Spring 2008: TR, 3:30-4:45pm, GIRV 2128

Enrollment Code: 52415

This course is intended to introduce students to the ways in which different disciplines have addressed the concept of origins. It is organized as a dialogue between science, religion, and history or more broadly construed, between science and humanities. The dialogue in the course will be focused around how religion and science raise and answer fundamental questions about the origins of the cosmos. Is the earth a special or unique place? How do science and religion understand time, its beginnings and its ends? What is the place of the human in the universe? Discussion of these questions will not only provide the students with an understanding of some of the main theories, but also with questions of methodology and the epistermological foundation of different disciplines.

Instructors:
Prof. Richard Hecht (Religious Studies),  Prof.Tommaso Treu (Physics),  Prof. Stefania Tutino (History and Religious Studies)

Teaching Assistants:
Catherine Newell (Religious Studies; fyrberd@hotmail.com) and Ken Henisey (Physics; khenisey@physics.ucsb.edu)