approaches in relation to one another and to
other thinkers
 Discuss their views more broadly in their philosophical and
theological contexts
Intellectual and Cognitive Skills
Students will be able to:
 Conduct critical and comparative evaluations of the
approaches of the four writers.
 Develop their own informed ideas about the tasks of life in a
critical and independent manner
Practical and Transferable Skills
Students will be able to:
 Undertake in-depth, independent research, drawing on a
variety of complex primary and secondary resources.
 Select and organise material from a wide range of complex
primary and secondary sources.
 Show a highly-developed ability to assimilate and evaluate
accounts, approaches and arguments.
 Show open-mindedness and independence of thought;
 Produce clear, well-structured written work.
 Write fluently, with minimal grammatical and typographical
Indicative course
content
errors and (where appropriate) accurate referencing.
 Manage their own learning, including working effectively to
deadlines.
Topics studied include:




Learning and teaching
methods
Pascal’s Augustinian approach to sin, boredom and
diversion; the three orders of body, mind, heart in relation to
the world and God; God known through religious
experience; the challenge of deism and atheism; the hidden
God and revelation.
Kafka’s stories as metaphysical parables and their diverse
interpretations; possible religious background to his thought;
cruelty and religion; modernity and religion; alienation and
judgement in a secular context.
Weil on Plato‟s myth of the Great Beast and the allegory of
the Cave; how the world expresses divine goodness and
beauty, yet is harsh towards humans; divine kenosis and
creation; beauty, love of neighbour and religious rituals as
implicit ways of loving God.
Levinas on responsibility for the other; the centrality of
ethics and religion; the Jewish meaning of suffering;
comparison of Judaism and Christianity on suffering,
responsibility and mercy; „universalizing‟ Judaism.
Resources available on the Virtual Learning Environment may
include:

Subject guide

Articles, extracts from longer texts, and/or links to other
electronic resources

Course discussion forum
Opportunities for formative feedback include:

Tutoring at a supporting institution
Selected Bibliography:
A selection of the following:
Essential texts
Note: VLE indicates the text is available on the Heythrop Virtual
Learning Environment for free.
Blaise Pascal (1623-62)
Primary texts
Pascal, B. Pensées translated by A.J. Krailsheimer
(Penguin, 2003) [ISBN 0140446451; 9780140446456].
Read especially: 25–26; 44; 47; 110–18; 131; 136; 148–
49; 160; 166; 189–92; 198; 199; 200–01; 298; 308; 400;
405; 417; 423; 424; 427; 449; 513; 533; 608; 688; 695;
697; 699; 806; 913; 919; 933; 977.
Entretien avec M. de Sacy. (Pascal‟s conversation with M.
de Sacy at Port-Royal) translated by J. McDade. (VLE)
Secondary texts
Krailsheimer, A.J. Pascal. (Oxford University Press, 1980)
[ISBN 0192875124; 9780192875129]. Out of print, but
second-hand or library copies may be available.
McDade, J. „The Contemporary Relevance of Pascal,‟ New
Blackfriars 91 (2010),pp.185–96. (Online: PDF available
in Wiley Online Library:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.17412005.2009.01349.x/pdf)
McDade, J. „Interpreting Pascal‟s Memorial‟. (VLE)
O‟ Connell, M.R. Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart.
(W.B. Eerdmans, 1997) [ISBN 0802801587]
Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
Primary texts
Kafka, F. The Complete Short Stories. (Vintage, 2008)
[ISBN 9780749399467]. For the purposes of this
module, read the following stories:
Longer stories
1. Metamorphosis
2. In the Penal Colony
3. A Hunger Artist.
Shorter stories
1. Before the Law
2. An Imperial Message
3. The Knock at the Manor Gate
4. The City Coat of Arms
5. On the Tram.
Kafka, F. The Trial. (Penguin, 2000) [ISBN 9780141182902]
or The Trial in The Complete Novels. (Vintage, 2008)
[ISBN 9780099518440]. (Note: the chapter from The
Trial, „In the Cathedral‟, which includes the story Before
the Law is available on the VLE).
Kafka, F. „Reflections on Sin, Suffering, Hope and the True
Way‟ (The Zürau Aphorisms), ed. M. Brod (VLE).
Secondary texts
Buber, M. The Knowledge of Man. (Allen and Unwin, 1965)
[no ISBN], p.140 and the following.
Feuerlicht, I. „Kafka‟s Chaplain,‟ The German Quarterly 39
(1966), pp.208–22 (Lucidexposition of Before the Law in
its setting in The Trial).
Grözinger, K.E. „The Trial and the Tradition of the
Gatekeeper in the Kabbalah‟ in Kafka and Kabbalah.
(Continuum, 1994), pp.15–32.
Idel, M. Kabbalah: New Perspectives. (Yale University
Press, 1988) [ISBN 0300038607].
Neumeyer, P.F. „Franz Kafka, Sugar Baron,‟ Modern Fiction
Studies 17 (1971), pp.5–16, followed by Neumeyer‟s
translation of Chapter 14 of Oskar Weber‟s The Second
Home that, he argues, influenced Kafka‟s In the Penal
Colony, (op. cit.), pp.17–19.
Peters, P. „Witness to the Execution: Kafka and
Colonialism,‟ Monatshefte 93 (2001), pp.401–25.
Robertson, R. Kafka: A Very Short Introduction. (Oxford
University Press, 2004) [ISBN 9780192804556]
Robertson, R. Kafka: Judaism, Politics and Literature.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985) [ISBN 0198158149
(pbk)], pp.105–30 (on The Trial and Before the Law)
(VLE).
Note: be aware that the quotations from Kafka are in
German in this superb study of Kafka and Judaism.
Simone Weil (1909-43)
Primary texts
Weil, S. Gravity and Grace. (Routledge, 2004) [ISBN
9780415290012].
Weil, S. Waiting For God. (Perennial Classics, 2001) [ISBN
0060959703].
Weil, S. „Forms of the Implicit Love of God‟, Waiting on God.
(Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951) [no ISBN for 1951
edition], pp.81–142 (VLE). 1995 edition available (Fount)
[ISBN 000627885X (pbk)].
Weil, S. „The Love of God and Affliction‟, in On Science,
Necessity and the Love of God. (Oxford University
Press, 1968), pp.170–98 (VLE).
Secondary texts
Astell, A. „Saintly Mimesis: Contagion and Empathy in the
Thought of René Girard, Edith Stein and Simone Weil,‟
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 22
(2004), pp.116–31, esp. p.127
Dupré, L. „Simone Weil and Platonism: an Introductory
Reading‟ in Doering, E.J. and E.O. Springsted (eds) The
Christian Platonism of Simone Weil. (University of Notre
Dame
Press, 2004), [ISBN 0268025649 (hbk); 0268025657 (pbk)],
pp.9–22 (VLE).
Estelrich, B. „Simone Weil‟s Concept of Grace,‟ Modern
Theology 25 (2009), pp.239–51.
McDade, J. „Simone Weil and Gerard Manley Hopkins on
God, Affliction, Necessity and Sacrifice,‟ Forum
Philosophicum (Krakow) 13 (2008), pp.1–16 (Online
Library;Academic Research Complete).
McDade, J. „Notes on The Great Beast‟ (VLE).
McLellan, D. „Thought,‟ in Simone Weil: Utopian Pessimist
(Macmillan, 1989) [ISBN 0333487079], pp.191–219
(VLE) (Pirruccelo, A. „“Gravity” in the Thought of Simone
Weil,‟ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57
(1997), pp.73–93.
Plant, S. Simone Weil. (Fount Christian Thinkers, 1996;
expanded edition: London: SPCK, 2007) [ISBN
9780281059386 (pbk)].
Plato, The Republic, VII, pp.514–20 (Myth of the Cave).
Sturma, L. „Flannery O‟Connor, Simone Weil and the Virtue
of Necessity,‟ Studies in the Literary Imagination 20
(1987), pp.109–21.
Willox, A.C. „The Cross, the Flesh and the Absent God:
Finding Justice through Love and Affliction in Simone
Weil‟s Writings,‟ Journal of Religion 88 (2008), pp.53–74
(Online Library: Academic Library Complete).
Wood, R.C. „“God may strike you thisaway”: Flannery
O‟Connor and Simone Weil onAffliction and Joy,‟
Renascence 59 (2007), pp.181–95.
Emmanuel Levinas (1906-96)
Levinas, E. „A Religion for Adults‟ in Difficult Freedom:
Essays on Judaism. (Johns Hopkins University Press,
1992), [ISBN 080185783X], pp.11–23 (VLE).
Levinas, E. „To Love the Torah More than God‟, in F.J. van
Beeck Loving the Torah More than God? Towards a
Catholic Appreciation of Judaism. (Loyola University
Press, 1989) [ISBN 0829406204], pp.32–53 (VLE)
Levinas, E. „On Jewish Philosophy‟, In the Time of the
Nations. (Athlone Press, 1994) [ISBN 0485114496],
pp.167–83 (VLE); new 2007 edition (Continuum, 2007)
[ISBN 082649904X].
Levinas, E. „Revelation in the Jewish Tradition,‟ Beyond the
Verse: Talmudic Readings and Lectures. (Athlone Press,
1994) [ISBN 0485114305], pp.129–50 (VLE).
Levinas, E. Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philipe
Nemo. (Duquesne University Press, 1985) [ISBN
0820701785], pp.105–10 (VLE).
Secondary texts
Davis, C. Levinas: An Introduction. (Polity, 1996) [ISBN
0745612636 (pbk); 0745612628], Chapter 4: Religion,
pp.93–119 (VLE).
Ellis, F. „Levinas, Husserl and Heidegger: a Guide for
Students‟ (unpublished, VLE).
Hand, S. (ed.) „Prayer without Demand,‟ in A Levinas
Reader. (Blackwell, 1989) [ISBN 0631164472 (pbk);
0631164464 (hbk)].
„Emmanuel Levinas‟ at Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (SEP, the Stanford Guide):
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/
Selected other
recommended texts
Assessment
McDade, J. „Divine Disclosure and Concealment in Bach,
Pascal and Levinas,‟ New Blackfriars 85 (2004), pp.121–32.
Morrison, Glen J. „Emmanuel Levinas and Christian
Theology‟, Irish Theological Quarterly 68 (2003), pp.3–
24.
Peperzak, A. „Judaism and Philosophy in Levinas,‟
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 40
(1996), pp.125–46.
Putnam, H. „Levinas and Judaism,‟ in Critchley, S. and R.
Bernasconi (eds) The Cambridge Companion to
Levinas. (Cambridge University Press, 2002) [ISBN
0521665655 (pbk); 0521662060], pp.33–62 (VLE).
Putnam, H. „Levinas on What is Demanded of Us,‟ in Jewish
Philosophy as a Guide to Life: Rosenzweig, Buber,
Levinas, Wittgenstein. (Indiana University Press, 2008)
[ISBN 0253351332; 9780253351333], pp.68–99.
Westphal, M. „Aquinas and Onto-theology‟ American
Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 80 (2006) pp.173–91.
Wilson, G. „Levinas and the Primacy of Ethics for JewishChristian Relations‟ (unpublished, VLE).
Lists of further reading are provided in the subject guide.
Three-hour examination
Student evaluation
opportunities
Indicative student time
allocation
Date of module
description
development or
modification
Annual online student feedback survey
300 hours
16/11/2011