Undergraduate Course: Love in Religious and Philosophical Literature (DIVI10123)
Course Outline
| School | School of Divinity |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course explores diverse understandings of love across different religious and philosophical traditions. We will discuss religious and philosophical approaches to the question of love, including how we understand the nature of love, how we can talk of love, how love relates to religious goals, how reason relates to emotion, how love is embodied and connected to gender and sexuality, and how notions of love vary across different global contexts. |
| Course description |
Academic Description
In this course we use religious and philosophical literature to explore different notions of love, including friendship, erotic love, familial love and the love of a supernormal being. We explore how reason and emotion play a role in love; how love is embodied and related to gender and sexuality; how love relates to religious goals; and how love is understood differently in different global contexts. We also ask how it is even possible to study or speak of love, and explore the role of literature in enriching philosophical and religious discussions of love. Throughout, we pay attention to the diversity and contextuality of discourses on love, while also appreciating common themes and questions surrounding the way love is explored in religious and philosophical literature.
Outline Content
Following an introductory lecture exploring the nature of love and how we might study it, the course is broadly divided into two parts. The first half explores the diversity of love in western philosophical traditions, from the ancient Greeks to modern perspectives, including existentialism, feminism and psychoanalysis. It considers the nature of love across desire and friendship, the western myth of romantic love, and issues of freedom, pleasure and identity. We then move to a radically different context, namely ancient India, in the second half of the course. We dig deep into early Buddhist literature about how love makes sense within a monastic and renuciatory tradition that views desire and craving as the source of all suffering, yet nonetheless celebrates some forms of love. Themes and questions echo across the two parts of the course, as we progress through a range of philosophical and religious literature, guided by lectures and seminar discussions.
Student Learning Experience
This course is taught through two 50-minute classes, one of which will usually be an interactive lecture, and the other a student-led discussion of the seminar readings. Students must do the set readings each week before class, and most weeks will also submit a short written response to the seminar readings for feedback; the best six of these comprise 20% of the course grade. Students will also write two essays, one for each section of the course, from a choice of topics provided by the lecturers. Guidance will be given on all the assessment tasks during class, and students will also be provided with contextual material to help make sense of the primary sources they engage with.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 Divinity/Religious Studies courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 11,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 11,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
173 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
20% = short written responses to seminar readings (best 6 of a possible 9 submissions of 200 words each = 1,200 words)
40% = essay 1 (2,000 words, on part 1 of the course)
40% = essay 2 (2,000 words, on part 2 of the course)
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| Feedback |
Students will receive short written feedback on each of the seminar submissions, in time to be of use for the next week¿s submission. Only 6 of a possible 9 submissions will count towards the grade, enabling students to be rewarded for improvement.
Students will also have the opportunity to receive feedback on an essay plan for each of the two essays, and will have written feedback on essay 1 in good time to assist with essay 2.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- explain a variety of forms of love and how these relate to religious and philosophical concerns;
- analyse and interpret individual accounts of love in the context of wider conceptual questions about the philosophy of love;
- critically assess abstract concepts in relation to the idea of love, and the ambiguity and limits of different types of knowledge about love;
- evaluate understandings of love in the philosophical and religious literature of more than one historical and geographical context;
- articulate a clear and coherent argument using relevant primary and secondary sources.
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Reading List
| There is no textbook for this course. For a full reading list see the course Resource List. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Curiosity for learning; critical analysis; ability to evaluate information and identify assumptions and false reasoning; understanding the contextual nature of ethics and values. |
| Keywords | Love,Philosophy,Religion,Literature |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Naomi Appleton
Tel: (0131 6)50 8976
Email: Naomi.Appleton@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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