RELG 104. Angels

It has been said that “millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep” (Milton). In dialogue with Indigenous and western religions of the book, who are these creatures that live among us? In ancient texts and contemporary art, film, fiction and theology, skeptics and believers bear witness to divine beings - in human, animal and plant forms – that provide protection and offer advice about how to navigate relations between “this world” and the “other world.” With reference to antiquity, this seminar will study the Books of Genesis, Enoch, and Revelation, the Gospels of Luke and John, and Quaranic Surahs. In the modern period, we will investigate epic poems by Milton, Paradise Lost, and Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Stebbins’s Central Park sculpture, “Angel of the Water”; Indigenous books by Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass; Walter Benjamin’s gloss on Paul Klee’s painting Angelus Novus; and C.S. Lewis’s novel The Great Divorce, Tony Kushner’s play Angels in America, and Wim Wenders’s film “Wings of Desire.”
Humanities.
2 credits.
Spring 2026. Wallace.
Catalog chapter: Religion
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/religion

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